No, I think it’s half an argument. The other half, which you’ve also ignored, is that even if they are rights, they’re rights subject to state regulation.
For all your incessant blathering about rights and your irrelevant references to same-sex marriage, you have yet to explain how this bill falls outside the already-existing power of the state of New Jersey to regulate both public smoking and driving.
Can you do that? Can you explain how this bill falls outside the power the state already has?
I wonder if this thread is dragging along simply because of semantic differences. I wonder if the thread title had been “Proposed NJ Legislation Would Snuff Driver Smoking Freedoms” whether we’d be having this discussion.
I actually find myself agreeing with Otto’s line of reasoning and conclusion that smoking, driving and smoking while driving aren’t technically rights. (BTW, I do both, often at the same time.)
But those things are freedoms. What I find offensive is the unnecessary restriction of freedom to do what I want as long as I’m not hurting others. And when I see someone trying to ban smoking in cars, ostensibly to prevent something less than 1 in 1,000 accidents, I get pissed.
So would it lead this thread toward resolution if we decided to refer to smoking in cars as a “freedom” rather than a “right?” Or should I just go back to lurking again?
Good lord, man, you’re all over the place. Never mind marriage since that one has you stumped, you’ve yet to explain how being in your own car is being in public. Is it because the car is on a public road? If so, then why not ban radios? Studies by the National Highway Safety Administration and the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center show that changing the radio station accounts for 11.4% of all driver distraction accidents. A radio is 1,200% more likely to cause an accident than a cigarette. The same study found that chattering with passengers is faulted in 10.9% of accidents. Why not limit each car to only the driver? If your only concern is power, then the state has power because it has guns. But what does that have to do with your rights?
Depends on how you define rights. If rights are merely permissions granted by the dick with the biggest rifle, then rights are whatever the state allows you to do. But if rights are attributes of property ownership, then the only legitimate power the state has is to protect them, not limit them.