Smoking ban reversal.

[G-Raptor]

Whatever your position on smoking, there is one simple problem with a smoking ban; it denies any choice to people who chose to smoke.

Under a smoking ban, a private business (i.e. resturant) would be prohibited from placing the following sign in the window:

"This establishment welcomes smokers. If you are offended by tobacco smoke or are concerned about it's health risks, we suggest that you seek service elsewhere. By entering, you are voluntarily accepting any smoking related risk you may perceive.

There are several very good resturants nearby that cater to non-smokers. Thank you for your consideration. - The management."

 

[Zander]

Zander: for the degree-of-harm argument in re: smoking, I refer you to this thread from just over a month ago in TFL:

Good thread. Unfortunately, I saw no compelling argument for "cleansing" the "public" air of smokers' exhalations. In fact, I came away more convinced than ever that there is a sub-segment of the population, immature in the extreme, that insists on defining certain behaviors as "dangerous" to their "well-being".

Here's a positive analogy:

One of my clients is allergic to perfume, cologne and aftershave. I don't wear aftershave when I go to her home and she doesn't show up unannounced at my office. Our arrangement works. Common courtesy, I'd suggest.

I have two members of my immediate family who are asthmatics, one of whom requires daily medication. In spite of that, they have no problem frequenting restaurants where smoking is "allowed". We simply request the non-smoking section...and if that proves a problem, we leave.

What you ask is that all areas, public and private, be smoke-free...solely because you might be subject to someone's incidental second-hand smoke.

Your referenced thread has frequent mentions of the statist attitude of those who would punish those who have the temerity to actually light up in "public" areas. You'd willingly punish a cowboy who runs his range fifty miles from Billings, Montana for hand-rolling his smokes, wouldn't you? You or one of your "all-or-nothng comrades" would insist that anyone who wanders onto his range should be "protected" by "second-hand" smoke regulations, correct?

Your advocacy is statist; some would say in the extreme.

What say you?

 

[nualle]

I'd say that a statist is one who seeks to use state power to either:
-- punish people who have harmed no one
or
-- eliminate the possibility of redress for those who have been harmed.

Second-hand smoke may only cause small harm to those of us who did not choose to breathe it, but it is harm. It is harm caused by someone's voluntary act. Someone who voluntarily causes another person harm (even incidentally, by negligence), has acted outside their rights and, in a just world, would accept liability for the harm done.

I am no statist. I want individuals to bear the true cost—and only that cost—of their own choices.

What you ask is that all areas, public and private, be smoke-free...solely because you might be subject to someone's incidental second-hand smoke.

Not at all. I think private areas should have all the smoking they like, so long as they don't emit carcinogens into the public air. I'm perfectly content staying out of smoke-filled places.

 

[triggertime]

nualle,

"I'm only around the gaseous products of gunfire when I choose to be (unless someone around me is committing a crime), so the argument stands."

Granted, you may possess a level of control on how you are exposed to gunfire, but you can't blame your risk of lead exposure on those shooting around you, can you? Even if you're exposed on your own free will, its still a consequence.

The same could be said for you being exposed to exhaust fumes while pumping gas or just walking down a sidewalk in the city. You have no control there, just as you have no control over someone elses pursuit of happiness.

Your argument on smoking is simliar. Just because someone smokes does not mean that they should be held accountable for the supposed detrimental effects on your health just because you happen to be a victim of circumstance.

That said, its suprising how easily people forget that they are living in a free country where they should be entirely comfortable with accepting the consequences of freedom.

I guess that patriotism is lost when exposure to second hand smoke is considered an 'assault' and becomes a precedent for unnecessary civil litigation.

 

[Zander]

Nualle opined...

I'd say that a statist is one who seeks to use state power to either:

-- punish people who have harmed no one;

How convenient...your own personal belief as to what statism entails. Almost as convenient as your stated opinions which are inherently contradictory to your own definitions.

or, - eliminate the possibility of redress for those who have been harmed./

Ah...of course...victimization [the scourge of our nation] raises its ugly head.

Let's get to the real crux of your belief, if we may...

Smokers should be prohibited from smoking in any area in which anyone objecting to smoking is present or might be present. That about it?

A simple 'yes' or 'no' would help our discussion...

 

[SteelyDan]

nualle:

Hey neighbor, I do have a little bone to pick with your analysis. I recall reading some of your posts over at TFL, and they were always well written and intelligent, so I've got to think it may have at least crossed your mind that you're being a bit hypocritical.

The tag-line on your posts is "Fat brown heathen dyke with a 12-guage..." (Plus the"smile," that was the part that made me smile.) None of those five characteristics isexactly mainstream or especially popular in this culture, yet they're apparently important
enough to you that you include them in all your posts. The problem is that, historically, governments have outlawed, banned, and restricted at least four of these characteristics, and the "fat" one may be next. So, I would expect a little more tolerance of those whose lifestyles don't conform to yours, and a little less desire for the government to control the choices individuals may make. Most of all, I hope you're not saying the government should intervene to protect those characteristics or lifestyles that you care about, but that it should restrict or ban those that you do not.

Now, I'll assume you'll respond by saying that your being brown or gay or athiest or whatever doesn't hurt anyone, but that, in contrast, my cigarette smoke does have the potential to hurt you. There are, in my view, two problems with that argument.

First (and please understand I'm only playing devil's advocate here), if the government were so inclined, it could perhaps produce statistics "proving" that blacks or hispanics have higher crime rates, that gays have higher medical costs, or that athiests have higher divorce rates. Or whatever. Would those be sufficient reasons to regulate or ban such characteristics or behaviors? Not in my world, but the reality is that governments have killed people for these and "lesser crimes" in the past.

Second, and more importantly, most of us make a deliberate choice to live in cities, and that means that we will inevitably come into regular contact with other people. By virtue of that fact, it is equally inevitable that we will not approve of every choice that everyone else makes. We need to have more tolerance and respect for other peoples' choices, there's already too much government. Offended by nudity? Gee, we better ban R-rated movies and the Sopranos. No, it's the potential for harming someone else? Well, we better ban boxing and football.

I just cannot imagine what kind of sterile, boring, regimented country this would be if we allowed the government to control or ban everything that could possibly be harmful or offensive to anyone else.

It all comes down to "where do you draw the line," and in almost every case I'll be on the side of less governmental intrusion. Fascinating issue, though, and I'd be happy to buy you a beer after work some time and continue the discussion.

 

[Zander]

Would those be sufficient reasons to regulate or ban such characteristics or behaviors? -- SteelyDan

Depends on whether or not you're willing to buy into the argument for utilitarianism.

 

[nualle]

Zander: you don't like my definition, posit your own and we can debate their relative merits. I don't see where I've contradicted my own.

Far from being a statist, I'm an anarchist. I believe all associations should be voluntary, which leaves government pretty much out. I think the referenda (and they are referenda -- popular demands by nonsmokers to control the excesses they perceive in the behavior of some smokers) referred to are bad uses of law. But back to the anarchism: I think most laws are poor examples of the type.

I'm not arguing for the laws, by any means. I apologize that my terse first post on this thread left that unclear. I was reacting in the environment of the previous smoking threads I had participated in... that's why I referred back to one of them.

Let me state clearly that I am not for smoking bans. I am for smokers' voluntary control of their smoke, to keep harmful emissions out of the commons -- the public air.

Smokers "get away with" a great deal. The commons (city streets) are fouled by both their emissions and their litter. (They are also fouled by the car emissions, but that's another issue.) They get away with it because, in cities, we're all faceless... it's simply too hard to track down who caused each harm and hold them to right it.

In an anarchic world, people would be forced by their neighbors to pay more of their own way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
or, - eliminate the possibility of redress for those who have been harmed./
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ah...of course...victimization [the scourge of our nation] raises its ugly head.

"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." T. Jefferson.

If government has any right function, redress of real harm is it. Eliminating that redress is the action of a statist. Being an anarchist, I would reduce "government" to a public forum at which I describe the harm I've sustained, whereupon I go and exact the redress myself.

Smokers should be prohibited from smoking in any area in which anyone objecting to smoking is present or might be present. That about it?

A simple 'yes' or 'no' would help our discussion...

What are you, a lawyer? You're refusing to recognize the difference between "objection" and "harm." Go back and read pax's post about the effect second-hand smoke has on her. Now tell me how you could tell at sight that thus-n-such a stranger has or doesn't have a condition as severe. If you're willing to live dangerously and risk the liability of your smoke causing a reaction like that, fine... just don't balk when you get the medical bills.

 

[nualle]

SteelyDan: Hullo neighbor *tipping hat*.

The tag-line on your posts is "Fat brown heathen dyke with a 12-guage..." (Plus the"smile," that was the part that made me smile.) None of those five characteristics isexactly mainstream or especially popular in this culture, yet they're apparently important enough to you that you include them in all your posts.

My issue with smoking in public is not that it's unpopular... it's that it involves a high likelihood of acute harm to some nonsmokers (like pax), and a certainty of incremental harm to everyone. That, as my wife puts it, is an abuse of the commons.

I hope the clarifications I tried to make in my last post answers most of your points.

We need to have more tolerance and respect for other peoples' choices, there's already too much government.

I agree entirely, on both points.


BTW: I wrote my sig line because, though I am many more things than those I list (e.g., operatically trained mezzo-soprano, in-training medievalist), I felt it was important to be "out" on some of the demographics that bust the gun-owner stereotypes. I added "fat" to, uh... round out the list. (OK... I coulda resisted that. I didn't. ) I haven't changed it because I get so many PMs reacting positively to it.

 

[Selfdfenz]

The effect of second hand smoke = what you may experience in a bar or eating establishment frequented by smokers.
The effect of second hand alcohol intoxication = what you may experience in you automobile thanks to drunk drivers.

It strikes me as strange that so many that advocate smoking bans see nothing wrong with semi-public (bars,eating establishments,etc) alcohol consumption. Hipocritical.

I was once a consumer alcohol and tobacco but no longer. Common sense and past experience indicates to me that society would save more lives and money by more heavily restricting alcohol.

I don't like smoke in my area but I take personal action to get away from it.
I don't care to be around drunks and I take action to stay away from them. Both are easily accomplished without any whining or hand wringing or politcial correctness on my part.

OTHO as gun owners we should be sensitive we have a "glass house" issue and should be carefull what groups we support. The same people that want to ban SHS and want you to buy a 1000 dollar front loading more water thrifty washing machine becaue they think its "better for everyone" don't want you to own firearms.

S-

 

[Desertdog]

I am an exsmoker living in thr PRK and it is nice going into a restaurant and not be bothered by the smell of smoke. BUT I do not believe the government should be the one to say you can't smoke there.
That should be the owners decision. During pre-ban days, if I walked into a restaurant, I would ask for a non-smoking section. If no non-smoking section, I walked out.
That is the way it should be. I can decide on my own to patronize them or not.

 

[Gophfer]

Florida recently passed a Statewide ordinance to prohibit smoking in most places. I have been a non smoker for many years and don't like to eat with smokers around. I voted against the issue because it should be a market driven issue not a government issue. I won't partronize a restarant that doesn't provide me a smoke free area. If they want my business they will provide a non-smoking area. If they have a non-smoking area and you are smoking in it, I will bitch to management and ask you be moved.

 

[Zander]

What are you, a lawyer?

No, I'm a curmudgeon. Sometimes it takes asking for a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer to get folks to concentrate on what they really believe.

You're refusing to recognize the difference between "objection" and "harm."

One must naturally follow the other.

I am for smokers' voluntary control of their smoke, to keep harmful emissions out of the commons --

And if they don't, you'll punish them. That is what you meant by -- "...whereupon I go and exact the redress myself." -- isn't it?

...the public air.

There is no such thing. As an anarchist, doesn't that strike you as a strange construct? Public air, public water, public land; it all sounds so...well...statist.

If you're willing to live dangerously and risk the liability of your smoke causing a reaction like that, fine... just don't balk when you get the medical bills.

Hmmm...I thought you said:

"They get away with it because, in cities, we're all faceless...it's simply too hard to track down who caused each harm and hold them to right it."

'Scuse me...I think I hear a Macanudo or Padron calling my name.

 

[twoblink]

I can't stand smoke either, especially at restaurants. Part of your taste is the sense of smell, and the fact that my food turns to the taste of Camel Lights really bother me.

But banning it is not the answer, telling the owners that you don't want to eat here because they allow smoking... is. Vote via pocketbooks folks. I can tell you, if there is a "No Smoking" sign, then people obey it. Short of the place being a bar, most people will honor that at a restaurant. Let the owner know, they won't lose business if they don't allow smoking at a restaurant, but they will lose business if they do..

The "health police" is annoying. It "use to be" a free country...

The only comment I have left to make on the subject is:

Hitler was for gun control and hitler was for anti smoking...

Hell has a direct road to it; called legislated good intentions...

 

[PATH]

We keep hearing about second hand smoke being so very harmful. Will somepone please quote me the exact satudies so I can review them. How can you say something is harmful if you don't have the evidence in hand?

 

[G-Raptor]

Whether or not second hand smoke is harmful is irrelevant. The issue is simply a matter of personal choice. You can "choose" not to go where the smokers are.

People who support a smoking ban (in other than public building - and a resturant is not a public building) are not interested in health issues, only in forcing other people to conform to their wishes. One non-smoker walks into a smoke filled bar and demands that everyone else stop what they are doing. Why? Because they don't want the "inconvenience" of finding a bar where smoking is prohibited by the owner.

In a similar fashion there have been a number of situations where people build a house next to a gun range then try to get the range shut down because of the noise and "danger to their children".

 

[Zander]

Further, could we post these studies on the 'smoking' thread and try to keep this one on course?