This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Donna Martinez, Carolina Journal Radio co-host.
RALEIGH — We conservatives have a big-time problem. We’re great at pointing out when personal freedom is threatened by misguided policy, but many times, we’re not very good at explaining why an average person who’s busy working and paying the bills should care. As a critic of mine once told me, “You say this is a really big deal, but I don’t see how my life will change one darn bit.”
He was right. Like it or not, many of us won’t take notice unless we’re personally impacted. This is a longstanding truth in philanthropic and community work. People typically become activists dedicated to change only when they or someone they know is diagnosed with a disease or unjustly impacted by someone else’s actions. It’s just human nature.
It’s a much taller order to get people to care about losing freedom to government intervention, even when there’s no doubt Americans embrace freedom in general. A recent Gallup survey shows that nearly six of 10 adults (57 percent) think government is doing too many things — the highest measurement since 1998, when the number hit 59 percent.
Today, just 38 percent believe government should do more to solve problems. It’s a particularly fascinating data point when you consider the massive government interventions of the past year, including the takeover of large pieces of private companies deemed “too big to fail,” a $787 billion, goodies-laden “stimulus” bill, and, last Saturday, passage of a freedom-killing, trillion-dollar House health care bill.
Gallup reports that eight of 10 Republicans hold the too-much-government view, while among Democrats, just 32 percent say that’s the case. Among the sought-after independents, however, a full 63 percent say government is too involved in things better left to individuals and businesses.
The challenge ahead for conservatives is to tap into this clear support for freedom by illustrating what happens to real people when their lives and dreams get in the way of government tentacles that stifle personal and professional liberty.
That brings me to Adam Bliss, who owns Hookah Bliss in Chapel Hill. Thanks to North Carolina’s ban on smoking (pdf link) in most bars and restaurants, which takes effect Jan. 2, Bliss may lose his business and life savings. Why? Because hookah bars fall outside the exemptions state legislators wrote into the smoking ban to protect cigar bars and some clubs. As Bliss told The Daily Tar Heel, “If you look at the exemptions, they’re generally all places that rich, older white men like to smoke. If our representatives liked to smoke in hookah bars, hookah bars would have been exempt as well.”
I had never heard of hookah bars before reading about Bliss’ predicament. I didn’t have a clue people smoke flavored tobacco through an odd pipe filled with water. The Web site hookahbars.com lists 11 of these bars across the state. It would be easy to ignore Bliss’ plight because he lives in a very liberal town, doesn’t look or dress like me, and operates an establishment I don’t frequent and sells a product I don’t use.
I won’t make that mistake. Bliss is a real-world example of what happens when government policy — even when it’s well-intentioned — collides with the freedom to operate a business and sell a legal product. Freedom loses, and so do Bliss and his family. Now that his life has been shaken up, Bliss is on a mission. “I have never been politically involved in anything in my life, and this whole situation has awakened the political activist in me,” he told The Daily Tar Heel.
Adam Bliss is the face of freedom lost. Today it’s hookah bars. The question is, which industry — and which one of us — is the next Adam Bliss?