One last thing
I have written four locally-published letters arguing against the recent outlawing of smoking on the public sidewalks of the Del Mar Village, not as an advocate for or against smoking but as one motivated by the principle and precedent inherently involved. I intended my most recent commentary to be my last on the subject.
But after reading a letter by Michael Donovan in The Coast News (Nov. 20) quoting Germany’s Rev. Martin Niemoller in 1945, it occurs to me that I might have been better advised to simply rest my case upon that quotation, as follows:
First they came for the communists,
I remained silent; I was not a communist.
Then they came for the social democrats,
I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I remained silent; I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
I remained silent; I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, but there was
no one left to speak out for me.”
Translation for Del Mar residents:
When they came for the few remaining smokers,
I remained silent; I was not a smoker.
Jim Donovan
Del Mar
