Marriott International, Inc.

A new policy had been implemented on Marriott International Hotels. This policy is a ban on smoking in all of Marriott's hotel rooms.

I'll bet you think I will be against the smoking ban. If it is from the government, I will say you are correct. Smoking bans from the government infringed the people's individual liberty and private property.

But Marriott did this all on its own. It did this simply on account of a business decision by the corporation; no government help was involved.

This changes everything. The private property I'm talking about in the 2nd paragraph is Marriott's. Because the corporation owns the property, it can do whatever it wants to with its own property.

And thus, the customers of Mariott are free to stay at Marriott or choose another hotel if Marriott's policy agree or don't agree with them.

It is the free-market at its best. Contrary to popular opinion, people don't need government to be their daddy and to protect them from businesses who allow people to smoke.

It's Marriott's businesses and property, not the government. Do you allow the government to dictate whether or not to allow people who smoke in your home? I own my home, and thus, I make the rules in my home. People are free to stay or leave my home. It is the same with you or with Marriott's property. That's what private property is all about.

This is not only what freedom is all about, it's also what being a grown-up is all about: be free but responsible for your actions. Like I said, you can't have liberty without responsibility, and vice versa.

Marriott's decision reminds me of a paradigm of America in the past; a society based on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and limited government, where the people were sovereign, as compared to America today; a society based on a paternalistic omnipotent government whose mission in life is to take care over its adult-children by its assaults on private property and its infringements on individual freedom.