filtherton

There wasn't any actual logic to what you said. I'm not saying that there isn't any logic to your perspective, just that you failed to present any.

I do find your sudden swerve towards nuance intriguing. Tell me, when is it okay for the government to tell private property owners what they can't do on their own property and when is it not okay?

dksuddeth

see, this is one of the strawmen i'm talking about. you want to equate discrimination laws or commerce laws with the right of patronizing a business based on personal preferences. it's apples and anal lube comparison.

---------- Post added at 08:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

when doing so would violate the rights of others, like not murdering someone on their property, but NOT mandating that someone patronize their business because we made it non smoking for you. It's like making bars alcohol free because people want to go there, but not be around alcohol.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Baraka_Guru

Um, how?

You like to say things...confusing or obscure things, but you fail to demonstrate or explain yourself. You've done this many times in this thread now.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

dippin

First, second hand smoke is an issue that there is no parallel in alcohol.
Second, we already outlaw drunk driving regardless of where the drinking takes place.
Third, there are several dry counties around the country already, so the parable there doesn't make sense.


I'm not arguing that bars SHOULD ban smoking. I'm merely pointing out that it is not unprecedented nor extreme. In fact, given the public health aspect of it, banning indoor smoking in bars and restaurants is a lot more understandable than banning private consumption of illegal drugs, age restrictions on drinking, and so on.

pan6467

I think in terms of smoking yes. Hell, Ohio set its minimum wage by vote of the people. I think in terms of personal freedoms it should be 100% up to the population and NOT legislature.

some personal freedoms to me are:

Gun laws

Abortion laws

Smoking laws

Laws such as labor (protecting the rights of workers), chemicals and food additives, transportation etc (safety of the consumer) those are up to legislature.

Legislature is to protect the people as a whole. Other than that moral laws and laws affecting personal rights should be left up to the voters in that community since they are the ones living there and not the politicians, who live in Columbus or DC and visit when it suits them.

__________________
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?"

Baraka_Guru

I think if second-hand smoke were found to be harmless, this would be a completely different issue.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Derwood

if Ohioans got to vote on abortion, it would be illegal.

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

FoolThemAll

Well, sure. I mean, you can't kill someone just because they're on your property, right?

Or is this the happy fun point where we drop that line of argument because it suddenly suits us to do so?

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

filtherton

Would it be a violation of someone's rights to murder or assault them on your property if you told them in advance you were going to do it? If they could choose between coming to your property and getting maimed and/or murdered or staying off your property and avoiding your wrath? Yes, it would be a violation of their rights. My right to be alive doesn't end when I step onto your property, even if I have a reasonable expectation that you're going to kill me.

How about this: what if, instead of outright murdering/assaulting someone on your property, you hired them, and then over a period of several years you exposed them to constant elevated levels of substance known to cause several types of cancer and heart disease. And then, what if this chronic exposure resulted in debilitating or terminal health problems? Would that violate their rights? I think it would.

Criticisms of smoking bans are often directed at the patrons, when really the focus should be on the employees. The belief that employers should provide a working environment which isn't likely to cause chronic health problems and/or death in their employees is pretty well established. You can call it totalitarianism if you like.

SecretMethod70

Or, how about we allow unregulated use of asbestos, so long as there's a sign "this building contains asbestos." It's our choice to enter the building or work the job after all.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

The_Dunedan

I don't grok this argument at all.

The principle seems to be that Government edict (aka force) should be used to protect people from the consequences of knowingly making what could be unhealthy decisions; ie the decision to eat and drink in a place where people smoke. The argument seems to be that people are somehow -forced- to enter smoke-friendly businesses, forced to spend their money there, forced to inhale the smoke, and forced to come back.

Duh: if you don't want to be in a smoky bar, just don't go into one. Find a non-smoking establishment and patonise them instead. If allowing smoking becomes unprofitable, guess what? The landlord will either ban smoking or go out of business, so the "problem" is peacefully solved!

It is not the Govt's job to protect people from their own stupidity, and knowingly going into an area you believe to be dangerous can be pretty damned stupid. I'm reminded of a person who knows Tigers to be enormous man-killing superpredators, yet sneaks into the zoo after-hours, climbs into the Tiger enclosure, and gets eaten. In sane countries and societies, that person would be grieved for, their family would be pitied...but duh! They climbed into a Tiger enclosure! To bad, so sad, sorry dude life's a bitch and so is a pissed-off 600lb stripey killing machine who's territory you've just invaded. Only in the 21st-Century West are we idiotic enough to entertain the notion that such a person's death is anyone's fault but their own.

How is it anybody's fault but -mine- if I choose to go into smoky bars and get lung cancer as a result? Hello people, we've had warnings on the damned cigarette packs for close to 50 years now. EVERYBODY knows that smoke is bad for you. It's one of those inescapable facts of modern life. If a person, fully cognizant of these facts, makes the informed decision to expose themself to what they have every reason to believe could be a toxic substance...they have no more right to bitch than does the moron who breaks into the Tiger pit, or the idiot who breaks into the home of a known drug-dealer, or the putz who decides to try robbing a pit-bull breeder.

There's a reason we all love the Darwin Awards, people, and it's because we all love watching evolution catch up to somebody who really and truly had it coming.

SecretMethod70

If only abortion were even remotely that simple, you might have a point.

---------- Post added at 07:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 AM ----------

It's pretty interesting how no one has bothered to explain how this is any different than other public health regulations. The general argument seems to be, "you know the risks, and it's on private property, so whatever happens is your own damn fault." We have yet to see anyone explain why this is different from, say, a bar that charges a finger for all you can drink. It's a private business, they're only taking one finger, and you have the choice to patronize the establishment... why should it be illegal? Yes, Dunedan, someone who goes to such an establishment if it were legal is deserving of ridicule, but that doesn't mean it should be legal.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

The_Dunedan

An excellent question. Since there is no Victim (cannot be a Victim when a person gives informed consent), how can there be a Crime? If a person thinks a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster is worth that finger, it's nobody's business but theirs and the barkeep's. Now, if the barkeep was chopping fingers off of people who had not been informed and had not given their consent, even if he -did- give them the very finest Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster in existence in return, then yes there has been a crime and the barkeep should be punished.

This kind of "logic" would mean that a piercing or tattoo parlour could be (should be, actually) prosecuted for several of the nastier flavours of Assault: after all, someone had a needle jabbed through their nose! Nevermind the fact that they paid the piercer to do it, they had a needle jabbed through their nose! It's illegal to poke people with needles, therefore the piercing was a crime! Please.

It's all about consent, people. If informed consent is freely given, there is no crime because there is no victim.

SecretMethod70

The point, Dunedan, is that most of us recognize that life is not so plainly black and white. We, as a society, recognize that it's one thing to stretch a hole in a consenting client's ear, and it's another to run a business establishment that charges fingers for its goods. The concept of regulations for public health is nothing new, and smoking bans are no different.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Charlatan

Smoking bans are not all about the patrons either. They are also about workplace safety.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

The_Dunedan

What's this "we" shit? I didn't agree to recognise any such thing. Besides which, groups (like "society") cannot recognise things any more than they can give birth. Individuals recognise things and act accordingly, individuals have rights and the obligation to safeguard them. The notion that a group has rights exists only so that those who are members of the majority may impose their will by force upon those who are in the minority: back in the day, people were honest about this and just made like Mongols. Nowadays people want to feel like they're being -nice- to the people they're oppressing and ordering around and killing if they rebel, so it's "for your own good." Meanwhile, the people being oppressed and ordered around resent the fact that they're being treated like oversized children or inmates at a Bureau Of Indian Affairs school.

How? In both cases, the body of a consenting party is traumatised with that person's consent.

Neither is the concept of executing homosexuals. Simply because something is old does not mean that it is correct.

Duh: if you don't want to work in a smoky bar, don't. Make like an adult and work someplace else, instead of crying for Mommy to -make- Timmy play the way you want.

Charlatan

Suffice it to say, I will just have to agree to disagree with you, D.

I believe we as a collective, do have the right to limit the actions of individuals within our communities. I find the US penchant for individualism quite contrary to my world view. Kind of makes me glad I am not an American.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

The_Dunedan

Agreed.

Since I do not believe in the moral or practical authority of collectives, I suppose we can file this in "agree to disagree."

A question: what is it about individualism which disturbs you? Nobody ever said that individualists don't believe in charity, or helping others, or any of those other community-strengthening values: I simply don't believe in being -forced- to partake, or in being -forced- to live according to what is popular among my neighbors. What about this do you find disturbing?

dc_dux

How far should those individual rights extend?

Should you have a right to operate an eating establishment w/o meeting food service health and safety standards?

Should you have a right to determine who can and cannot eat in your establishment?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

filtherton

The point is that easily preventable exposure to harmful chemicals should not be a condition of employment. It's not a matter of being a baby (not sure why people who are concerned about workplace toxic chemical exposures are babies). This assumes that it is easy to just go get another job, which isn't true at all.

It also ignores the fact (or it's maybe just unsympathetic) that if this "if you don't like it, go work somewhere else, baby" attitude were general policy, occupational injuries and deaths would likely shoot towards industrial revolution levels (but hey, at least business people wouldn't be unduly burdened by their employees' selfish, and apparently childish, desire to live long healthy lives).

pan6467

If I have posted "PRIVATE PROPERTY/NO TRESPASSING, TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT" signs on my property and it is fenced. Then you chose to ignore those and came on anyway. Then I could legally shoot you (depending on state and jurisdiction). I have the signs warning you and the right to protect my property. You violated the signs, knowing the possible consequences for such action. Now, if I chase you off my property and shoot you AFTER you have left then I can be arrested.

http://recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/1057.pdf



If I informed you that you will be working around asbestos and provided you with ample protection and you continued to work there, it would be your fault.

The simple solution is to put smoking workers in the smoking sections, non smokers in the non smoking sections.

Also, if you know the risks and continue to work there, then it would be on you.

I would like to see 1 case where they proved a non smoker died from lung cancer due to working in a bar that allowed smoking. Or where a non smoker suffered serious health issues from working in a bar.

Now if we share an office and you sit there and chain smoke for 20 years and the ventilation is bad, then I can see the argument.

Somewhere, PERSONAL responsibility has to be considered. I am tired of people expecting government to protect them for LEGAL activities.

If non smoking laws ends up closing a lot of bars and bowling alleys (which it has done), then in reality people have lost jobs. I'm sorry, I would rather have a job around smokers than no job at all. I can eventually find a job in a non smoking establishment, if I so desire.

My feeling to handle this "worker safety" issue is to have the smoking section either staffed solely with smokers or people who have signed waivers, or nor have service in that area. A room designated for smoking. Thus, the owner still has a right to decide if he wants smoking and the patrons and workers have the right to be around it or not.

__________________
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?"

dc_dux

Second hand smoke is a health risk. period.

You might find these studies interesting:
IMO, the "payoff" is good public policy...and in the long term, the cost issue you cited initially becomes far less relevant.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

pan6467

From the point where your property begins to the point it ends.

This is proven over and over to be a myth. Places fail their inspections all the time and stay open. It is the consumer that decides.

If I know a place has several health code violations, I won't eat there. I can go elsewhere. No one forces me to eat there.

If I get sick and can prove that it was negligence, then I can take the case to a CIVIL lawyer and sue.

Other than fining and making public records that restaurant "A" does not meet codes, it is not government's responsibility.

I am all for protecting the consumer, but we have taken it too far. There comes a point where people need to think for themselves and investigate/educate themselves on their choices. We cannot keep expecting government to do it for us. That just leads to rights being called "privileges" and being taken away. When this happens we are no longer a free society with personal consequences for our choices, we become a society with no choices thus no consequences to learn and grow from.

We become reliant solely on what government dictates to us as being right and wrong and we have no freewill.

Sorry. I'll accept personal consequences for my actions, rather than have government dictate to me my actions.

Yes, it is called a sign that says "management reserves the right to service".

It is not a criminal case but a civil law point.

If I own a restaurant and decide not to serve people who like Country music, having a sign posted and you come in wearing a Tim McGraw t-shirt. I can refuse you service. I don't have to have a reason to refuse you service.

It then becomes a public issue. If the public says, "Pan, you are an idiot and we are not going to give you business because you discriminate." Then, my wallet is affected and I go out of business for MY PERSONAL CHOICE. Consequence to my actions.

Now should government have the right to come in and dictate to me that I must serve people who like country music? NO. IT IS NOT THEIR BUSINESS TO TELL ME WHO TO SERVE.

If you want to use this and coma at me with "civil rights" go ahead. But again, I believe a "PRIVATELY OWNED" business has the right to serve whoever they wish and to not serve whoever they wish and the public can decide whether that place should stay open or not.

__________________
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?"

dc_dux

Do you have data that would suggest that inspections laws dont work. Anecdotal examples are the myth.

And you may support discrimination, but I dont. There are limits to individual rights.....and always have been.

There is a reason why you wont find a democratic country anywhere in the world with such unlimited individual rights.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Baraka_Guru

See, the thing is, you already are. Restaurants already have other regulations that "force" them to run their business a certain way. There are regulations on food handling, serving alcohol, and how the establishment itself is setup and run. To a restaurant, a smoking bylaw is something added, not something out of the blue tacked onto their free-for-all way of doing business.

Other business types have regulations too. The fact that one isn't allowed to smoke in hospitals isn't so far fetched, is it? Well, bans on places like restaurants are based on the same principles.

That there are people who wish they can have a meal without worrying about the party of six next to them all sparking up just as they're getting started on their entrees is merely one aspect of the issue.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

The_Dunedan

Of course. And other people should be aware enough of the conditions in your establishment to know not to go there, or (having traveled outside the US, Canada, or Western Europe and come out just fine) see for themselves and perhaps not mind. If the cleanliness of your facilities acquires a suitably bad reputation, people will stop going. It's just that simple; I watched it happen to a restaurant in my old university town. Only dedicated vegetarian joint in a town full of hippies and fad-conscious sorority girls, and it got such a grody reputation that they simply went under. I understand they've reopened after considerable renovation and cleanup, but under new management.

Likewise, a barkeep or restaurateur, at least at the ownership level, should be able to decide who eats and drinks there. Some pubs in Prague had perfectly blunt, entirely reasonable rules against British "stag" parties, and would often simply refuse service to Englishmen, or people wearing football jerseys, or people wearing English football jerseys, because they simply didn't want the trouble. If the owner of such a place makes a rule about whom he wants to let in his/her front door, that's his/her business only.

Contrariwise, if the owner is known to be, for instance, a racist asshole, nobody is forcing anyone to give him/her their business. Boycotts over racism are still capable of being quite powerful; ask Fujifilm. If somebody tried that in virtually any town or city containing a State university and most private institutions, their establishment would be the subject of so much public antipathy that it would quickly shut them down. Small towns may be different, but given that much of the public rejects this sort of blatant discrimination I can't see such a place doing well. However, a heavy-metal bar and a hip-hop joint are going to attract two different crowds, which shouldn't be mistaken for racism or discrimination, and metalheads who head into hip-hop bars or vice-versa can expect at best a surprised reception.

Freedom of association and of dis-association are two sides of the same coin, just as are the equal rights to arm and disarm onesself, to speak in your own defense or to be silent in same, to enter into contracts and sue when you are defrauded, to have a lawyer or to represent yourself, etc etc.

As for not working in hazardous conditions; what the blue hell do you think a strike is? How long could a place of employment stay open in today's information-driven age if it was unreasonably unsafe and people exercised their right not to work there, and put the word out the way they did about -good- jobs?* It's not infantile to go work someplace else, it's -power-. It's use of individual power, sometimes by large groups of individuals all of whom have made the same informed decision, to create change. If a place is unsafe or unclean, people's use of their right to disassociate can result in that business failing. In today's developed world, people really do demand certain levels of service and safety and cleanliness, and market conditions simply won't support (in an un-distorted economy) a business that doesn't meet those standards. Bringing in an outside force to -make- someone do things your way in their own place of business, on the other hand, -is- infantile. It is equally infantile whether it is practiced by moralists, redistributionists, corporations, unions, or whiny busybodies.



*A notable exception to this is the illegal agricultural slavery of illegal immigrants which still takes place in parts of the US and Mexico. Prevented from exercising their right of dis-association, these people and their conditions are a notable exception to this rule. It would be fully within these people's rights to revolt by violence if prevented from leaving their place of employment to search for something better.

Derwood

Pan, I disagree with several of your points. I'm pretty sure you CAN'T open a restaurant and post a sign saying "no blacks allowed".

Also, your idea of "personal responsibility" in studying businesses is rather naive. The current regulations are in place so that a customer can enter a restaurant or business with the reasonable belief that the products sold and the shopping environment are safe and legal. I'm not sure why you push so hard to absolve the business owners of their illegal activities while blaming the customers for not doing some sort of due diligence in their patronage of the stores.

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

filtherton

While it may be true in some places, it is not generally true that you can kill someone for coming onto your property even if you told them that you would before hand. Also, are there any places where you can torture someone for coming onto your property if you told them you would beforehand? Are there any places where you can steal someone's wallet for coming onto your property if you told them you would beforehand? Informed consent doesn't absolve someone of the obligation to recognize the rights of others. Otherwise I could buy a 100 square foot plot of land, post signs that I reserve the right to do whatever I want on my property and I would be able to completely strip the rights of everyone who came near me.

Workers in smoking allowed establishments aren't provided with any protection at all. While some employers would no doubt voluntarily provide personal protection equipment to abestos-exposed workers, for many of them, the only reason that personal protection equipment is used in conjunction with asbestos is that the state coerces them.

Right, but then you'd have to hire people based on whether they smoke or not to ensure you had enough workers for each section. And then a person's employment might end up being contingent on them not quitting smoking. It seems like the solution is worse than the problem.

Ultimately, it would, but that wouldn't make it just. Coal miners pretty well know the risk of black lung and collapses, but that doesn't mean that the coal mine owners should have zero obligation with respect to safety equipment.

These statements are inconsistent. You'd need to see proof in the first instance but not the second? Did you know that hospitalizations for acute myocardial infarction frequently drop following the implementation of a smoking ban?

Why don't these people just get new jobs? It's so easy for employees who don't want to get exposed to secondhand smoke to do, why can't the people displaced by the bans do it too?

I don't think this makes sense. You don't think government should step in, but clearly your solution would require the coercive force of government to be enforced.

Furthermore, people should expect the government to protect them from legal and illegal activities- that's ostensibly what the government exists to do. Driving is legal, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't regulate who gets to do it. Disposing of toxic waste is legal, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't regulate how it's done.

dc_dux

If the law prohibited smoking is applied to ALL such establishments, why is the closing of one (or some) due to the law and not other factors that make those particular establishments less competitive?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Derwood

to get back to the original topic, I feel like the "will" of an often ignorant majority should not trump reason or common sense in the application of said majority's "will"

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

dksuddeth

so you are basically saying that sometimes the majority of people are just shit stupid and that's why they need elected representatives to just do what you feel is right.

did you vote for pelosi? she basically said the same thing yesterday.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dippin

Funny that you of all people would say this. So you think any simple majority should be able to vote rights away?

silent_jay

Wonder if pan's ever heard of Heather Crowe, perhaps he should look her up for this proof he seeks, she worked 40 years in a bar, never smoked in her life, and guess what she died of?
Heather Crowe - Google Search
or here:
http://www.smoke-free.ca/heathercrowe/FAQ.htm

Derwood

I don't live in San Francisco or California, so no, I didn't vote for Pelosi

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

dksuddeth

I'm wondering where you got this perception. there is probably one other person on here that cares as little about majority rule as I do.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

dippin

Maybe it was your reaction to Derwood's post on how the will of the majority should not trump reason or common sense...

Rekna

I think smoking bans in public places are great. I remember the way it was here before the smoking ban. The fact is that prior to the ban non-smoking bars did not exist. There was no such thing as a non-smoking bar and thus if we ever wanted to go out we had to go into bars that had a ton of smoke. To make matters worse all of these bars had poor ventilation (unlike big casinos in Vegas) and thus the smoke would build up and become intolerable. I am very sensitive to smoke, just being around someone smoking for a few minutes will give me a cough for the day, going to a bar where there is smoking would make me sick for a week. Now that there is a smoking ban bars are very pleasant.

If you want to smoke go ahead just don't do it around me.

The_Dunedan

So you're perfectly fine with the threat of violence being deployed against an owner of private property (the owned of the bars) to force them and their customers to bend to your preferences?

Interesting. I'd love to see what your reaction would be if a random guest to a party at your house shoved a pistol in your mouth in order to make you play their preferred music, or stop serving food who's smell they disliked.

Baraka_Guru

What are you going to suggest next, Dunedan? That we allow minors to buy cigarettes and alcohol?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Charlatan

What threat of violence are you talking about?

Since when are fines and court dates seen as violence?

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke