14 Jul 98

To:
A letter to the Editor
USA Today

 I just finished reading your article in today’s paper, “Clinton pushed to sue tobacco firms,” and I am appalled at what the government is considering.  In the article you discuss how President Clinton is being pressured to sue the tobacco companies in order to recoup billions of dollars in federal health care costs.

Who asked the government to get involved in health care anyway?  It certainly was not the tobacco companies.  So why should they be responsible?

The article also makes a brief mention of how the federal government’s main goal is to curb teen smoking.  Once again, this is not the government’s business.  Our leaders obviously feel their actions are justified based on the “common good” of the people.

They should take heed of what Ayn Rand had to say in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal when she wrote “The tribal notion of ‘the common good’ has served as the moral justification of most social systems--and of all tyrannies--in history.  The degree of a society’s enslavement or freedom corresponded to the degree to which that tribal slogan was invoked or ignored.”

Now, in the name of “the common good,” we can all watch as business men are unjustly persecuted and our individual freedom of choice diminishes.

Eric J. Lakits