GOP still looking for a Social DeLorean

With a party that includes candidates who have second thoughts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Senators who trash the work of Thurgood Marshall, it shouldn't be a surprise that today's Republicans would embrace anything undoes what most Americans would generally call "progress." Apparently, it sounds too much like "Progressive," a word that causes them irrational fits of bedwetting.

So it's no wonder that Mark Neumann is already pandering to a minority of people who love their "freedom" but hate their lungs... and everyone else's.

"The smoking ban to me is a local issue and it's about personal responsibility and personal freedoms and local control," said Neumann, a Nashotah homebuilder and former member of the U.S. House.
Asked if he would support the repeal of the smoking ban, Neumann said, "Sure."
His stance on repealing the ban draws a contrast with his Republican rival, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, and the Democrat in the race, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
Walker opposed the ban on smoking in restaurants, bars, hotels and other businesses, but said earlier this week it was too early to seek exemptions to it.

No word on whether Neumann would seek the repeal of car safety seat requirements for toddlers... or the Clean Air and Water Acts... or immunization requirements... or all the other measures that ensure safe food, safe drugs, safe drinking water, clean air, safe workplaces, and so on.  In Neumann's world, it's all about the personal freedom of Mr. Corporate Executive to excrete anything into the environment as long as it creates almighty profit.  And a truckload of Fox News Zombies are visiting the Comments sections of the Interwebs and saying, "What's wrong with that?"  Of course, these are the same people who put "science" in quotation marks when talking about second-hand smoke or global climate change or evolution...     

Sadly, a PhD isn't required for them to vote.

One can only hope they will someday realize that the DeLorean in "Back to the Future" is just a movie prop and that we're not going back to the days before fair-minded people in all 3 branches of government recognized the lawfulness of measures that embraced our bedrock views of equality... which included equal access to unspoiled lands and resources like the air we breathe.