By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

I hereby move that we rename the state of Alabama. I don’t know if I need to get a petition signed or pay up a lobbying firm, but I think it is only appropriate that we change our state name to Nanny-bama.

I think we have reached critical protectionism mass with the latest push to make smoking in bars and restaurants illegal in the state. I mean really, a bar without cigarette smoke is like the Captain without Tennille.

I used to the think a free market economy provided for such differences by giving private businesses the right to make their establishments smoking or non-smoking and therefore giving consumers a choice of where to spend their money. I do agree with smoking bans in places where everybody has to go, but bars and restaurants do not exactly fit that bill.

I can stand a little risk in my life to protect the rights of other citizens. What I do not know is if I can stomach a life being protected by ill-thought-out laws. What about this novel approach for governments that they would protect us from…themselves?

One of my best friends, who by doctrine and practice is a pragmatist, chides me for my civil liberties idealism, so for his amusement and the sake of discussion I’ll suggest a few more idea for the legislators on Goat Hill to try to squeeze in before they head out for summer vacation.

Since there is concrete proof that second-hand smoke is dangerous, I petition that smokers in the state be forced to wear “smokers helmets” at all times. Since government is still a few years away from being able to make smoking illegal, these space suit-like helmets would confine a smokers’ fumes to a tobacco terrarium surrounding their heads. A remote control arm inside the helmet would be able to produce a cigarette, light it, put it in the smoker’s mouth and then pull it out and ash it all from the safety of the enclosed smoke bowl using probably one tenth the technology it took to create the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” A separate venting system would purify the smoky CO2 and pump new air into the helmet.

This way a smoker could go anywhere from a strip club to a pediatricians’ waiting room and smoke all they wanted to. Long airplane flights or visits with loved ones on oxygen wouldn’t be an issue anymore with the smokers’ helmet. Think about the freedom this device would offer smokers without endangering us folks outside the glass.

I’m sure there will be those in the ranks who say my idea will lead to more smokers because kids will want to smoke so they can get one of those cool space man helmets, but that is the kind of risk we will have to take so the state can protect us from each other. Since I am now playing the part of a pragmatic, nanny state protectionist I also propose some sort of enclosure pants for those who emit other dangerous gases into the environment. To be frank about it I feel less violated by the smell of someone’s Marlboro than I do their intestines.

These pants would be issued to those who can’t seem to control themselves in public places and protect all of us from those horrific rides in an elevator where we have to balance nausea with a Sherlock Holmes’ like wonder as to who did it?

Of course any of these devices would beg the question as to why doesn’t the government just issue full body bubbles to every citizen so it can fully protect us from one another? My guess is they just don’t have enough votes yet.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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