Bob is a family man.
Bob cares about children.
Bob loves all the little children of the world.
Bob hates smokers.
Bob wants to save the children from their evil, nasty, disgusting, children-abusing parents who smoke in the same car as them.
Bob has proposed fining anyone who is caught smoking in a car with children.
Bob is a fucking douchbag.
Look folks, I get it, smoking is bad for you. It is a vile, nasty potentially dangerous habit. I don’t smoke for that reason. HOWEVER, I do not begrudge others the choices they have made in their life concerning the legally sold and legally used products that our government taxes and makes a pretty penny on.
At what point does the personal privacy of an individual become more important than the talking points and political point scoring of politicians both local and national?
Jesus Christ, you fucking turn snurglar, thinking that Hillary Clinton is a viable Presidential candidate is a vile, nasty, potentially dangerous habit, but there is no fine for telling your children that.
Bob, pelase feel free to tell your children how bad smoking is. Tell them how dangerous is it. Good for you. But stay the fuck out of everyone else’s personal life.
So Bob, fuck you up the ass with Rosie O’Donnell’s “Spikey Twat Scrubber of a Million Suns” (in stores now).
Of all the many reasons to rag on a politician, this doesn’t rate much for me. A car is an extremely closed environment, and about the worst place for second-hand smoke to concentrate.
And I’m a smoker who dismisses a large number of second-hand smoke claims.
I have no strong opinion on this matter; but I think this argument is faulty because the children haven’t made a choice in this matter.
Yes yes, “who’ll think of the children” and all that, I’m not arguing this guy’s case. Unless there’s a scientific consensus about second hand smoke being harmful that I haven’t heard of yet, sounds like it’s a stupid proposal. But the “choice” argument against this proposal doesn’t seem valid to me, in this case.
I doubt your kitchen is as small and airtight as a car’s cabin.
But no, Bob doesn’t get to fine your mother in that circumstance. It still seems like a rather minor issue to get worked up over. Politicians do far worse than this every day.
But then this goes to the argument of parents smoking in their own home. Children did not make the choice to be born to smokers and therefore live with smokers until of sufficient age to move out and live independently. Do parents have a right to smoke in their own home, if they have children? At what point does the right of the smoker/parent come into play?
If we are proposing making tobacco illegal, that’s an entirely different argument. But tobacco, as of today, is a legal governmentally taxed product that US citizens are free to use or not use at their discretion. At what point do these centralized smoking bans in this area or that area become an infirngement on our personal liberties?
You haven’t been in my kitchen and, frankly, there is new option in most cars these days called a “window”. They come with a handle or button for acvtivating or de-activating, thus relasing taht air tight seal for the poor helpess children.
Depends on how harmful the second hand smoking is. Once that is determined, if it hasn’t been already determined, then that decision can be made.
If it turns out that second hand smoking is pretty harmful to developing lungs, I would have no trouble legally removing the parent’s right to smoke in their own home, if they have kids.
How harmful does it have to be before I feel it should override the parent’s right to smoke? I admit I do not know.
You don’t feel a person’s rights to do harmful activities is always more important that the health of kids in their house, do you? Surely you have a line somewhere? We likely only disagree where the line is drawn, and maybe not even there, since I’m not sure where that line is.
I’ve been in my own, which is a freakin’ closet. I doubt there are many kitchens in the world smaller than mine.
Excellent! I’ve a big fan of snark. Let me try some of my own: There’s a new option in the environment called “Winter.” It’s fucking freezing out there right now. And an open window in a moving car creates this thing called “wind chill.”
But this seems to me to be an argument for a total smoking ban, which is a different argument.
If we are gonna say that its ok to smoke, who gets to say where and when especially when it comes to personal space and private property? Why are my rights as a non-smoker so much more important than a smokers to the point that a smoker can’t decide for him or herself what to do within his or her private property or personal space?
Coats don’t normally cover a child’s face, and children, being confined to the back seat, get the brunt of the wind. Anyone who’s ever been in a back seat knows this.
I’ve always been ambivalent about smoking bans in bars and restaurants. Although i don’t smoke myself, and like eating and drinking in a smoke-free environment, i’m still uneasy about the bans in some ways.
But, for me at least, a car with kids in it is a no-brainer. It’s a very confined space, and the senses and the lungs of young children can be very sensitive. I think it’s better not to put kids in situations that could help to bring on asthma and other problems, especially when the situation is so easily avoided.
And, as someone who grew up with a parent who smoked in the car, i can categorically state that having the windows open does not guarantee that the smoke will exit the car.
As others have said, on the list of stupid and annoying things that politicians can do, this one rates somewhere down there with kissing babies and cutting ribbons.
Again, it completely depends on how harmful the second hand smoke is determined to be.
I ask you a second time - you don’t feel a person’s rights to do harmful activities is always more important that the health of kids in their house, do you? Surely you have a line somewhere?
I apologize, I thought that was a rhetorical question. Of course there is a line. However, I think there is a line somwhere between allowing your children to re-enact the Normandy Invasion with live ordinance and parents lighting up a cigarette while driving.
And I am totally missing this “there are more important things to rail on a politician for” when i see countless thread on the way Goerge Bush pronounces a word and pre-emptive pittings on things that a politician may or may not do in a given situation based on pre-conceived notions or a partisan poster may or may not say in a given situation.
IMHO, this is a real step forward (backward?) in the government’s invasion of our personal liberties and privacy. We are barking about government’s peeking into our phone and banking records because it invades our privacy, but the governmental justification is the same. Something COULD happen, so we are just taking measures to make sure it doesn’t happen or at least minimize the chances.
The same argument applies here. A person COULD suffer effects of second-hand smoke, so we are just taking measures to make sure it doesn’t happen or at least minimize the chances.
We bark about the government interfering in our personal sex lives. The fundy nutjobs currently running things could justify outlawing any sort of sexual act they deem aberrant by citing some trumped up study noting the rise and fall of sexually transmitted diseases. A person COULD suffer some sort of sexually transimitted diseases, so we are just taking measures to make sure it doesn’t happen or at least minimize the chances.
These may seem like strawman arguments, but as we have seen i nthe past eight years, give them an inch they take several parsecs.
We constantly say get out of my house when it comes to our financial and sex lives, but when it comes to smoking? Come on in… tell us exactly what we can do and under what circumstances, we’ve got more important things to worry about. Doesn’t make sense to me.
You only have to open the window about an inch, and hold the cigarette in your left hand, and the smoke disappears out the window. Try it sometime. You turn on the fan and crank the engine’s heat into the backseat, the litttle ones won’t even feel cold. I had three kids in car seats back in 1994, when it stayed below 0º F. for about a week.