The Vape Ban: Render unto Caesar

I live in San Francisco. Some group of people here who apparently possess the legislative authority to do so decided to Ban Vape. This piece of legislation is known as the Vape Ban. Why? When does it go into effect? What are they banning—cartridges, the electric bit, all of it? Can people still buy them elsewhere and bring them back, or buy them online and have whatever’s banned shipped to their home? Is Juul still allowed to have their big, shiny vape-selling coordination mechanism known as a “Headquarters” downtown? I’m sure there are answers if you look into it.

Another group of people apparently did look into it, and they decided it would be best to Repeal the Vape Ban, and to do this, they’ve took it upon themselves to recruit as much support in the effort as possible. The lynchpin of the whole operation is canvassing the entire city with their demands for a Repeal. Okay. How do we all help you with this? Is there a referendum or something? The Repeal is supposed to happen in November, I hear. Are we all headed to the polls? Where are they? What else will we be voting about there? If not, should we try to find out who of that first group of people is supposed to “represent” us and tell them to undo what they’ve done? What’s stopping them from un-undoing the Ban? Do we do this whole thing all over again if they do, or do we give up?

On the way home from work the other day, I came across some members of the Inner Party of the Repeal. (Who are they? I wasn’t asked to join.) The colors of the movement are an urgent blue and bright yellow. They were ostensibly collecting signatures for a petition in support of the cause, and I wasn’t seeing anyone stop to sign. (Wait, isn’t this a voting thing?) I passed them just the same, but I soon felt myself welling with the desire to take a stand for personal liberty. Too many have been taken from us of late, and many more are facing the threat. The least I could do is my little part right there and then when the opportunity was physically in front of me. I turned around and walked back to their station.

We all exchanged greetings, and I expressed my interest in signing the petition. They took down my information—email and mailing address, of course. The encounter was punctuated by this line of inquiry:

“Do you use vaping as an alternative to other tobacco products?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you vape at all?”

“No.”

“Okay, I don’t think we’ll call you closer to November, but thank you for your support.”

Huh? So if this matter doesn’t affect me personally, my share in the sphere of influence is intrinsically smaller? It would seem so. If I really want to make a difference, I ought to head down to the nearest convenience store and grab a few packs of Marlboros. My Hulu ad breaks (sponsored by some public institution or nonprofit or whatever) all point out my vulnerabilities as an urban youth to their allures, however, and so I should express my hip sense of individuality by resisting them. I’m at a loss.

Well, I might not be endowed by my Creator to a healthy alternative to my nasty cigarette habit, but I presume to know how to put a thought or two together. I strongly considered writing a piece in support of the effort. Filled myself with the fervor of cause, formulated that tried and true “defense of liberty, no matter how small” argument, figured what research I’d need to do to broach the subject, sat down at my laptop, opened Word and popped a fresh browser tab. I never even started.

What is all of this? What a nightmare. What a very, very lame nightmare. So, every time the government decides to do something, every single time, we’re meant to individually evaluate whether it calls for some counteraction, what that counteraction might be, how to organize to execute it, and then do that, or else life as we know it is at stake? What happens when we run out of eye-catching color schemes? What happens when we stop caring altogether?

What we see here is an unjust and iniquitous burden of the obligations of state. Power rises spontaneously from the affected and interested, takes form in law, and is imposed on the rest. Council Member So-and-So sees all over the news that an addiction his generation DARE’d to kick is returning by way of Big Tobacco’s devilish Mango Mist disguise, and then his friend caught his kid taking a sick rip o’ the juice, and this will not do.

The imposition of law forms another group of elect-by-want, and they do as the previous. The Chancellor of the Repeal rallies the downtrodden Vapemen to their just cause, painting the town blue and yellow in the process. They’ve gone and made it everyone’s problem, which makes it my problem. Do I hate children, or do I hate recovering smokers and freedom? Abstention is tacit admission of the latter, and participation is an uphill battle, a time sink, and tacit admission of the former. Maybe the victorious Chancellor will ride his success right into the election cycle and win a seat in the whatever, and he’ll get a whole term’s opportunity to propose new awful legislation. Wouldn’t want to be a one trick pony, the Vape Guy, right?

So here we are, perpetually embroiled in fractured opposition of nonsense rules made up by nonsense government, in constant fear of losing what semblance of the liberties we still enjoy, only to be rendered inattentive and fatigued when a true threat to the same arrives.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine the repeal and reinstatement of the Vape Ban, over and over, forever.

Sometimes, the state must grant audience to a man or group’s rightful appeal and hand down an unequivocal denial. The slightest opportunity by political coercion is unlimited license to assemble it, and the endless cycle of factious crisis and emergency powers continues. As long as there is a way around the “no,” there will be a chance for whoever to get whatever they want, and they are incentivized to draw from the energies of whoever can do something about it to the fullest extent that they can.

Render unto Caesar.