shakran

No, actually, it's not. That's why we have OSHA. OSHA regs do not have a clause saying "unless the employee is cool with it."


well most states are what's known as "at-will" employment which means the employee can quit or be terminated for any reason or no reason at all. However, there are also whistleblower laws which protect workers who call attention to the violations of their employers.

You might wanna read up on your law there. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 P.L 91-596 "assures safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women throughout the Nation."

It gives workers the right to notify their employer or OSHA about workplace hazards.

It gives them the right to request an OSHA inspection of their workplace

It gives them the right to protection from employer discrimination if they exercise their other rights.

It gives them the right to see OSHA citations issued to their employer.

And it requires the employer to correct violations found by OSHA.

If you don't believe me, go to work. There should be a poster in the breakroom (or somewhere public) outlining these rights. If there's not, that too is an OSHA violation.

Cool! what about the public health drain from people who have gotten sick from inhaling cigarette smoke? Hell if we take your promise to its logical conclusion you'll be supporting a ban on cigarettes pretty soon.

Of course they are. You've heard of the "war on drugs?"

Well the point about masturbating into the pasta was that it creates a general heatlh concern - -i.e. maybe YOU will hypothetically eat it and enjoy it, but YOU are not the only one eating it.

If you really want to eat it, and you're bringing your own (so it doesn't contaminate my regular pasta) I really don't care. That's your choice.



Again, we get to the workplace safety issue. Workers cannot choose whether or not to be exposed to that cigarette smoke. You might have a case if the employer made gas masks available to his employees so they don't have to breathe that crap in, but we both know that would be silly even if it did happen.

Xera

I've been looking into a few things here and I have to say, I'm getting more and more convinced that the real argument for about half the people on this thread have now is, "how much control over our lives should government have." While the other half are still arguing, "smoking is bad for me so I don't do it and you shouldn't be able to make me." While the parallels are there, the issues really aren't connected. Smoking in this case is more of an example of how government is trying to control our lives rather than the issue of concern, for some, and I suppose I am becoming one of those.

Smoking is horrible. If you can, STOP.

See my perfume example above, non smokers do stink and make people sick. They just don't see that smelling themselves up is actually causing harm to others. The response to my question proves the non-smoker's argument in this case is right. Other people will never actually be courteous and respectful of others needs without external controls to the issue. You know there is a significant number of people that develop illnesses ranging from a skin rash to asthma attacks due to this entirely unnecessary practice, yet unless some actually DIES from it, there is no need to expect people to stop swimming around in that crud. Hurting people doesn't count apparently as harming them.

I am a subscriber to the harm principle which is basically that no part of my freedoms should ever be curtailed unless not curtailing my ability to practice my freedoms would harm another person. This means that yes, I do believe that laws not specifically designed to protect should not exist. Cities that lower the speed limit on low traffic wide roads for the sole purpose of gathering more revenue for the city by encouraging breaking that unreasonable and often unexpected speed limit, without need, piss me off. Laws should be for protection ONLY.

This is where we come into conflict. Whose rights do we protect and whose safety do we ensure? We have to protect everyone. Smoking bans on public places must be in place because smoking is dangerous, being in an enclosed area with a smoker is dangerous, and therefore laws need to be in place to protect against that danger.

Now to the more complex problem, are privately owned restaraunts and bars public? Not really. They are, by definition, privately owned. There is an expectation that a large portion of the public population will be present there, but they are in fact PRIVATELY OWNED PROPERTY. Publicly accessible does not mean the same as public property.

It is typically believed that working is not a right. It is good for society to have our citizens working, but it is not a right. If my smoking is not a right and therefore there should be no laws in place to protect me from unreasonable bans on that right, then the same MUST be said of workers, because frankly their right to work is not any more guaranteed than my right to smoke, though it is more widely valued.

I hold by my statement that we must take care how much we allow the government to control behaviors. We will be instruments of our own loss of liberties.

I do want to note here that my stance changes if we are discussing whether or not it is better for the public to limit where I can smoke. I am discussing here only the extent of governmental controls over behavior that I am comfortable with. I KNOW it is better for the public at large if I don't smoke in public. Even before the bans went into place I did not sit in the smoking section of restaraunts. I tried to stay away from those areas where people were forced to walk very close to me in order to get into an establishment. I think it is very important that we, as citizens, try to respect each others needs and wants, even when we don't share those wants.

__________________

~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

FoolThemAll

Pardon. I'm arguing 'ought', not 'is'. It ought to be that way.

I'm fine with whistleblower laws as far as blowing the whistle on deception or activities with external costs.

'Ought', not 'is'.

You're going to have to elaborate on this one.

'Ought', not 'is'. I'm against the war on drugs.

If you really don't want to eat it, do as I'd do and don't seek out the business offering it.

There is no magic number of repetitions that will turn this into a true statement.

Workers can choose. They can leave. They can seek other employment.

There. is. no. force.

I am on board, with the caveat that these codes only apply to places and nuisances that are actually public. To borrow the phrasing of another poster, 'accessible to the public' doesn't cut it.

You could increase the mandated steps to make potential patrons aware as the dangers increase. As a preexisting example, many bars and adult stores ask for ID. People could be notified at the door(s) of the dangers in the building. Parental permission could be required for kids wishing to enter an establishment with smokers. I'm not seeing an insurmountable obstacle here.

See above. I don't have a problem with the government requiring significantly more warning - A LOT MORE - for a yard filled with fugi sticks. Probably to the point where it's not worth it to have a yard filled with fugi sticks, though only because fugi sticks should require a great deal of warnings/precautions.

Smoking? That's a lot more feasible as far as warnings go.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

shakran

I can argue from the "ought" perspective too. I "ought" to be able to enjoy a meal at a restaurant without some dimwit exposing me to carcinogens. The majority of Americans, who are non smokers, "ought" to be able to dictate that they want publicly accessible places to be smoke free, even if the petulant minority doesn't like it.



Employee gets sick from inhaling too much cigarette smoke. Restaurant employees generally don't have much, if any, health insurance, so he has to go to the public hospital and get treatment that's paid for by the taxpayers. There's your external cost.




The external cost is the drain on public healthcare dollars from people who are sick because of their smoking habit.


So am I. The only drugs that should be illegal are the ones that effect more than the user when they are used as intended. Example, snorting cocaine only hurts the person snorting it. Smoking marijuana effects everyone around the doper. And as the legalize-it crowd loves to point out, cigarette smoke is a lot worse than pot.


If you really want to smoke, do as I would and go somewhere where you won't bother everyone else with your habit.


Correct, because it's already true. The hope is that if we repeat it in just the right way, you'll figure that out


You make this sound so easy. Take someone on the very low end of the economic ladder and tell him "hey quit your job right now, then go find another" - - because finding another while you're a waiter is very difficult since so much of your time is taken up at the restaurant - and finding a job period can be difficult. If your only qualification is that you've been a waiter for 10 years, that's not exactly gonna get you into very many jobs other than more waiter jobs. It's very easy to dismiss the working poor as being victims of their own laziness, but that concept does not fit the facts.

Well yeah, actually it does cut it. If the public is invited to be somewhere, that place needs to be a safe place for the public to be.


Or we could just make the environment safe to begin with and not have to worry about it. Again, you're in the less-than-25% minority and you are trying to dictate against the wishes of the majority.

I think yesterday's nationwide voting on various gay marriage bans is atrocious but I'm apparently in the minority. I have to accept that and move on, even though that really IS a human rights issue, whereas yours is a minority convenience issue. You don't want to get up and walk all the way to the door to have a cigarette. You're not BANNED from having a cigarette. You can smoke all you want. Just not where you will harm others.

Analog called it at the beginning. This argument is a bunch of smokers who want to smoke in public despite knowing they are hurting everyone around them with their habit. It's not only an indefensible argument, it's inexcusable as well.

DaElf

""You make it seem like smokers are trying to impose on you. Anti smokers are imposing on smokers. Not the other way around. Power in numbers does not embue such power that those superior numbers make choices for private property owners that run a business on their property if their particular choice does not force harm upon the public while not disrupting their daily lives outside said property. At least not in America.""


""Incredibly weak retort. Are you saying this qoute is false? This qoute from my post hardly makes sense taken out of context.""


""They are spilling their chemicals out onto goverment land that everyone uses. By law the land they are polluting is just as much yours as it is theirs. How you can look at this chemical dumping situation and at smoking on private property and make a comparision is beyond me.""


""I assume you took the "Blow their smoke in your face" part from this qoute out because it's never happened that someone blew smoke in your face and said "I hope you get cancer". You make the smoker an indifferent figure in this arguement. What happened to the hostile smoker that followed you around giving you cancer?""

""I also assume that you think smokers imply this "I really don't give a crap if you get cancer" when you go around them and they don't immedietly put out their cigarette.""



""Again I don't smoke.You is a generalization. What people want me to do on my property makes no difference. I don't care how many people stand on my lawn and say they want it their way. What I do on my property is my decision not yours. You can partake or not, up to you. By being around smokers you are harming your self they aren't harming you.""


""Smokers don't want to smoke around you. You want to be around smokers in privately owned public places. This is the argument you keep avoiding. You are forcing your self unto them in their space. Anti-smokers and Non-smokers are different. For example: you are an Anti-smoker I am a Non-Smoker please try to keep this in mind.""

Changing gears.

""Hey let's qoute some more single sentences out of the middle of a paragraph shakran, qouting people's arguements out of context is fun for debate! Watch.""

I can smoke in my home if I please!

""See it's stupidly easy to make an airtight argument in this way. I am completly right on my point but you were never arguing my right to smoke in my home so my retort is false as much of your counter arguments are false in this same way.""


Shakran you seem firm on this subject yet you still don't have any arguments with an ounce of validity for any three of my main points. Which are:

1. Business owners should have the right to choose if smoking tobacco goes on on their property.

2. Anti-smokers and Non-Smokers have the ability to stay away from smokers indoors in non privately owned buildings.

3. Anti-smokers and Non-Smokers are not forced to enter buildings where smoking is allowed.

""Because these three arguments are true: the smoking ban is a law that is unjustified and takes away ones right to choose for him self, this includes you my freind shakran.""

""Shakran you can dance all day with chemicals in rivers and grammar corrections all while mis qouting me. All you're doing is drawing attention (maybe your own attention) away from the truth. Which is that you have no argument for the smoking ban. While I have kept firm to my points you have jumped ship on many of yours. Your points become increasingly indirect and vague.""

__________________
I'm sitting at my desk right now waiting for you to reply to the above message.

pig

it looks to me like this all hinges on the private/public portion of the business owner's location. i'm looking into this now, perhaps an attourney can answer it lickedly split like, but it seems that a private business run in an area zoned for commercial real estate, where the public is explicitly invited to enter, is considered more of a hybrid entity between a private residential area, and a public government building or park area. in conjunction with this, these businesses have to conform to certain public regulations and safety codes. not by means of disclosure, but by means of eliminating certain hazards. this isn't about someone telling granny that she can't smoke in her house while she knits sweaters to sell on ebay. i don't understand what's so mystifying about the public interest when it involves the production of airborn carcinogens and biological materials that clog the airways and lungs of passersby. i think the worker safety aspect may be the strongest, easiest place to see this; but i think you can make a legal argument based solely on public health nuissance.

i just hope that i can go down to my local tobacconist / bar that sells actual beer and ale, have myself a pipe and a pale ale in the company of likeminded people who have specifically chosen that environement. i'm thinking that license for public use of tobacco products should enable that.

wash, rinse, repeat.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

DaElf

Making a place have a license would be fine IMO.

__________________
I'm sitting at my desk right now waiting for you to reply to the above message.

pan6467

It's a moot point here in Ohio now. The voters spoke overwhelmingly and smoking lost.

What I find interesting is that issue 18 in Cleveland passed (it adds a 40 cent per pack tax to support the museums), however, you are not allowed to smoke anywhere in public now.

Plus, Issue 5 (makes smoking illegal in any workplace) sets up a "clean air fund" that adds a "not yet determined tax" to packs.

So it proves my point, to non-smokers they truly cannot live without the taxes, they want the taxes they leech off the taxes, but don't "pollute" their air.

So let's say we smokers start quitting or buying on the black market, from the internet, Indian reservations etc. What's going to happen to these places that need our money? Something else will have to be taxed the way cigarettes are to make up for the lost revenue. What will it be? Coffee? I can't stand the smell of coffee, how many road ragers are hopped up on caffeine? Why do I have to smell the noxious fumes of coffee? Fast food? I don't like McDonald's or the others, the smell pollutes the air in the neighborhoods with a stench brought by their deep fryers that have been said to create carcinogens.... and they subject primarily high school employees to this.

Now, the businessman in me sees this as a huge money making chance. I open a smoking club costs members $50/year to get in, I allow smoking and I make sure we are a happening club. And I make it a hot nightclub and I get non-smokers wanting in but I deny them, I'm sure lawsuits will ensue for discrimination. Or I allow non-smokers to join and they start suing because I allow smoking, in, imagine this.... "a smoker's club".

Oh wait, Issue 5 made sure that can't happen because it's still a workplace and even if all my employees are smokers, it's illegal. So I use club members and reduce their membership rates and pay them under the table.

So why don't we just make these evil things illegal? You don't want them anywhere, we are pariahs, you use our taxes and raise them but refuse to find some form of middle ground to cohabilitate.

You can't make them illegal and when the numbers of smokers decrease to where the tax revenue is seriously hurt, see how fast the tide on smoking changes. The medical healthcare industry alone makes BILLIONS upon BILLIONS on smokers, do you really think they are going to allow you to stop smoking?

But today, it is a moot point. It's cool.... but in the end you just gave up rights of business owners and people. Whether you recognize or admit it, you did. And these power hungry people won't stop at smoking, power hungry people never stop. Once they get a taste of that power and see how and what blueprint to use to take rights away..... they are going to keep going, because in the end this was all about having power over someone else....

Congratulations, just hope and pray you aren't next.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

FoolThemAll

No, that's telling private property owners what they ought to do with their property when the public has the option of not accepting the invitation to use their private property. And you aren't justified in doing that.

Frankly, that's only an external cost because the government made it one. Reductio ad absurdum, there again goes the road down to banning fast food. Let's stick with natural direct external costs, not indirect artificial ones. Otherwise, the government would have a way to justify banning any unhealthy activity. Understand the distinction?

Not when the harm is confined to private property. Which is what a restaurant is.

1. Again, I don't really want to smoke. I've never smoked.

2. Nah, that's okay, I prefer the 'leave my private property if you don't like it' option.

[quote]Correct, because it's already true. The hope is that if we repeat it in just the right way, you'll figure that out

It's not true. It's blatantly obvious that there's no force and that there is a choice.

It may not be easy. At all. But it is a choice. There's no force.

No, the public does not need to be safe wherever it chooses to go. That would pretty much empty out Detroit. The public does need to be aware of risks associated with any particular location. The public should be able to make an informed choice. Beyond that, let them do what they want to.

The majority has no business telling me what to do with my property when none of their rights are forcibly violated by my actions. It may have the means, but it does not have any moral justification.

It's both. It's a matter of convenience and a matter of rights. If there's no involuntary violation of your rights, then you have no business dictating an alternate course of action. It may be trivial in your view, it's still none of your business.

What's indefensible is the notion that private property accessible to the public is somehow public property. It's neither indefensible nor inexcusable to insist upon the right to partake in harmful activities on your own property.

You've shown so far that you can only get a semblance of a defense for your position when you (A) falsely classify restaurants as public property and (B) falsely claim that employees have no choice in the matter.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

DaElf

[QUOTE=FoolThemAll]
Frankly, that's only an external cost because the government made it one. Reductio ad absurdum, there again goes the road down to banning fast food. Let's stick with natural direct external costs, not indirect artificial ones. Otherwise, the government would have a way to justify banning any unhealthy activity. Understand the distinction?[/QOUTE]

Oh you mean like wearing a helmet or a seat belt?

__________________
I'm sitting at my desk right now waiting for you to reply to the above message.

pig

pan,

i'm going to back up roach's comment from earlier. roll your own, and yes you can get filters to roll in if you want. if your local tobacco store doesn't carry bins or preweighed ounces of rolling cigarette tobacco, I'd suggest seeing if they carry Samson or American Spirit. You'll save money.

I agree that restricting your ability to smoke in public while raising taxes is pretty crappy.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

roachboy

https://www.lilbrown.com/Rolling-Tob...-STOKKEBYE.htm

stokkebye tobacco is really pretty good and you can usually find it for about 20 bucks a vat at a tobacco shop and less if you order online from places like the above...i like tobacco stores and also need papers (i loose them all the time) so i go that way. it is about 20% the price of prepackaged cigarettes (depending on how much you smoke)--they last quite a while and the canisters keep it moist, and it does not have the accelerants and preservatives and other chemical crap that manufactured cigarettes do. just tobacco, which is not great healthwise of course, but certainly is not as bad for you as tobacco plus that other junk.

american spirit is much too harsh for me--it makes me feel like i am running steel wool on my throat.

i used to smoke gauloises lighter tobacco but gauloises no longer exports to the states.

and you can get filters.
and it still sucks trying to quit.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pig

Never had stokkebye, i used to have a wonderful pipe shop that carried a great selection of all tobacco products, but cigarette tobacco was among them. I've got a humidor for my cigars, and i just keep the cigarette smoke in their as well. works out pretty nicely. there is nothing, nothing, like a whipass pale ale and a good smoke. it may be a weakness, it may be wrong, but if loving the smoke is wrong, i don't wanna be right...(insert arsenio hall in coming to america)

yeah, if you smoke gallois...that shit is tree bark. cous-cous, strong coffee and algerians come to mind.

complete agreement on the difference between processed tobacco and what you can get in tobacco shops. it's not healthy, but at least its tobacco, not "tobacco product." ick.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

billege

Though this thread now has many points on it, and some of them are valid – many are off topic fluff – so I thought I’d drop my 2 cents in at this point.

Going back to the original poster’s question, rather than continuing the discussion of smoking bans (which is where most of you immediately veered – like a NASCAR crowd following the smoke) let’s move to the question of why smoking is such an interesting discussion to have.

The discussion is interesting because it touches on American political philosophy, which is “Do what I say, at the point this gun.”

Now, I know most of you won’t get that, but I’ll try s’plain this.

What is a law? A law is an edict by government. Laws demand something of those affected by it. It could be an action people have to take, or the lack thereof. Governments choose to back up laws with enforcement. Enforcement is the gun, and I mean that literally. Think about where our laws ultimately get their power from…the barrel of a gun. Sure, that’s not the first thing that’s pulled out, but hang with me here – you’ll learn something philosophical and practical about the system we live in.

To relate this back to smoking, I’ll use the theoretical breaking of our recently passed Ohio statewide smoking ban.

Let’s say I go to a bar and light up a smoke. There are two possibilities:
There will be civil disobedience, and the bar’s responsible parties will not ask me to put it out.

or,

The bar’s responsible parties will ask me to put it out, or move to the allowed area.

My choices are:
Put it out or move, or
Continue smoking.

Depending on how far I’m willing to take this, ultimately, men with guns will come and enhance my compliance with various laws I’m held responsible to.

The same forces come into play with all of our laws. You will first be subject to whatever penalties come in paper form; maybe a fine, something like that. Keep in mind, all these laws end up at the same method of enforcement: Men and Women with Guns.

Play that as far out as you want…you can go to jail…and if you don’t obey that, and try to escape, men with guns. Please don’t disagree with me on this point, because it’s not arguable. It’s fact. If you can’t see it, think it through. Men with guns are the ultimate tool our society has to force your compliance. Enough disobedience, in any area, brings the gun.

While you’re considering this, note carefully I didn’t pass a value judgment on this method; I said that’s how it is. I didn’t say if it’s right or wrong.


Now that we’ve thought about the nature of laws, let’s all compare how we think about “laws” in the abstract to what their real nature is. Examine what you’ve always thought a law to be. Most of us imagine laws functioning in a strange sort of abstract kind of way. We seldom imagine that passing something like a smoking ban really does mean we’re saying (as a society):
“You, other citizen, will not do this. If you do that, ultimately, men with guns will MAKE you stop.”

Now let’s re-examine the smoking discussion and why it, like most of our current discourse, is so non-productive.

Non smokers have not taken a reasonable line on smoking. They have said “You will not do this, because we say so.”

There have been no enactments of any of the reasonable compromises I’ve heard suggested. One suggestion I’ve read, I think in here, was that of a “smoking license” administered much like a liquor license. Reasonable people might talk about how this has ups and downs for both sides of the issue. Reasonable people might work through their differences and find a way to live together, one step closer to harmony.

Maybe a “smoking license” wouldn’t be the ultimate answer; it could be some totally brilliant compromise that I’m unable to think of. My point is, that this debate (and American debate at this time in history) is not reasonable.

The majority of you are participating in that totally inane and absurd, point-by-point deconstruction of opposing arguments. That is not debate. Very few TFP members are participating in reasonable debate. That goes for this thread, and many others.

Non-smokers, the obvious majority, are abusing their philosophical and moral responsibilities by refusing to consider the wants or needs of their fellow Americans. (This is where you post about smokers not respecting your rights, as if two separate wrongs make a right.)

This is not how a healthy society functions. This is bad. And we are all part of it.
We MUST change.

We must ask each other why we’re not looking for a compromise. We must ask why we don’t even bother. We must ask why we’re so willing to point the gun. We must ask why we’re so willing to aim it at our fellow citizens.

We must ask:
Why won’t we let smokers make their own choices?
Why are we so willing to strip yet more rights from individuals?
Why aren’t we talking about ways this could work for everyone?
Why aren’t we willing to come together?

What is wrong with you, America?

__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."

pig

so, who is john galt?

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

billege

pigglet, I don't believe I originally posted what you've got there. About dogs and such. I don't have dogs, nor do I watch jeapordy.

You're obviously correct supposing where my philsophical influence comes from.

I don't know who he is, but I'd give fair money to a bet he's been born and is wandering our culture. His adversaries sure are.

__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."

pig

billege,

that was my version of a snip, leading to a quick pointless, mildly rhetorical question

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

StanT

We must ask:
Why won’t we let smokers make their own choices?

Feel free to make your own choice, just don't inflict them on me.

Why are we so willing to strip yet more rights from individuals?

Why would anyone consider the "right" to smoke more important than the right not to smoke? Historical acceptance of smoking doesn't make it any more acceptable.

Why aren’t we talking about ways this could work for everyone?

Go outside to smoke. It's hard to fathom why this isn't an acceptable alternative.

Why aren’t we willing to come together?

Because your idea of compromise, isn't.

billege

If I'd wanted a post, displaying the unyeilding "debate" we have on this topic. I could not have asked for a better one.

We speak at each other. Our words fall dead to the floor between us.
They fall unheard and unremarked.

__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."

filtherton

Nice, a call for unity hidden in a bunch of poorly supported reasons why nonsmokers are wrong and bad americans.

Look, i don't care if we have to smoke outside. To me it's worth it. I haven't been deprived of my rights as a smoker, because smoking isn't a right. I have got a new "right", the right to go out to a bar and not have to constantly inhale smoke the whole time.

The fact that such a holy fuss has been made about this issue to me is silly. It doesn't fucking matter. I have a lot of rights that are much more important to me than ones that only amount to being matters of convenience, especially when i see the wisdom of their revocation.

This isn't the beginning of the end for american civil liberties. If you think it is, i recommend you go outside and have a cigarette and think about how insignificant a ban on smoking in bars/restaurants is. Smoking has been banned in hospitals for decades, and lo and behold, our american way of life has not crumbled. I imagine that you see the wisdom of banning smoking in hospitals(at least i hope you do). Banning smoking in private businesses that are open to the public is an extension of that idea.

I'd rather smoke outside than have submit myself to the bloodshot eyes and to the reek of smoke every time i fancy a trip to the bar. If you think that i'm stepping on your toes as then i suppose i am. I don't fucking care, consider your toes stepped on. I'll do it again if i have to, because really, making people smoke outside isn't a fucking big deal to me.

Don't blame the nonsmokers. Blame the fact that smoking isn't a healthy habit and that smokers don't seem to have much along the lines of political organization.

billege

Sir, you are missing the point. Non smokers are not simply "wrong" nor bad Americans. Not that I'm suprised at least one person took that from my post.

The debate is the subject of this thread, not which side is right or wrong. That seems awfully hard to grasp for most people.

There is no debate. There is both sides refusing to find an accomodation that works.

__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."

filtherton

Seems like the accommodation that works for the majority of people has already been found, the people who don't like it just have to figure out how to deal with it.

roachboy

first off: pigglet---you are probably thinking of the gauloises filterless pre-rolled guys that taste like newspaper wrapped up in other newspaper that i was once told i had to smoke if i wanted to be down with the prolos.
this during a period when i thought it might be fun to become a new person. i decided to become "french leftist circa late april early may 1968".
you know, as a human being.
i was about 19.
i thought it justified growing a moustache and running away from home.

gradually i realized (a) my sort of stepmother, who told me the above, was obviously insane (b) that the cigarettes tasted like newspaper rolled up inside other newspaper and then rubbed on a street and (c) no matter how hard i tried, no matter how long i worked, i would still remain an infinite distance from being "french leftist circa late april-early may 1968."

so i became a situationist.
this was easier because mostly what i had to do to advance ther revolution was drink alot, and i figured now THERE is a mode of praxis i can get behind.

so i engaged in praxis of the type i could get behind for a while.
i threw myself out of my own group a few times because that was the other thing that situationists did alot and it didnt seem to ever matter that there were no people in the group.
this too seemed like a viable form of praxis to me.

then one day, after i had thrown myself out of my own group again, i realized that i had been drinking for a very long time and that the revolution still had not arrived.

what's keeping it? i wondered.

so i found stokkebye and made up roachboy.

so ends "the life of roachboy" brought to you by all the tobacco companies on earth

and now a message from our sponsors: smoking---it's what revolutionaries do when they're thinking about something else.
smoking.
no radical threat to the common weal should be without it.
buy yours now and make capitalism tremble.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

shakran

The public has the option of not accepting their invitation to use their property when they aren't up to fire codes, or have asbestos, or dangerous animals improperly confined. By your logic, government should not regulate ANYTHING a business does because the public doesn't have to go in there.


What? Are you trying to give me the choice between clean air and socialized medicine?

You've lost me there. The external cost is the cost of the workers who get sick because of other people smoking. The cost of fast food is the individual who eats too much of it and gets sick.

Let's stop chopping arguments up into very specific versions of un-reality to suit your point.

Yes. Do you? I'm saying they should have the authority to ban activities that YOU do that are unhealthy to OTHERS. Activities that YOU do that are harmful only to YOU, the government should not touch.

You're acting like a restaurant and a house are legally the same type of property. It is privately owned property in which the public is invited to do business, and therefore it is held to different standards than the house. There's been lots of legal precedent to this. For example, in California even though malls are private property, mall owners are not allowed to kick the media out of the mall because it is considered a public place under law.


Yeah, I get it. The you is a generalized you.

We'll just have to disagree there.

No, some people do not have that choice. Period. It's like the people who were furious over the people that didn't leave New Orleans when Katrina hit. Those people didn't have a choice. They couldn't leave because they didn't have enough money to do it.

I disagree with you still, but this line was really funny

So as long as I tell you that guns are dangerous, I can shoot you?


You are attempting to violate their right to life by introducing a carcinogen into their lungs.

You do not have the right, legally defined or otherwise, to smoke. You have not been stopped from smoking before, but that does not mean it is your right.

You're right. That's why I'm not trying to get the government to ban smoking entirely. Only near others in public places.



publicly accessible is not the same thing as public property, but it is also not the same thing as purely private property.

You're right. It's indefensible and inexcusable to do it on property that is NOT yours.


Uh, no, I didn't. Just because you can't grasp the difference between public property and publicly accessible property does not mean I have classified anything falsely.

That's not false. You just don't want to believe it.

analog

Those arguing in this thread for the right of the business owner to have the say in whether or not they will allow smoking, are making public health take a back seat to the right of the business owner. That's simply a laughable suggestion. I'm kind of surprised this "conversation" has gone on for 4 pages now... talking "at" each other, indeed.

Xera

Billege, you are right. I started responding to this thread because the original question is one that I have been known to fuss about with my family for years. Then I became side tracked with other matters. Why is it ok to belittle and put down smokers with such ferocity? Smoking bans don't directly affect me, with only a few exceptions, since I have never smoked indoors anyways, but it does affect me when people are rude, hateful, condescending, and just down right mean to me just because I smoke.

For example, my son's teacher said, "When you walk in here, you smell like cigarette smoke and it's disgusting." Now I know I've been around people that stink. I've been around people that I just really wanted to introduce to Ivory soap and offer them the usage of my water hose for an hour to let them rinse some of the stink off. Do I actually do that? no, it would be very rude. So why is it not considered rude to say something like that to a smoker? Not only is that considered ok, when done to a smoker, but even commendable by some people, because she is speaking out against this horrible activity. How can incivility to anyone be considered acceptable? And what is it about smokers that makes it ok?

as for the rest of the arguments, that truly now I can admit don't resemble much of an actual debate, the fact is that the majority of people favor curtailing the rights of smokers little by little. It ALWAYS begins with logical, justifiable, bans. Then it leads to "you can't smoke in your own car in the parking lot of publicly accessible places."

I do have one problem with smoking in hospitals. One of the businesses around here that I cannot smoke in my own damn car in the parking lot is the hospital.

__________________

~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

DaElf

A long time ago...

In a galaxy far far away...

People were forced to go into bars and inhale tabacco smoke.

__________________
I'm sitting at my desk right now waiting for you to reply to the above message.

pan6467

Not at all, as I stated here in Canton owners built rooms with seperate ventilation. And again no one forced anyone to patronize those places. So, there was no putting public health "in the back seat". The owners made a compromise that was fair, that cost them, in some cases, serious money.

Again, it is all a moot point because here in Ohio they have gone wayyyyy too far in that any business with just 1 employee cannot have smoking. So if I own a tobacco store and since I can't work it all the time, I have to hire someone, I can't allow anyone to smoke in there. As I stated above, if I want to open a private smoking club, I can't because I hire 1 employee, smoking becomes illegal in my business.

When you can't even allow private smoking clubs...... you have severe power and control issues. It ain't about public health, it ain't about "not liking..." IT'S 1000% ALL ABOUT POWER AND CONTROL OVER SOMEONE ELSE.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

snowy

Did it occur to you that perhaps she is concerned about your son's health and that is why she made that statement? If you don't smoke around your son, she doesn't know that.

And for the record, smokers do stink. That is one of the reasons I insisted on my boyfriend quitting when we first started dating. The smell would get on his clothes, in his hair, and on his hands in addition to his mouth, and it just made me feel sick. Even now I have friends that smoke, and when I get a whiff of that smell on them, it makes my stomach turn.

The fact of the matter is--if smokers want to smoke in public places, they're going to have to put up with me throwing up in, on, or around them. Is that okay?

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

PassionFish

No, actually, it isn't. I'm revolted when someone hawks out a huge loogie in public and then goes about (his, usually) business as though nothing happened. I hate with the power of one thousand suns being stuck in an elevator with a woman who has doused herself in perfume, or a man who went nuts with the aftershave.

But, I don't say anything, because it would be rude.

snowy

Well, quite honestly, that is what you are going to have to put up with if you want to smoke in the same bar as I am in.

Really.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

FoolThemAll

There's probably not much more either of us can say, shakran, but a few more things:

Already gave fire codes as a reasoned exception. Not sure about ANYTHING - give me a particular thing and I'll tell you - but certainly a lot more than you'd allow. Dangerous animals? We had one of those, we had to put him down when he escaped through the front door and attacked another dog. (The current one, Max, is much more mild and friendly.)

You lost me here.

Heh.

Which is an external cost if the obese person in question can't pay for his/her hospital care. The same artificial, indirect, external cost in your scenario of a worker sick due to cigarettes.

Soon as you stop beating your wife. I explained the distinction, explain your objection.

Invited by the business owner. Owner should decide standards. I'm aware that it isn't this way currently.

Bad faith. It might be a very very very hard choice, but it's a choice nonetheless.

Can you provide me with a single example wherein the worker was physically unable to leave the job?

It's my hometown, I know what I'm talking about.

Looks like a bad analogy to me. So long as you tell me that guns are dangerous, you can let me handle your gun. So long as you tell me that trespassers will be shot, you can shoot me if trespassing. (Generally... that situation opens up a whole 'nother can of worms, couple of threads on that right now.)

Implicit assent. No violation.

Couldn't disagree more, actually. I believe I have the right to do pretty much anything as long as it doesn't forcibly - key word in this debate, forcibly - intrude on the rights of others. That includes at least smoking in the privacy of my own home.

Yep... impasse #1: we can't agree on what counts as a public place. Maybe that could be phrased in a better way, but we get the essential disagreement here.

Eh... I can basically agree with this statement, but then we'll quibble over what it means for private property to be impurely private and what that means in terms of owner's extent of power and we'll end up right back where we started. Suffice it to say, on this particular issue, I consider 'publicly accessible' effectively the same as 'purely private'.

Well, sure. Unless you have the owner's permission.

Impasse #2: we can't agree on what counts as choice.

Well, to put it another way, I disagree that we're talking about public health - we're actually talking about the health of that segment of the public that accepted an invitation to an unhealthy place. But hey, I'm glad I could bring a smile to your face.

Riiight. It's a good thing that you avoided that pitfall!

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Fly

wow...........after reading all this.........i need a smoke.


but!!!!!


i am going to go outside in my yard and smoke,because i don't want my house smelling of smoke nor do i want my kids to have to inhale that shit.

as for bars and restaurants.........no problem going out to smoke......i'd rather not be in a big 'ol smokey room either.


it's not much but.........that's all i have to add.


carry on folks and good luck in the discussion.

__________________
BASTARD

SterlingStudios

flstf

pan, after all the pro/anti arguments are over, you have hit the nail on the head. The majority claims they only want to be protected against second hand smoke but the reality is they vote to take away peoples ability to have any establishments created where they can smoke. They don't want people to smoke even in places they would never go to.

FoolThemAll

To be fair, there's also the "employees don't have much of a choice with jobs this scarce" argument, though I'd ultimately reject that argument for reasons given in previous posts.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Painted

All this shit about unhealthy air and causing harm to innocent bystanders, and no one gives two half-shits about the billions of oil powered engines which spew CO2 into the air which makes me and millions of other people sick and cancerous. Why isn't there a fervor against car users who made my dear old granddad develop a tumor on his spine? Who made little Sophie stay home from school when she came down with a fever? Who made me gag and nauseated after walking three blocks to the Quik-stop?

Oh, it's because it's the American way of life. We built this country on oil, right. We also built this country on tobacco. This is hypocrisy! WHY is it we concentrate so heavily on smoking, which in reality affects a very miniscule fraction of public health compared to gasoline and diesel? WHY aren't we enacting laws requiring billions of tax money to be spent researching alternative fuels and converting existing engines? WHY???

filtherton

I think that if there's anything this thread has demonstrated, it's that it's a lot easier to cling to your position if you pretend that the other person is being unreasonable.

For instance, it's really easy to claim that ban-haters don't like bans because it's inconvenient for them to go outside to smoke and all the trumped up excuses they come up with for hating bans is just a rationalization to make them feel better. I don't know how many of my fellow smokers immediately become libertarians when the topic of smoking bans comes up.

Really, though, the whole "smoking banners are just control freaks" position requires a certain amount of willful ignorance, and that's fine. This isn't a discussion about something that might happen, it's a bitchfest about something that already did happen. I understand the need to vent, the need to villify the other guy, even the complete lack of ability to empathize with the other guy's position because when it comes to this particular subject that's really the only recourse you have. Frankly it's all irrelevant.

I can go to a bar whenever i want and not be subjected to smoke and that's great. It also means that i have to go outside to smoke and that's fine. Call me a control freak if you want, but as far as i'm concerned it's a win-win situation.

flstf

How does having establishments that do not allow smoking and others that do, so there is a choice, not empathize with the other guy's position no matter what their position is?

Also, you can go outside to smoke now, but if the majority has their way you may eventually have to go to the next city, county or state.

feelgood

One reason and only one reason: Smoking affects everybody. I don't give a fuck if your smoking kills you, kills your family, depletes your family savings, beat your spouse after a night of smoking. When you smoke around me, you're making me smoke too and I don't want that.

__________________
Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

filtherton

Well, i guess i haven't really seen a strategy for what you describe beyond "letting the market handle it". The market has been handling it for a long time and the ratio of smoking to nonsmoking establishments, especially bars, was huge. It's not like the bans are permanent. I'm sure if you were to come up with a strategy that everyone can agree on and organized your efforts you could modify the bans.

Sez you. I don't subscribe to the slippery slope in this situation. If it does happen, though, that sucks for you if you smoke. As a smoker myself, i'd probably just quit.