Yeah. Remember the Reign of Terror that followed and how they kept switching governments every few years?
Marc
I was with that for a long time, Cosmo. As a tobacco addict and a guy who really likes a good dark, smoky bar, such laws have really screwed up my enjoyment of toxins. But I have seen some pretty strong evidence that second hand smoke can really fuck some people over. Hard to make sense of, but it simply must be that the level of exposure isn’t the prime point, probably some natural weakness, or like an allergy.
They’re right. I hate it, and wish they were wrong, but they’re not. And nobody should have to worry about getting another job, just because I want a cig with my beer.
Der Trihs referred to this as “the failure of competition to solve a problem,” describing the necessity of such laws. The “conservative” answer to the issue, of course, is simply that if the forces of the market have not availed to produce a solution, then clearly not enough people felt strongly enough that there was any problem to be solved. A neat tautology for the free market.
Now, I don’t necessarily agree with that stance, though I do deplore imposition on the rights of private property holders. I suppose this sort of regulation is in line with the general belief in our society that a business open to the public incurs some liability which justifies classifying it as something other than “private” property. I don’t think this is a fundamentally wrong idea taken in moderation, but, much like others think of the “laissez-faire” approach, I view it as an incomplete solution.
For one, it can create situations such as you find in places where smoking in bars is prohibited: surely now there is a market demand for good dark, smoky bars from people like elucidator, but the law (IMHO unfairly and short-sightedly) prevents the demand from being met.
Forgive me for bringing this up, since I don’t want to derail this thread into a gun debate, but I don’t think this example is particularly apt. I would say that the right to bear arms is no more in conflict with the right to not get shot than the right to tip back a beer is in conflict with the right to not be slugged by a violent drunk.
Waiter and waitress jobs where you don’t get exposed to tobacco smoke were, at least before anti-smoking laws. And no, I don’t buy the implication that waiters and waitresses are expendable subhumans. Their lives and health are just as valuable as yours.
The studies have been done; secondhand smoke IS bad for you. Including for waiters and waitresses.
There’s a rather large difference between what you do to yourself and what you inflict on others. Do you support the “right” to drive drunk as well ?
Now you’re being silly. I never indicated any such thing. I realize there are examples of workers being pressured into unhealthy situations. This is a pretty lousy one. My respect for waiters and waitresses extends to respecting thier intelligence. Did you know that waiters and waitresses smoke as well? Is it okay for smokers to work in a place that serves smokers?
Sure it is. So is too much sun and many other things. The question is how bad is it? How much smoke do you have to be exposed to for how long before it shifts from insignificant to any kind of significant danger. Do you know? I assume you don’t have anything like the example I asked for.
Do resturant owners force people to take the job in the first place? Are we inflicting hazards upon others by driving cars? They emit fumes that polute the air. Honestly DT I can’t understand why you insist on arguments of this nature.
It’s a question of balancing the rights of individuals who share a society and how far we go to impose our concepts of good and bad on people who don’t share them. Tobacco and alcohol have very little redeeming qualities. Should we just outlaw the production and sale of them completely because people shouldn’t make a product that is for the most part, bad for people?
As a non smoker I actually prefer a non smoking environment. I won’t won’t be demonstrating for smokers rights anytime soon.
I am aware that second hand smoke can be dangerous. That’s not in question. It’s a question about the balance of individual rights. Our right to choose for ourselves vs the effect of our choices on those around us. Should smokers have the right to choose to smoke at all since we haven’t found any real redeeming value to smoking? It’s a question of where the line is drawn isn’t it?
If you don’t smoke and smoke seems to really bother you then don’t seek employment at a smoky bar.
Here in TN the line of separation was restaurants vs bars {that might serve some munchies} I’m not clear on the exact details. I think it may mean that as smokers congregate in the joints that allow smoking the place is more dangerous than ever before, since they have fewer choices. I’ve been in smoky bars all my life as a non smoking musician. It usually doesn’t bother me. When we went in one recently it was like being hit in the face. Did we notice it more because we had gotten used to not being exposed or was the bar itself much worse because smokers have fewer choices? A little of both maybe.
One little place I frequent has dubbed the porch the smoking room. People come in, have a few beers and listen to music, then step outside for a cig. We’ll see what happens this winter.
But you are assuming that it’s easy to find employment at non-smoky bars. It’s already been suggested to you that, absent the smoking ban, such bars and such employment were hard if not impossible to find.
Why cosmo are you so invested in the individual right to smoke in a bar yet so non-invested in the individual right not to breathe in a harmful substance against one’s will. Isn’t the smoker still free to go outside for a smoke? And isn’t that an easier choice to make than a smoke-free job that might not exist? And if the person who smokes smokes a few less cigs as a result of the inconvenience is that such a greivous harm to individual liberty?
What you’re basically discussing here isn’t individual rights versus deprivation of individual rights since there are individual rights on both sides of the question. Rather, what’s actually going on is a utilitarian decision: the reasoning implicit in the law is that the ill-health caused by the smoke, especially for those breathing it in second hand (and thus against their will) is more important–a more serious injustice–than the inconvenience posed to those who now need to take their smokes elsewhere.
And I speak as an ex-social smoker living in a place with the ban and very happy indeed to be able to enjoy a bar without breathing in the ill-effects of someone else’s bad habit.
I didn’t realize that you had a ‘right’ to work in a bar. And that your ‘right’ to work in a bar can trample on the rights of the owner of that bar getting to decide who he wants to give his own money to.
Social status. A business owner’s profits and a customer’s convenience are regarded by many as being more important than the health or life of a mere employee.
But that’s not the issue here. The real question is: should it matter that it’s not easy to find work at a non-smoking bar? Free-market conservatives and libertarians generally say “definitely not - tough noodles,” while Liberals tend to argue the other direction.
It’s not against your will, since you presumably choose to be in the bar. If they’ve kidnapped you, and are forcing you to breathe in the smoke, that is of course another matter. 
Because “Free-market conservatives and libertarians” are sociopaths and predators.
Welcome to the real world, where there are other forms of coercion than guys waving pistols under your nose. Plenty of people work at a job they hate, or even one that cripples or kills them because of economic necessity. Claiming that economic coercion doesn’t count but violence does is simply a matter of defining the methods of coercion preferred by the wealthy and powerful away so you can pretend they don’t exist.
Well actually the owner of the bar has all sorts of obligations to his/her employees and customers. Do you dispute the owner’s obligation to meet fire safety laws? To meet health requirements if food and drink are being served on the premises?
If you don’t dispute these sensibile requirements (which may or may not be the case, of course) then why dispute the smoking ban?
After all, where’s the ‘right’ to produce harmful second-hand smoke in a crowded place?
I agree with your characterization aof what people tend to think–though I don’t agree that employees are the only ones who benefit from laws of this kind. All sorts of people (including the good friends of smokers) get stuck breathing in second-hand smoke (though it’s true that they’re less likely to be harmed by it since the exposure is less prolonged). With the ban in place everyone (even smokers!) get to enjoy a less harmful public space; fewer cigarettes are smoked; many lives are prolonged accordingly.
I’d go further still: the idea of smoking and drinking in a public space as a normal and perhaps even glamorous thing to do is implicitly questioned. As a result fewer people smoke, some smoke less, more consider quitting. Good and good and more good.
As to that smoker who wants a cigarette bad–go outside and smoke it or stay home and smoke it.
And that bar owner: just as free to operate his/her business within the bounds of the law as ever.
And (since so many here seem to think that the freedom to change one’s livelihood is so simple) just as free to sell the bar and open up an organic juice stand instead. 
No, but then the very same logic applies to the bar owner and smoker, doesn’t it?
Meh… this too will pass. Smoking ban last summer in all public places, including bars and restaurants, in the whole UK. People just went outside to smoke. In the rain. It’s not a question of personal liberty - people can still smoke, people can still buy cigarettes, even in bars and pubs which don’t allow smoking. They just can’t smoke indoors. The only thing that galls me is banning smoking on outdoor train platforms and inside of (open) bus shelters, as well as in company cars with single occupants. Simply ridiculous from a health perspective - there’s no way my second-hand smoke on an outdoor train platform or open bus shelter is anywhere near the health risk of a diesel engine in a train or bus coughing out fumes and carcinogens; likewise telling me my second-hand smoke in my company car with no-one else in it poses a health risk to other employees. I’d think the health risk was the thousands of other drivers and their cars.
As for freedom vs equality - I only disagree with the Liberal tendency to try to demand equality of outcome. If the process is free and fair, whether through government intervention or market forces, then the outcome should not be regulated. I do agree with most Liberals that without some government intervention, the process is neither free nor fair, for anything from jobs to homes to education to taxes, and further agree that without government protection the minority view will never be heard and certainly wouldn’t be protected, and I think Conservatives and free-market libertarians are pretty much out to lunch thinking the free market will result in free people when it clearly never did before, but I do agree that a free market and free capitalism under some level of government regulation does result in fairer competition and better service for consumers and better protection of labor.
I think the trick is finding a balance, which the US seems to be incapable of doing, wildly yawing from one extreme to the other based on which party is in power. And just to be Euro-centric for a minute, lots of European countries (excluding France and the Scandinavian countries) have a better knack at finding this balance than the US seems to.
Non Sequitur Society: We Don’t Make Sense, But We Do Like Pizza.
And soldiering jobs where you don’t risk getting exposed to enemy fire are, and remain, even scarcer. This does not imply that we consider American soldiers to be expendable subhumans. (Well, you keep saying that you hold that view, but you are an irrelevant outlier.)
I’m not assuming anything. I’m exploring the boundaries of personal liberty vs government interference.
I’m not so invested. It came up in the thread and IMO we’re spending too much time on a very minor issue. There are lots of jobs with long term hazords involved. Walking retail floors can cause ankle and knee problems. Years of secritarial work can result in carpal tunnel. Where is the line drawn for a big brother type government decides what is good for us?
As I said, I’m aware that second hand smoke is bad for us, but at some point we don’t want some appointed government board telling us what we are or aren’t allowed to do. Nobody here has posted any evidence that second hand smoke is so bad that it warrents this kind of infringement on the business owners rights. As a non smoker I prefer places without smoke but I am concerned about individual rights.
It seems a little silly to me that we defend a companies rights to manufactur a poisinous product, the individuals rights to poisen themselves, and then start to outlaw smoking in certain areas.
It’s about dictating to the business owner what kind of business he is allowed to have and to directly affect his income without his consent. If the business owner gets complaints about smoke he can choose to enforce his own no smoking rule.
I speak as someone who never smoked and have worked in smoky bars a bunch. We keep having stricter laws about DUI. Perhaps we should consider prohibition again. It’s bound to save lives isn’t it?
Since the question was posed directly to me I’m going to call bullshit on this ridiculous statement.
I’ve been a mere employee for a lot of years and I am willing to take responsibility for my own choices without whining. If there was somewhere I really felt uncomfortable about working I took the steps needed to change my situation.
Ahhhhhh the voice of reason. How refreshing.