Another Banning Smoking Thread.

[bastiat]

Pax, before I answer your question, please answer mine. Does my 'right to breathe' equal yours? Do I have the right to demand that all plants that I'm allergic to be removed not only from public parks, but from private businesses as well?

If not, why does my right to breath not equal yours? Remember, I have a right to breathe. Prove that someone else has a right to put plants in public places that interfere with my right to breathe.

I'm waiting.

 

[jimpeel]

All we want ...

This is an issue that is near and dear to the hearts of the "All we want ..." crowd.

"All we want is a non-smoking area in the restaurant."

"All we want is a non-smoking area on the plane for domestic flights."

"All we want is non-smoking on all domestic flights."

"All we want is a non-smoking area in the airport terminal."

"All we want is a non-smoking area on the plane for international flights."

"All we want is non-smoking on all international flights."

"All we want is a non-smoking area in the workplace."

"All we want is to ban smoking in restaurants."

"All we want is to ban smoking in airport terminals."

"All we want is to ban smoking in the workplace."

"All we want is a non-smoking area at sporting events."

This is incrementalism at its best. They take your rights incrementally.

"All we want is to ban some firearms."

"All we want is to ban some people from having firearms."

GET THE PICTURE?

 

[Betty]

Like I said in the other smoking thread, I'm an avid non-smoker and smoke makes me nauseus and sneeze. Sometimes I've gotten so dizzy I would almost pass out.

For me it's a matter of everyone getting along without stepping all over each other. You want to smoke? That's your business. Everyone please use common courtesy.

- Indoors - please try to keep smoking in some designated area for good etiquette - there *should* be adequate ventilation to keep all patrons happy. Now, if you have a mixed gaggle of smoking/non-smoking people... When we have an office party at a restaurant, the smokers all cluster at one end of the table and the non-smokers at the other. The smokers don't blow their smoke in our direction.

- No smoking allowed in my home or vehicle. My property, I have the say.

- Outdoors - outdoors is a big place for everyone. I won't stand downwind of you. Don't flick cig butts in my direction. Don't blow smoke in my direction.

- Other confined areas that we both have to deal with, like say, an elevator. Common courtesy would say "don't smoke here because this other person might not like it" - like not cranking up your stereo so loud that it permeates the walls into your neighbor's apartment. If you still smoke, even after I politely ask you not to because I'll get sick, I reserve the right to sneeze my snot out all over you. You biohazard me, I biohazard you.

 

[Futo Inu]

Public places, as in paid for with tax dollars, yes - but that's just me. Private restaurants and clubs (sometimes referred to as "public places") - absolutely not - let the free market decide....

JimPeel, as I've pointed out on several occasion, the comparison is flawed - apples and oranges. When I carry my gun in a county building, for example, I'm not harming you in the least - smoke in a public building IS in fact, harming me (albeit in a cumulative way). No constitutional right either. Apples and celery more like it.

 

[nualle]

bastiat, pax did answer you.

No one is waving those plants around, to increase the chances that you will have to breathe them. Nor is anyone claiming a 'right' to blow the pollens into your face as you walk past.

Those plants are not self-motive, as smokers are. Therefore, you can reasonably avoid them. If there is one in a path that you must walk (say, by the door of your workplace), then you are free to ask the owner of the workplace to remove the plant and initiate further action, on the basis of your medical condition, should he refuse.

Nonsmokers already go out of their way -- sometimes way out of their way -- to avoid where smoking is predictable. Those actions are not enough. Your arguments essentially relegate smokers to their homes, for the sake of your "pursuit of happiness."

Sorry. Life trumps "pursuit of happiness," especially when that pursuit involves affecting people who did not volunteer to be affected. If you did that with your hand, it would be assault. Explain to me how it is any different when you do it with a carcinogenic gas.

 

[Stetson_CO]

I guess I'm different.

When I go to the casinos I ask anyone sitting next to me if they mind if I smoke.

I become the obnoxious smoker when someone DEMANDS I don't smoke around them. It comes down to manners. You don't want me to smoke near you, ask me nicely.

But if I am in a public park, sitting there, enjoying the weather and my cigarette, and you are coming down the path and walk near me and happen to breathe smoke, is that my problem, or yours. If your situational awareness is so bad that you don't see me smoking, why is that my problem?

It it common courtesy on both sides. Anti-smokers demand that their rights trump all others and smokers, Im projecting here, just like some common courtesy. Instead of being maligned and treated as if they are some sort pariah.


c):{

 

[pax]

Everyone is still assuming that they have a "right" to smoke at all, let alone to smoke in public.

Do you have such a right?

Please walk me through the steps. I'm more than willing to be pursuaded...

pax

 

[Santino]

PAX?

I wonder how many others there are like you?........that are so vulnerable.
Yea............. I said Vulnerable.........not to make fun of your condition or anything like that because I'll take your word that it must be terrible and I would not want to be in your shoes.

You must really think you are important......in fact more important than the rest of us because ....I FEEL that people like you ,a very small minority that are willing to ask the GOVT to step in and fight you battles for you with legislation are a GREAT danger to the AMERICAN way.

I really mean that with all my heart.........You must think I'm crazy
but I think you're inability to make adjustments is pathetic!

YES .....Pathetic............. would you really ask Uncle Sam to make smoking in the outdoors Illegal?

Holy Smokes!.............Your challenges about your right to breathe are pathetic .........I will not even begin to make analogys but I will ask you this ..........what other senses would you like to ask the GOVT to make laws for SIGHT SMELL TOUCH HEARING TASTE how about the sixth sense?...............I could make endless analogys of how on a daily basis every one of my senses is offended at different levels...........sometimes to the point of physical suffering.Let's leave it up to the govt to fix the problems since they are so in tune with the people
Let's face it YOU HATE SMOKING ........AND YOU HAVE TUNNEL VISION

P.S. ...............YOU SCARE ME VERY MUCH

 

[Jeeper]

Santino,

That was a little overboard


When I started this post I was talking more about the outdoors in a general sense. The isolated smoker is not really a concern to me when I am walking down the street. What I do believe is an irritation is a large crowd outside a public building that I have to go to. Walking through a pack of 50 people smoking irritates me when they are in an area that others MUST go through. That is the type of public place I am most concerned with.


Bastiat
Your plant analogy is rather weak for a few reasons. First plants are not within a specific persons control. Second the occurences where someone is affected by plants or irritated by them is very small. This is opposed to smoking which irritates large numbers and is done by large numbers. Third, nature harming you is a lot different than another person harming you.

A better analogy would be thousands of people running around carrying poison ivy and shoving it in peoples faces.


I want to hear some responses about situations where large numbers of people MUST walk through areas where a lot of smokers are. (On public property of course)

 

[Santino]

OVERBOARD?..........for the sake of peace I'll respect your wishes and tone it down but I think the real issue remains to be seen.

What real issue?.............The affect of these laws in the future.

P.S...........Pax still scares me

 

[Jeeper]

cant we all just get along???

 

[Santino]

Sure let's go to a bar and have a drink and a smoke and talk about guns.

 

[Torquemada]

I want to hear some responses about situations where large numbers of people MUST walk through areas where a lot of smokers are. (On public property of course)

Why, that would be the smoking room, if smokers are lucky enough to have one. Think of all the secondhand smoke they are forced to breathe! :barf:

Smokers, as a whole, usually congregate where there's an ashtray. Ashtrays are usually at the entrances of buildings. If there's no seperate smoking area provided, then those smokers are going to be at the entrance .

Of course, those same ashtrays are overflowing with cans and bottles and food wrappers from non-smokers who think it's a garbage can, but I digress...

OK, I fully support a ban on smoking outdoors and indoors, as well as cars and homes, in case a non-smoker needs a ride or has to visit. Cigarettes will still be legal to purchase, I just won't be able to smoke anywhere.

First plants are not within a specific persons control.

But perfume, body odor, beans, pressed-wood furniture, sealed buildings that cause mold development are. Ban them all.

Second the occurences where someone is affected by plants or irritated by them is very small.

Irrelevant. If breathing is an inalienable right as you have said, then if it affects just one person you must ban all plants that cause reactions....perhaps through judicious use of Agent Orange

Third, nature harming you is a lot different than another person harming you.

Yes, you can't class-action Nature and she doesn't care if you protest otherwise. Ban nature.

 

[Jeeper]

Sure let's go to a bar and have a drink and a smoke and talk about guns.

Saw that coming a mile away

 

[Mike Irwin]

whoops, double tap.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Pax,

When you say public places, are you saying indoors/facilities, or are you saying on the street, in parks, etc.

If indoors or public facilities, yes, I'd say that smoking can be either curtailed or banned.

However, on public streets, in public parks, or other open areas, no, I don't think that it can be banned, and the courts also haven't agreed with the few bans that municipalities have tried to enact.

You're trying to say that people don't have the "right" to smoke.

What makes you think that there isn't a right to do so?

You're asking people who smoke to justify it.

Well, let's here your justification to say that I don't have the right to smoke.

The product is legal, and the producers are subsidized by the government.

No different than sugar, corn, wheat, meat, etc. Tobacco is a commodity.

Public property is just that. Property held for, and available for the use of, everyone.

Why do you feel that you have the "right" to breathe in public places? Where is that "right" written down?

 

[CyberGOP]

Hey Pax , can you prove that I don't have the right to smoke ? That's what the question should be . While we are on the topic , I also don't believe that the government has the right to mandate that a private institution have a non-smoking section , it should be the choice of the owner , not some bereaucrat . By the way , I don't smoke .

 

[Mike Irwin]

" do you have a right to pursue happiness at the expense of someone else's
right to pursue happiness? Sure, smoking on the public park bench makes you happy, but if I walk by and get a
whiff of it, I'm not gonna be very happy."

Your displeasure is momentary and transient, at best, in such a situation.

Courts have consistently found that transient, momentary annoyances of this type generally do not qualify for injunctive relief.

Why?

Because the range of what people find to be annoying, as opposed to actually injurious, would largely require reduction of the human race down to 1 person per every 100 square miles of land.

In other words, in the great balancing at of rights, your 3 seconds of discomfort is considered to be of much lesser importance than another person's inherent right to do something legal and enjoyable.

Now if that person were to follow you around during the day, constantly blowing smoke into your face, then you would have an actionable complaint against that person for harassment.

Level with us, though, Pax.

Are you constantly gagging in clouds of cigarette smoke?

I didn't start smoking until a few years ago.

Prior to that I was sensitive to the smell of it, but it didn't really bother me.

At the time I was living and recreating in Washington, DC, a densely populated area with LOTS of smokers. In fact, a VERY high proportion of smokers, due to the large number of immigrants and foreigners.

It was EXCEEDINGLY rare that I would notice cigarette, pipe, or cigar smoke on the wind.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Yep, incrementalism.

By the way, a few months ago a community in Maryland also tried to ban smoking IN PRIVATE RESIDENCES. Try that on for size.


Hey, guess what. The Second Amendment say you have the right to bear arms.

Looks like ammunition isn't covered.

Have fun with that empty gun.

 

[B9mmHP]

Joslyn Elders former U.S. Doktor General once said, everyone has too die of something.

I will stop smoking in public outdoor areas, when people quit wearing potty water and after shave lotion. That stuff makes me almost vomit when they are around me.

I will stop smoking in public outdoor areas, when people with bad breath quit telling me my smoke is killing them.

I will stop smoking in public outdoor areas, when people quit farting in public. That is more toxic than potty water and after shave.

Next time you see someone smoking in an open outdoor public area and you don`t like the smell, maybe you should just not walk to close or quit breathing as you pass by.

When someone that is allergic to potty water, bad breath and farts, can`t see the stink they are about to come in contact with. It is too late and is exposed to this kind of pollution, you might consider then, before you go into a public indoor or outdoor area wearing potty water to cover your stench from not bathing or your bad breath and farts