20,000% tax increase???

In a step toward socializing health care (Lord help us), a bill will be up before the Senate to increase the tax on cigarettes from $0.39 to $1 per pack and on cigars from $0.05 to $10 per cigar.

Our government needs to get a grip. Tobacco is a LEGAL substance and people have a right to smoke it without subsidizing another segment of the population. This is so unAmerican it makes me sick. What's next - a $20 tax on French Fries, potato chips and chocolate to pay for teenagers with bad acne?

"I'm not sure in the history of man, since our forefathers founded the country in 1776, that there's ever been a tax increase of 20,000 percent," said Newman, who runs the Tampa [cigar] business founded by grandfather Julius Caesar Newman. "They had the Boston Tea Party for less than this."

Yes, Mr. Newman, we did. In fact, we fought a revolutionary war over unfair taxes. And where is that spirit now? Oh, it's just tobacco, that's so bad for you, I don't smoke you might be saying with self-righteous air. Wake up - do you honestly think if they get away with this they'll stop there? We need to keep the fight for individual rights and freedoms alive - and that should include the right to smoke a cigar, the right to have a drink, the right to eat chocolate, the right to drive an SUV, the right to use whatever damned kind of light bulb we want, etc., etc., etc.