Not long ago, I touched on the problem of the presence of children as a threat to freedom:

And suppose I decided that no undisciplined brats would ever enter my home. Even that wouldn't avoid possible contamination, as my child might end up visiting the home which created the problem, and on top of all that the busybody parents of the undisciplined brats might start asking all kinds of nosy questions about who I voted for in the last election and why I owned pit bulls and had over a dozen guns in the house.... and despite my attempts at avoiding other people's undisciplined children I'd still end up being visited by the Child Police.

Anti-smoking activists who are driving cigarettes from public places across the country are now targeting private homes -- especially those with children.

Their efforts so far have contributed to regulations in three states -- Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont -- forbidding foster parents from smoking around children. Parental smoking also has become a critical point in some child-custody cases, including ones in Virginia and Maryland.

In a highly publicized Virginia case, a judge barred Caroline County resident Tamara Silvius from smoking around her children as a condition for child visitation.

Mrs. Silvius, a waitress at a truck stop in Doswell, Va., calls herself "highly disappointed" with the court's ruling.

"I'm an adult. Who is anybody to tell me I can't smoke or drink?" she said in an interview yesterday.

One major organization in the drive to prevent people from being allowed to smoke in their own homes is Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). It is that organization's position that, children or not, there is no right to smoke in one's home:

Many smokers apparently feel that the one place in an increasingly no-smoking society where they can light up is in their home, perhaps believing that their home is their castle. But, as Prof. Banzhaf notes, most other forms of child abuse also occur in the home, and parents have no right to light up marijuana cigarettes, abuse alcohol, use other recreational drugs, engage in inappropriate sexual behavior, or even allow garbage to pile up around a child -- even in their own home.

Similarly, if their smoking at home endangers the child's health, their privilege to smoke at home must give way to the child's right not to be unnecessarily subjected to toxic substances, says Banzhaf, whether those substances are asbestos, benzene, or environmental tobacco smoke -- all of which are known human carcinogens.

Similarly, in other cases in which ASH has provided assistance, nonsmokers have successfully sued persons who are smoking in their homes if the tobacco smoke drifts and/or recirculates to another apartment and/or condo unit. "There is no legal right to smoke in one's own home if it endangers or even unreasonably offends neighbors, any more than there is a right to produce tear gas in an apartment, or to play music too loudly or at inappropriate hours," says Banzhaf.

I don't smoke, and I don't advocate smoking -- whether around children or anywhere else. But there is no certainty that in any given situation, exposure to second hand smoke will harm the health of a child. It's one risk among many. According to certain statistics, health risks from second hand smoke are more likely. But even that is disputed by other statistics. Take a look at the video at this site!

Applying statistics to individuals is one of those things that really ticks me off, because there is no certainty that a risk will produce an effect on an individual. Evaluating risk is a relative thing, and parents are normally the ones entrusted to do it, for it is they who had the kids, and they are the ones who have their best interests at heart. Cars are a risk. Swimming pools are a risk. Hunting is a risk. Living in cities is a risk. Playing football is a risk.

So why single out second hand smoke?

Lots of people argue that guns are more dangerous than cigarettes, and there's a movement to declare this a "health issue" too. Anti-homosexual activists often claim that homosexuality carries great health risks. Should children be taken away from parents who own guns? Should gay teenagers be taken away from parents who allow them to be gay? Absurd as these ideas sound, I am sure that actuarial statistics could be found from some damned organization somewhere to justify them.

Communitarian rot is destroying American freedom, and children are being used as a wedge. I thought I was being paranoid in my previous post on the subject, but it's becoming pretty clear to me that home invasion in the name of "the children" is a very real threat.

Saying that the solution is simply not to have them seems like a cop out.