Honorable Council:

I grew up believing that America was safe from tyranny, that any effort to impose totalitarian rule on the American public would be squashed between the thumb of the First Amendment and the forefinger of the Ninth. I was taught that we, the people, really ran the country, and our elected representatives were just our method of getting things done.

Tell me I was not misled. Tell me that we, the people, do really run the country and that YOU, our elected representatives, don't consider smokers second-class citizens unworthy of your care and concern. Tell me you are not going to turn over the well-being of one-quarter of the population to an unelected, unaccountable board made up of zealots and authoritarians.

Tell me you realize it was Hitler's Minister of Health who forced the Jews to wear a yellow star in Nazi Germany, and that you will not abdicate your responsibility to those to whom health is a higher priority than freedom.

If you cannot tell me these things, then tell me why I should ever vote for you again, why I should not campaign against you to try to unseat those who don't appreciate the freedoms that made us great. If you're not here for ME, one in five of your fellow citizens, then why should I be there for you?

Thank you.