Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Where did I say democracy would prevent Hitler? This whole thing has been about democracy being used to increase government control. Sounds like another strawman attack; put words I didn't say in my mouth and attack them, because that's easier.
So, the business owner should be able to refuse business because of a t-shirt. How about the color of their skin? Their religion? Their sexual preference? Gender? Is there anything at all that you think should be not be allowed to discriminate against for giving jobs, serving in stores or selling a house to? Was apartheid fine because the whites owned all the land and made all the rules?
And again, you're equivocating. Someone smoking, and you not wanting to go in because they are smoking, is not the same as refusing your business. They will gladly take their business. YOU are the one refusing. I understand the slippery slope you are trying to apply here, but it does not apply.
What you can't do is to pay other people to stand there while you smoked in their faces.
Actually, I can. That has been the standing law in most places during most of human history. It's only in a few exceptions that you have now carved out, via smoking ban, that that would be illegal. It's another strawman attack, though, as nobody is being forced to be employed by me. Don't want an abortion? Don't have one. Don't want to work with my smoke? Don't work here. It's very simple, and no, it's not the same as refusing someone based on their skin color.
I repeat: I have never been a proponent of forcing non-smokers to have to allow smoking on their own property. You, however, are a proponent of forcing smokers to not smoke on their own property. And no, I am not lying, despite your nonsensical paragraph trying to explain how I am lying when I say that. Is a place that plays hip-hop forcing you to listen to hip-hop? Is a Chinese restaurant forcing you to eat Chinese? You choose where you patronize. If anyone's the whiny pussy, it's you, whining to papa government to force people to run things your way. The smoker crowd was not doing that. They were no more forcing you to smoke than a Chinese restaurant is forcing you to eat Chinese. And stop the employee bullshit; everyone chooses where they patronize, and where they want to work at.
You are asserting that the right to poison others is more important than the right to work
More strawman bullshit. A bar is inherently poisoning their clientele by serving them alcohol. I live in a state where you can be terminated at will. No explanation has to be given. So guess what? Your ridiculous supposition is technically true! Bwahaha.
. Much like you implied that democracy would prevent Hitler when the truth is the opposite and Hitler came to power by being elected in a democracy.
I'm still trying to figure out where you pulled that out of. But you do love to, instead of copying and pasting what I said (like I did to you earlier, and you didn't acknowledge because it was a winning point), paraphrasing it as some form of weak intellectual arguing. It doesn't work.
In the end, it is you, not I, using force to force others. Smokers in a bar no more force you to breathe smoke than Chinese restaurants force you to eat Chinese. You can do what you want, but that's not enough, you have to compel others to your way. You lose for freedom, but it's okay because most people agree with you; just like the gay marriage ban, if you want to equivocate things.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Who is the government to decide that I can't hunt down humans on MY property with MY guns?
Please, enough with the slippery slope fallacies. It's amateur.
P.s. You should read 1984, if you actually didn't, though.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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My point is that it does not matter if I sound like someone else who is worse than me. That is a poor attempt at equivocating a strawman to attack, rather than attacking and discussing the actual issue. It is an intellectual dodge around answering questions you don't want to answer, because they may challenge your belief. You're starting to sound like a Christian or something.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Don't want gay marriage? Don't have one.
Don't like pornography? Don't buy it.
Don't like profanity on TV? Change the channel.
Don't want abortion? Don't have one.
Don't want smoking? Don't go where people smoke
It's very easy to live and let live. It doesn't require paragraphs of justification and excuses. It is, quite simply, that you life your life, and let other people live theirs. If they are doing something that makes it unacceptable for you to be there, leave.
You are psychotic if you think it's psychotic to tell other people what to do, simply because YOU don't like it.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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No, YOU lose. Public accommodations being desegregated has absolutely zero to do with smoking bans. "Black people are allowed here now" does not translate to "smokers are not". I am continually amazed at the hoops freedom-haters will go through to try to justify their freedom-hating as being okay because everyone is better off with the rules. It's striking me as being a very similar situation to fanatical religion.
AGAIN: Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to smoke. Everybody has the right to go wherever they want. This does not mean they have the right to force those places to accommodate their personal tastes. That is what choice, freedom, and the free market (for what it's worth) are supposed to do. If you don't like smoking -- start a business that doesn't allow smoking. NOBODY IS TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO -- though you are telling everybody else what to do. Enjoy the freedom that you have for being on the right side; the freedom to actually do what you want. For some people not fortunate enough to be on the right side, they don't get the freedom to do what they want. Gay marriage is a great example. And why was gay marriage never allowed? Because there was a time when it was thought to be far more harmful than smoking. So everyone got together and said, "Hey! Since we are the majority, we can force our choice down everyone else's throat."
You know the saying: "DON'T SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE? DON'T HAVE ONE!" and "DON'T SUPPORT ABORTION? DON'T HAVE ONE!"? That logic doesn't end with those two choices alone. Don't support smoking in bars? Don't attend one. And certainly don't work at one. Allow people to make their own choices, Mr. Government Lover. People like you make me realize why Republicans exist... And that makes me incredibly sad.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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So are you suggesting that businesses should not be able to ban dogs?
Also: Congratulations for making a pointless parallel. The poor non-smoker who wants to force smoking bar owners to stop; yes, their plight is the same as minorities who have faced discrimination at the color of their skin. Totally the same there. Anything you fill in that blank of yours, totally the same. Great parallel. You win at internet.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Wait, are we talking about private property that's a public space anymore?
Of course. Truly public property is run by the government and paid for by the taxpayers. Those are the only places where you actually have your constitutional rights. Every place else, you only have the rights given to you by the property owner. If you come to my house with a Republican t-shirt, I'm going to tell you to leave, and there's not jack shit you can do about it. And I could do the same thing if I was running a restaurant. (It wouldn't be smart for business though.) I hope you understand that's how it does and should work. Since most people tend to only respect rights they themselves exercise, I have to wonder on a personal level if you ever own property or thought of owning a business.
Or do you just change your argument every post because consistency would leave you proven wrong? Because I can't even keep track with the number of two-faced turnarounds you make
I truly have no clue what you're talking about. I've always been talking about the same things: Freedom to be left alone from government interference, and freedom of choice. Meanwhile, you've been whining that I'm not arguing with you correctly. I'm pretty much ignore those comments.
It's not about the freedom to poison yourself. Nothing I've said could be reasonably taken to indicate you don't have the right to poison yourself.
Yes, PLENTY of what you've said could reasonably be taken to indicate that. The little part where I purchase a bar so my friends (and other random people) can have a place and come drink and smoke, but then people like you tell me I'm not allowed to smoke on my own property. It is precisely the result of what you said. I'm sorry you cannot glean this yourself from your own statements.
Making shit up is not the best debate tactic.
I agree. When you stop trying that tactic, we'll come to a very swift resolution.
What, are you come kind of libertarian? You laud democracy as being the opposite of Hitler
I see you didn't listen to my "don't make shit up" advice very long. One whole sentence. Wow.
you are all for personal freedoms when you are anti-freedom for people
There you go again. I repeat: I have never been a proponent of forcing non-smokers to have to allow smoking on their own property. You, however, are a proponent of forcing smokers to not smoke on their own property. I have never advocated not allowing someone to do something legal on their own property. You are. So maybe you need to look in the mirror and reconsider who is the one for personal freedom here. Freedom has always been about allowing unpopular choices, and acts you don't agree with. Clearly this is too much for you.
P.S. Fuck Bob Barr.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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No, it doesn't fail on so many levels. You didn't even name a single level that it failed on. You simply used the nebulous, vague, broad "vested interest" stroke, which is about the same as when the government claims things are in "national security". That is, it's a made-up term used to justify anything someone subjectively wants. If I actually ask you "which interest", your answers will be met with responses we've already talked about. Employee health? Already address by OSHA. You lose.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Indeed, the current system is almost feudal to me. Having to ask permission to engage in free commerce in a country that supposedly supports freedom? They are literally ticketing children with lemonade stands and Church bake sales for not following business rules. I'm glad you are at least logically consistent in your belief that the many should be able to tyrannize the one. Personally, I would go for a licensed contractor, but I would fight for the freedom for people to choose unlicensed contractors just as well. Similarly, while I support business licenses, I don't believe the government should have the rights it currently has in shutting down anything it doesn't like.
And if you need a list of said abuses... I can provide many.
But hey, it's all okay if YOU get your way, right? Fuck that 1% who may have a different method of doing things. Like those people who want that disgusting raw milk that hasn't been pasteurized. The cops went on them too.
So yes, your assessment is correct when you paint it with such broad strokes. I still think it is not the situation that grants the most freedom of choice to the most people, however, and find this all very contrary to "live and let live".
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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And for further clarification, yes, if they banned smoking outright, I'd go on a rant about it. In fact, a country in Asia just instituted a country-wide ban, and I ranted on it on my blog. You are dead correct. The government telling people what to do with their own bodies is wrong, and the drug war -- all drugs -- is wrong too. Nevermind the fact that even if it was right, it's not practical, has failed, and always will. Prohibitions of physical objects just don't work very well; especially when people want them.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Oh I would, but my point is more along the lines of - If you want an activity to be banned, then be honest and ask for a true prohibition of it. Don't do the "slowly chip away" strategy where you instead selectively enforce it [first workplaces, then parks and beaches, slowly chipping away]. It's just kind of assholey and dishonest. Most of the reasoning most people support this is because they don't want it, not because they think the government should be able to tell them what to do. Owners of actual establishments are a very small minority, and easy to pick on because the public, essentially, can say, "You can't smoke on your own property, haha f.u."
What does Jim-Crow have to do with that? You have piqued my intellectual curiosity.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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I don't realize it, and I don't sound like that. Trying to equate a person with anti-semitism or racism is an ad hominem attack, and a sign of someone losing a debate and not having valid points to make.
Besides, many establishments don't allow dogs.
My private property doesn't become yours to run once I open my doors to you. It's still mine. I still own it, pay mortgage and taxes on it. It is mine. It is not public property owned by the government and public taxpayers.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Tsk, tsk, tsk, AKMarc. You need to slow down and think before responding. Now it's just getting sad.
"Second hand smoke is poison. You can't poison people on your private property."
Actually, I have every right to smoke on private property, and I have every right to "poison" whoever else is in my house. I OWN IT, and I can do what I want with it. You have now progressed from making decent (but incorrect and obvious) arguments to simply "making shit up".
ALCOHOL IS A POISON TOO. Alcohol kills more people than all illegal drugs combined, even not counting drunk driving. But I can drink it, and serve it to guests in my house AND my bar.
Making shit up is not the best debate tactic.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Without a smoking ban, what happens when all bars in an area decide they can attract more paying customers by allowing smoking than by promoting their clean air? That's tyranny of the majority. Compare what happened in the Jim Crow era, where businesses decided they could attract more business by promoting a "colored-free" environment to white customers than by welcoming all customers.
I'm very sorry, but your attempt to equate it with colored-free environments is simply not valid morally or legally. Legally, the antidiscrimination amendment only protects specific groups of people. Non-smokers is not one of them. Morally, however, you can: 1) Not go to a bar. 2) BUY YOUR OWN BAR AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH IT. That's the thing. Nobody is forcing you to smoke, but you are trying to force others not to. The only one forcing anyone is you, not us. You are not forced to attend bars. I am not forced to go to a church. Someone preaching a religion that I find harmful can go about doing whatever they want -- I simply wont go to their church.
By the way, almost every bar in New Orleans just decided to go smoke free, voluntarily, without any ban. Of course, some may decide not to. THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF FREEDOM: Nobody is forcing you to do anything. By walking into a bar and declaring that you have a right to tell them how to run the place (via petitioning your government), you are forcing people to do something. You are the one using the force of the government, police, and guns, to tell free people that they cannot practice their kind of freedom simply because they don't agree with it.
Are you against the Fred Phelps protestors too? They have a right to say whatever they want on public property. I may think the world would be a better place if they whould all spontaneously drop dead, but I'm not going to petition my government to control their speech (on public OR private property) because I can simply NOT LISTEN.
Please. Stop and think about what it means to be free. Nobody is forcing YOUR PROPERTY to have smokers smoking on it. If they did, you'd be screaming bloody murder. So would I! Nobody tells me what to do with my own property! But apparently it's okay to tell others what to do with their own property IF you like it, and can make up enough reasons. But in the end, YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO VISIT MY BAR. Non-smokers who want to visit my bar are not protected by the constitution. Black people who want to visit my bar are, however, protected from being discriminated by race. And honestly, people like you make me question whether that was the right decision. Not because I think minorities shouldn't be protected, but because it opens the door for a slippery slope of ever-increasing government intervention.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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They don't, and they never will,so it's a hypothetical strawman you are building up.
However, if all employers do something you don't like, that's too bad for you. See also: Drug tests.
But actually, not all jobs entail being in an enclosed space, so even if everyone on the planet smoked but you, you could still find a job that did not expose you to smoke. I suggest something where you aren't around people. There are tons of jobs like that.
But yea, bringing up a non-issue can be interesting, but I don't think it really furthers the discussion about personal property freedom here.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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"Taking two legal things and combining them doesn't always result in a legal result."
That would be a great argument if the reason that I thought those things should be legal in combination was strictly because I was combining two things. But no, it was a basic moral freedom. That ownership of property means you can do what you want on your property within law. The idea that government can regulate behavior between consenting adults is wrong; it's why we have the drug war; it's why prostitution is illegal in the first place. It should not be.
RE: "your dictator paragraph": That's a strawman representation/response to tyranny of the majority, which is the weakest part of democracy. Democracy is only free when freedom is upheld beyond the tyrannical majority. Otherwise, any 51% of people can tell any other 49% of people what to do.
And, in fact, that is what happened. This is the country where slaves existed in spite of a constitution that granted rights to "all persons". This is the country where interracial marriage was illegal until 1950. This is the country where interracial marriage was almost recriminalized in Alabama, in a vote that failed by a few per cent -- in the past 10 years. This is the country where a town not far from me voted to put the 10 Commandments back into a school, despite an amendment protecting us from government endorsement of religion. This is the country where men decided women couldn't vote for the majority of its existence. If you had said any of those things were wrong in the past, and I then responded, "What would be right, A dictatorship?", it would be a fallacious response, as yours was here. Tyranny of the majority is a real problem to be addressed with real discourse, not comparisons to dictatorships and Hitler and such.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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I love how the majority of your arguments have been critiques of my argument instead of the situation at hand. It does simply boil down to:
If it's my property, and it's legal, I should be able to do it. If I want to open the doors to the public - both as employees and as customers - NOBODY IS FORCED BY ANY GOVERNMENT TO DO ANYTHING THEY DON'T WANT. Nobody has to ever give me a red cent. The only time the government should intervene is if there is a law being broken. And there's not (unless some tyrannical majority gets together and says "we don't like X so let's ban X").
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Yes, you did make such a claim, and now you're trying to laughably backpedal. *You* stated, word for word, "Your freedom to have an establishment in which your purposefully expose employees to dangerous conditions ends when you employ people."
That is you saying that you can not employ with harm! Or it is simply that you now want to splice hairs with respect to "chemical" harm versus other harm? The morals do not change regardless of this hair-splitting.
In fact, that freedom you just spoke of is not true, nor should it be.
If I wanted to operate a popcorn factory, I'd have to expose employees to dangerous conditions. OSHA would regulate those conditions and not allow them if they caused damage to the level OSHA regulates at, just as they do secondhand smoke (which does not meet the legal harm level in the 40 carcinogens tested). Quite simply put, it's already legal to expose people to far worse than smoking. The freedom you claim doesn't exist.
Either way, if those people got sick later (which did happen--the popcorn factory worker lawsuit), they can sue in a court of law. There's no need to have the government ban employing people who may be harmed.
My opinion still stands, and I have not contradicted myself anywhere. My opinion is the one that yields the most freedom for the most people, and more importantly, yields the most choice for the most people.
Smokers aren't asking the government to force non-smokers to have smoking sections in restaurants, libraries, schools, malls, and everywhere else. People would scream tyranny. Yet non-smokers are asking the government to force smokers to not smoke in their own bar they they personally own. There is a big difference here. Maybe you don't own any property, or maybe you only care about the freedom of groups you belong to, and not the freedom of groups you disagree with -- but the freest thing to do is to let all people involved do what they want, not to force the government to tell people what they want to do on their own property.
You wanna set policy on public property? BE MY GUEST. You SHOULD be able to on public property. But your right to control public property doesn't magically expand into someone's private property just because he dared open his door to someone who doesn't like what he's doing.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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You'll have to explain the contradiction in more detail. It is in fact true that wrong things do happen, however.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Yea, which is why we have OSHA. (OSHA, btw, has repeatedly said: secondhand smoke fine.)
But do not think that people have a right to a job with no risk. Tell that to taxi drivers, farmers, cops, miners, and anyone else with a risk of injury to their job. There's a reason you're being paid to put up with it. And nobody has a right to force no risk into a job that would normally carry some. To use an absurd and completely unrealistic metaphor -- just to illustrate how silly it seems to me -- it would be like someone applying for a job as skydiver instructor, and then instead telling the company that it should no longer allow people to jump out of the planes (they can do it on their own time) because it puts the employees at an undue risk. At some point, and with some jobs, there are going to be risks associated with your employment.
The reason bars are popular is that, as a product, they are for the most part, people going where they want, doing what they want. The people decide what is acceptable. That is why many places have voluntary non-smoking in states without bans. Freedom is choice. No smokers anywhere are asking the government to force non-smokers to allow smoking in their privately run businesses. Yet non-smokers everywhere are asking the government to force smokers to not be allowed to smoke in their privately run businesses. It is utterly hypocritical freedom. It is not live and let live. It is live and petition the govenrment to force those who don't want to live by your rules to have to.
Don't want to work at a smokey bar? Don't apply for work at one.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Would you like to address the actual points I made, sir?
Your comment is funny, but you still don't win the internet.
Are you familiar with the concept of "live and let live"? If you want to ban something, pass a law banning it. If it's not banned, let people do what they naturally want to do, without government interference. I'd totally be down with a mandatory picture of lung cancer on the entrance to every bar.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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By the way, your logic is why adult businesses, strip clubs, swinger clubs, and the like are often shut down. Because people have the attitude that once you open the door to the public, the public can then collectively tyrannize your establishment. Thus, any viewpoint counter to the public majority is not allowed to open its doors to the public while expressing this viewpoint. It's why so many swinger clubs have to be members only; you can't walk in, because once you walk in, the US equivalent of the Ministry Of Vice & Virtue walks in, claims harm, and shuts you down. It's why in Virginia, where I live, you can't see nipple at a strip club, period, in the entire state. Nevermind that these clubs are private property -- they've opened the door to the public, and the tyranny of the majority which you just justified.
Please, for the sake of freedom, and allowing others to live lifestyles you don't approve of -- please don't think that it's right to force one viewpoint on all doors that dare open themselves to the public. It's not.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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They can ban anything; they banned interracial marriage until the 1950s; they banned women voting; they banned blacks being free; they try to ban mosques being built. The TaliBAN bans music:) I may want to pick a better example, but stating that people ban something because they can speaks very little as to whether such ban makes sense. And even if it makes sense, freedom means allowing people to do things that don't make sense. But freedom is a concept lost on most Americans these days.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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". Your freedom to have an establishment in which your purposefully expose employees to dangerous conditions ends when you employ people."
Wrong. Why do you think OSHA exists? To set the level of dangerous conditions that your employees can be exposed to. And OSHA specifically states that secondhand smoke does not meet their standards. Look it up.
Furthermore, your laughable statement -- with no legal basis I might add -- would exclude many jobs out there, from factory worker, farmer, taxi driver, policeman, and any other job in which employees are exposed to dangerous conditions.
Your entire argument seems based on the fact that you are only allowed to employ people with 0 potential harm, which is a falsehood.
Re:Very similar to smoking bans
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Smoking bans don't stop that from happening, so you're arguing against something completely different from my original statement. Meanwhile, cars and industrialization put far more chemicals into your lungs than cigarettes, but you don't complain about that, because you emotionally love cars and industry, and emotionally hate cigarettes. Try to hold some consistent logic here. I know it's hard, but try.
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So, the business owner should be able to refuse business because of a t-shirt. How about the color of their skin? Their religion? Their sexual preference? Gender? Is there anything at all that you think should be not be allowed to discriminate against for giving jobs, serving in stores or selling a house to? Was apartheid fine because the whites owned all the land and made all the rules?
And again, you're equivocating. Someone smoking, and you not wanting to go in because they are smoking, is not the same as refusing your business. They will gladly take their business. YOU are the one refusing. I understand the slippery slope you are trying to apply here, but it does not apply.
What you can't do is to pay other people to stand there while you smoked in their faces.
Actually, I can. That has been the standing law in most places during most of human history. It's only in a few exceptions that you have now carved out, via smoking ban, that that would be illegal. It's another strawman attack, though, as nobody is being forced to be employed by me. Don't want an abortion? Don't have one. Don't want to work with my smoke? Don't work here. It's very simple, and no, it's not the same as refusing someone based on their skin color.
I repeat: I have never been a proponent of forcing non-smokers to have to allow smoking on their own property. You, however, are a proponent of forcing smokers to not smoke on their own property. And no, I am not lying, despite your nonsensical paragraph trying to explain how I am lying when I say that. Is a place that plays hip-hop forcing you to listen to hip-hop? Is a Chinese restaurant forcing you to eat Chinese? You choose where you patronize. If anyone's the whiny pussy, it's you, whining to papa government to force people to run things your way. The smoker crowd was not doing that. They were no more forcing you to smoke than a Chinese restaurant is forcing you to eat Chinese. And stop the employee bullshit; everyone chooses where they patronize, and where they want to work at.
You are asserting that the right to poison others is more important than the right to work
More strawman bullshit. A bar is inherently poisoning their clientele by serving them alcohol. I live in a state where you can be terminated at will. No explanation has to be given. So guess what? Your ridiculous supposition is technically true! Bwahaha.
. Much like you implied that democracy would prevent Hitler when the truth is the opposite and Hitler came to power by being elected in a democracy.
I'm still trying to figure out where you pulled that out of. But you do love to, instead of copying and pasting what I said (like I did to you earlier, and you didn't acknowledge because it was a winning point), paraphrasing it as some form of weak intellectual arguing. It doesn't work.
In the end, it is you, not I, using force to force others. Smokers in a bar no more force you to breathe smoke than Chinese restaurants force you to eat Chinese. You can do what you want, but that's not enough, you have to compel others to your way. You lose for freedom, but it's okay because most people agree with you; just like the gay marriage ban, if you want to equivocate things.
Please, enough with the slippery slope fallacies. It's amateur.
P.s. You should read 1984, if you actually didn't, though.
My point is that it does not matter if I sound like someone else who is worse than me. That is a poor attempt at equivocating a strawman to attack, rather than attacking and discussing the actual issue. It is an intellectual dodge around answering questions you don't want to answer, because they may challenge your belief. You're starting to sound like a Christian or something.
Don't like pornography? Don't buy it.
Don't like profanity on TV? Change the channel.
Don't want abortion? Don't have one.
Don't want smoking? Don't go where people smoke
It's very easy to live and let live. It doesn't require paragraphs of justification and excuses. It is, quite simply, that you life your life, and let other people live theirs. If they are doing something that makes it unacceptable for you to be there, leave.
You are psychotic if you think it's psychotic to tell other people what to do, simply because YOU don't like it.
AGAIN: Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to smoke. Everybody has the right to go wherever they want. This does not mean they have the right to force those places to accommodate their personal tastes. That is what choice, freedom, and the free market (for what it's worth) are supposed to do. If you don't like smoking -- start a business that doesn't allow smoking. NOBODY IS TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO -- though you are telling everybody else what to do. Enjoy the freedom that you have for being on the right side; the freedom to actually do what you want. For some people not fortunate enough to be on the right side, they don't get the freedom to do what they want. Gay marriage is a great example. And why was gay marriage never allowed? Because there was a time when it was thought to be far more harmful than smoking. So everyone got together and said, "Hey! Since we are the majority, we can force our choice down everyone else's throat."
You know the saying: "DON'T SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE? DON'T HAVE ONE!" and "DON'T SUPPORT ABORTION? DON'T HAVE ONE!"? That logic doesn't end with those two choices alone. Don't support smoking in bars? Don't attend one. And certainly don't work at one. Allow people to make their own choices, Mr. Government Lover. People like you make me realize why Republicans exist... And that makes me incredibly sad.
Also: Congratulations for making a pointless parallel. The poor non-smoker who wants to force smoking bar owners to stop; yes, their plight is the same as minorities who have faced discrimination at the color of their skin. Totally the same there. Anything you fill in that blank of yours, totally the same. Great parallel. You win at internet.
Of course. Truly public property is run by the government and paid for by the taxpayers. Those are the only places where you actually have your constitutional rights. Every place else, you only have the rights given to you by the property owner. If you come to my house with a Republican t-shirt, I'm going to tell you to leave, and there's not jack shit you can do about it. And I could do the same thing if I was running a restaurant. (It wouldn't be smart for business though.) I hope you understand that's how it does and should work. Since most people tend to only respect rights they themselves exercise, I have to wonder on a personal level if you ever own property or thought of owning a business.
Or do you just change your argument every post because consistency would leave you proven wrong? Because I can't even keep track with the number of two-faced turnarounds you make
I truly have no clue what you're talking about. I've always been talking about the same things: Freedom to be left alone from government interference, and freedom of choice. Meanwhile, you've been whining that I'm not arguing with you correctly. I'm pretty much ignore those comments.
It's not about the freedom to poison yourself. Nothing I've said could be reasonably taken to indicate you don't have the right to poison yourself.
Yes, PLENTY of what you've said could reasonably be taken to indicate that. The little part where I purchase a bar so my friends (and other random people) can have a place and come drink and smoke, but then people like you tell me I'm not allowed to smoke on my own property. It is precisely the result of what you said. I'm sorry you cannot glean this yourself from your own statements.
Making shit up is not the best debate tactic.
I agree. When you stop trying that tactic, we'll come to a very swift resolution.
What, are you come kind of libertarian? You laud democracy as being the opposite of Hitler
I see you didn't listen to my "don't make shit up" advice very long. One whole sentence. Wow. you are all for personal freedoms when you are anti-freedom for people There you go again. I repeat: I have never been a proponent of forcing non-smokers to have to allow smoking on their own property. You, however, are a proponent of forcing smokers to not smoke on their own property. I have never advocated not allowing someone to do something legal on their own property. You are. So maybe you need to look in the mirror and reconsider who is the one for personal freedom here. Freedom has always been about allowing unpopular choices, and acts you don't agree with. Clearly this is too much for you.
P.S. Fuck Bob Barr.
No, it doesn't fail on so many levels. You didn't even name a single level that it failed on. You simply used the nebulous, vague, broad "vested interest" stroke, which is about the same as when the government claims things are in "national security". That is, it's a made-up term used to justify anything someone subjectively wants. If I actually ask you "which interest", your answers will be met with responses we've already talked about. Employee health? Already address by OSHA. You lose.
And if you need a list of said abuses... I can provide many.
But hey, it's all okay if YOU get your way, right? Fuck that 1% who may have a different method of doing things. Like those people who want that disgusting raw milk that hasn't been pasteurized. The cops went on them too.
So yes, your assessment is correct when you paint it with such broad strokes. I still think it is not the situation that grants the most freedom of choice to the most people, however, and find this all very contrary to "live and let live".
And for further clarification, yes, if they banned smoking outright, I'd go on a rant about it. In fact, a country in Asia just instituted a country-wide ban, and I ranted on it on my blog. You are dead correct. The government telling people what to do with their own bodies is wrong, and the drug war -- all drugs -- is wrong too. Nevermind the fact that even if it was right, it's not practical, has failed, and always will. Prohibitions of physical objects just don't work very well; especially when people want them.
What does Jim-Crow have to do with that? You have piqued my intellectual curiosity.
Besides, many establishments don't allow dogs.
My private property doesn't become yours to run once I open my doors to you. It's still mine. I still own it, pay mortgage and taxes on it. It is mine. It is not public property owned by the government and public taxpayers.
"Second hand smoke is poison. You can't poison people on your private property."
Actually, I have every right to smoke on private property, and I have every right to "poison" whoever else is in my house. I OWN IT, and I can do what I want with it. You have now progressed from making decent (but incorrect and obvious) arguments to simply "making shit up".
ALCOHOL IS A POISON TOO. Alcohol kills more people than all illegal drugs combined, even not counting drunk driving. But I can drink it, and serve it to guests in my house AND my bar.
Making shit up is not the best debate tactic.
Without a smoking ban, what happens when all bars in an area decide they can attract more paying customers by allowing smoking than by promoting their clean air? That's tyranny of the majority. Compare what happened in the Jim Crow era, where businesses decided they could attract more business by promoting a "colored-free" environment to white customers than by welcoming all customers.
I'm very sorry, but your attempt to equate it with colored-free environments is simply not valid morally or legally. Legally, the antidiscrimination amendment only protects specific groups of people. Non-smokers is not one of them. Morally, however, you can: 1) Not go to a bar. 2) BUY YOUR OWN BAR AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT WITH IT. That's the thing. Nobody is forcing you to smoke, but you are trying to force others not to. The only one forcing anyone is you, not us. You are not forced to attend bars. I am not forced to go to a church. Someone preaching a religion that I find harmful can go about doing whatever they want -- I simply wont go to their church.
By the way, almost every bar in New Orleans just decided to go smoke free, voluntarily, without any ban. Of course, some may decide not to. THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF FREEDOM: Nobody is forcing you to do anything. By walking into a bar and declaring that you have a right to tell them how to run the place (via petitioning your government), you are forcing people to do something. You are the one using the force of the government, police, and guns, to tell free people that they cannot practice their kind of freedom simply because they don't agree with it.
Are you against the Fred Phelps protestors too? They have a right to say whatever they want on public property. I may think the world would be a better place if they whould all spontaneously drop dead, but I'm not going to petition my government to control their speech (on public OR private property) because I can simply NOT LISTEN.
Please. Stop and think about what it means to be free. Nobody is forcing YOUR PROPERTY to have smokers smoking on it. If they did, you'd be screaming bloody murder. So would I! Nobody tells me what to do with my own property! But apparently it's okay to tell others what to do with their own property IF you like it, and can make up enough reasons. But in the end, YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO VISIT MY BAR. Non-smokers who want to visit my bar are not protected by the constitution. Black people who want to visit my bar are, however, protected from being discriminated by race. And honestly, people like you make me question whether that was the right decision. Not because I think minorities shouldn't be protected, but because it opens the door for a slippery slope of ever-increasing government intervention.
However, if all employers do something you don't like, that's too bad for you. See also: Drug tests.
But actually, not all jobs entail being in an enclosed space, so even if everyone on the planet smoked but you, you could still find a job that did not expose you to smoke. I suggest something where you aren't around people. There are tons of jobs like that.
But yea, bringing up a non-issue can be interesting, but I don't think it really furthers the discussion about personal property freedom here.
That would be a great argument if the reason that I thought those things should be legal in combination was strictly because I was combining two things. But no, it was a basic moral freedom. That ownership of property means you can do what you want on your property within law. The idea that government can regulate behavior between consenting adults is wrong; it's why we have the drug war; it's why prostitution is illegal in the first place. It should not be.
RE: "your dictator paragraph": That's a strawman representation/response to tyranny of the majority, which is the weakest part of democracy. Democracy is only free when freedom is upheld beyond the tyrannical majority. Otherwise, any 51% of people can tell any other 49% of people what to do.
And, in fact, that is what happened. This is the country where slaves existed in spite of a constitution that granted rights to "all persons". This is the country where interracial marriage was illegal until 1950. This is the country where interracial marriage was almost recriminalized in Alabama, in a vote that failed by a few per cent -- in the past 10 years. This is the country where a town not far from me voted to put the 10 Commandments back into a school, despite an amendment protecting us from government endorsement of religion. This is the country where men decided women couldn't vote for the majority of its existence. If you had said any of those things were wrong in the past, and I then responded, "What would be right, A dictatorship?", it would be a fallacious response, as yours was here. Tyranny of the majority is a real problem to be addressed with real discourse, not comparisons to dictatorships and Hitler and such.
If it's my property, and it's legal, I should be able to do it. If I want to open the doors to the public - both as employees and as customers - NOBODY IS FORCED BY ANY GOVERNMENT TO DO ANYTHING THEY DON'T WANT. Nobody has to ever give me a red cent. The only time the government should intervene is if there is a law being broken. And there's not (unless some tyrannical majority gets together and says "we don't like X so let's ban X").
That is you saying that you can not employ with harm! Or it is simply that you now want to splice hairs with respect to "chemical" harm versus other harm? The morals do not change regardless of this hair-splitting.
In fact, that freedom you just spoke of is not true, nor should it be.
If I wanted to operate a popcorn factory, I'd have to expose employees to dangerous conditions. OSHA would regulate those conditions and not allow them if they caused damage to the level OSHA regulates at, just as they do secondhand smoke (which does not meet the legal harm level in the 40 carcinogens tested). Quite simply put, it's already legal to expose people to far worse than smoking. The freedom you claim doesn't exist.
Either way, if those people got sick later (which did happen--the popcorn factory worker lawsuit), they can sue in a court of law. There's no need to have the government ban employing people who may be harmed.
My opinion still stands, and I have not contradicted myself anywhere. My opinion is the one that yields the most freedom for the most people, and more importantly, yields the most choice for the most people.
Smokers aren't asking the government to force non-smokers to have smoking sections in restaurants, libraries, schools, malls, and everywhere else. People would scream tyranny. Yet non-smokers are asking the government to force smokers to not smoke in their own bar they they personally own. There is a big difference here. Maybe you don't own any property, or maybe you only care about the freedom of groups you belong to, and not the freedom of groups you disagree with -- but the freest thing to do is to let all people involved do what they want, not to force the government to tell people what they want to do on their own property.
You wanna set policy on public property? BE MY GUEST. You SHOULD be able to on public property. But your right to control public property doesn't magically expand into someone's private property just because he dared open his door to someone who doesn't like what he's doing.
You'll have to explain the contradiction in more detail. It is in fact true that wrong things do happen, however.
But do not think that people have a right to a job with no risk. Tell that to taxi drivers, farmers, cops, miners, and anyone else with a risk of injury to their job. There's a reason you're being paid to put up with it. And nobody has a right to force no risk into a job that would normally carry some. To use an absurd and completely unrealistic metaphor -- just to illustrate how silly it seems to me -- it would be like someone applying for a job as skydiver instructor, and then instead telling the company that it should no longer allow people to jump out of the planes (they can do it on their own time) because it puts the employees at an undue risk. At some point, and with some jobs, there are going to be risks associated with your employment.
The reason bars are popular is that, as a product, they are for the most part, people going where they want, doing what they want. The people decide what is acceptable. That is why many places have voluntary non-smoking in states without bans. Freedom is choice. No smokers anywhere are asking the government to force non-smokers to allow smoking in their privately run businesses. Yet non-smokers everywhere are asking the government to force smokers to not be allowed to smoke in their privately run businesses. It is utterly hypocritical freedom. It is not live and let live. It is live and petition the govenrment to force those who don't want to live by your rules to have to.
Don't want to work at a smokey bar? Don't apply for work at one.
Your comment is funny, but you still don't win the internet.
Are you familiar with the concept of "live and let live"? If you want to ban something, pass a law banning it. If it's not banned, let people do what they naturally want to do, without government interference. I'd totally be down with a mandatory picture of lung cancer on the entrance to every bar.
Please, for the sake of freedom, and allowing others to live lifestyles you don't approve of -- please don't think that it's right to force one viewpoint on all doors that dare open themselves to the public. It's not.
They can ban anything; they banned interracial marriage until the 1950s; they banned women voting; they banned blacks being free; they try to ban mosques being built. The TaliBAN bans music :) I may want to pick a better example, but stating that people ban something because they can speaks very little as to whether such ban makes sense. And even if it makes sense, freedom means allowing people to do things that don't make sense. But freedom is a concept lost on most Americans these days.
Wrong. Why do you think OSHA exists? To set the level of dangerous conditions that your employees can be exposed to. And OSHA specifically states that secondhand smoke does not meet their standards. Look it up.
Furthermore, your laughable statement -- with no legal basis I might add -- would exclude many jobs out there, from factory worker, farmer, taxi driver, policeman, and any other job in which employees are exposed to dangerous conditions.
Your entire argument seems based on the fact that you are only allowed to employ people with 0 potential harm, which is a falsehood.
Smoking bans don't stop that from happening, so you're arguing against something completely different from my original statement. Meanwhile, cars and industrialization put far more chemicals into your lungs than cigarettes, but you don't complain about that, because you emotionally love cars and industry, and emotionally hate cigarettes. Try to hold some consistent logic here. I know it's hard, but try.