It seems to me that you are simply trying to make excuses and apologies for past misdeeds.
I do think there are many who know what "right" is (and are correct about it), and have known since way before Hammurabi's Code, and have continued to know since way after.
They, apparantly, and unfortunately, do not encompass the majority of the human species. And then there are apologists like you who try to legitimize the actions of those who don't understand what is right and wrong.
I am absolutely sure there are plenty of people who thought slavery was wrong -- way before slavery was abolished in *any* country. But hey, if everyone's doing it, I guess it's okay.
And no, I wouldn't beat my children, and I also would likely try to avoid immunizing my child to the extent that it is legally possible. I also would not circumsize him, but more importantly: I am not going to have children, ever.
So some idiot parents lobotomized their kids. You use this as a defense for your position?!?!! They are simply in the category of people who can't tell right from wrong, and obey the herd and prevailing attitudes (as you would probably say "current definition of what right or wrong is") of others. They were wrong. They are the equivalent of the parent today who thinks videogames make their child bad. Those idiots today are following the same herd of people who proclaim what is right and wrong, based on their [often evangelical!] peer groups. And many parents realize videogames are no threat, and let their kids play them, even though this may be considered "wrong" by some "current definition".
Fortunately, a lot of people can think for themselves. A lot can't. And you're making excuses for them. Sorry, but I take umbrage with that.
So basically, it boils down to "if someone else is doing worse, we can pat ourselves on our back for doing better."
So, for example, if you're my next door neighbor, and I rape my children -- then you can beat your children and pat yourself on the back for treating them so well in comparison.
I find your logic extremely flawed. It also smacks of a herd mentality (judging your actions by the actions of those around you.) How about just doing what is right, regardless of what everone else is doing? Is that so hard?
And "It's not MUCH of a carcinogen" is NOT an acceptable reason to defy workplace health and safety legislation. The law recognises the effects of cigarettes and the chemicals in them.
Actually, I believe it is. For example, "the law recognizes the effects of arsenic," and that it is a poison. And yet, we are still allowed to have levels of arsenic in our drinking water. And that tap water is at water fountains -- at my job!!
And people who work in power plants do get exposure to radiation. They have rotations, yearly quotas, and everything. Not necessarily relevant, but just saying...
Anyway, to say that everyone has a right to work at a job and receive no health deteriments whatsover is a kind and noble thought. It is not a reality. I mean--I guess construction workers get new knee & hip replacements for free when they retire. And I guess my employer owes me free back surgery, free carpal tunnel surgery, oh and the air conditioning is too low & I caught a cold so I think think they should pay for my DayQuil too. And when my 20/20 vision goes, they should pay for free lasik because I have to stare at a monitor all day. Oh, and by the way, there are some studies that have shown that staring at monitors might slightly increase my chance for eye problems, goddamnit! Therefore, people should not be allowed to take their laptops to Starbucks! They are making me go blind, goddamnit. Your right to use a laptop ends when its monitor damages my eyes! (Yes, I realize I am confusing CRT & LCD, it's just an analogy for chrissakes.)
If you ever have your lungs burned by bleach because the employer didn't bother to label the container with the proper WHIMIS label.
Terrible analogy. In your bleach analogy, it is being misrepresented via improper labelling. Nobody is sneaking the smoke in, or representing it at something else. [I'm pretty sure every pack that the cigarettes came from was labelled to:)] Further
And, seriously. Again: If a place wants to set itself up as having a "known to be harmful" atmosphere (literally), and the patrons agree, then employees that do not want to should not work there. This is not tyranny of the majority on a legislative scale. This is tyranny of the majority (which for a business establishment could be characterized as "voting with your wallet"! capitalism is based on that!) for one instance of one establishment. Now that the "news" is out about the harm, there are some establishments that are non-smoking. So fucking go work there! The radium analogy is nice, but no one wants to hang out next to radium. A LOT of people want to hang out in smoke, and another group of people is trying to prevent them from being able to do that. There's plenty of fucking room out there.
I think incompetent buffoons can run a bar. I've certainly seen it work enough:D They're probably less likely to leave too!
Considering EVERY local bar and almost every local restaurant has people smoking in it (here in northern Virginia / D.C.), your characterization of the law seems like fiction. If I don't know the law, and your version of reality is right, why are these places still existing? Huh?
Since almost all of the epidemiological evidence about the health effects of secondhand smoke relates to long-term exposure in the home, the fact that this is the one place exempted from current and proposed smoking bans suggests a residual concern for property rights. Yet business owners have property rights, too. If the government respected their right to establish rules about smoking on their own property, potential employees and customers could take such policies into account when deciding where to work or which businesses to patronize. Whether secondhand smoke is a health hazard or merely a nuisance, such a voluntary system is the most appropriate way to deal with the conflicting demands of smokers and nonsmokers, since it allows for diversity and competition, rather than simply imposing the will of the majority on everyone
The evidence concerning the health effects of secondhand smoke is not nearly as conclusive as the evidence concerning the health effects of smoking. The research suggests that people who live with smokers for decades may face a slightly higher risk of lung cancer. According to one estimate, a nonsmoking woman who lives with a smoker faces an additional lung cancer risk of 6.5 in 10,000, which would raise her lifetime risk from about 0.34 percent to about 0.41 percent.
Hint: Me not signaling when I change lanes in front of you is a far greater threat that increases your chance of death, I would estimate, far more than the 0.07 percent increase from DECADES of smoke exposure. Especially if I driver like an asshole in front of you every day. (In reality, there seems to be a DIFFERENT asshole in front of ME every day. I manage to swerve away in time, usually.)
You can refuse to work at my smoking bar. It would be illegal for me to force you to work there. Makes perfect sense. So go work elsewhere. When you work at my place, you sign a waiver stating you understand that there are certain risks associated with working in a smoking environment. Nobody's forcing you to be exposed to anything. Don't want to sign it? Don't want to be exposed? Go work elsewhere! Don't tell me and my smoking patrons that we all have to stop what we are doing because some wildcard player comes in and whines about the consequences. If my patrons want to smoke, and I set up a smoking establishment -- people will smoke. At bars I see large majorities of people smoking -- much more than restaurants -- because they want to smoke. What you seem to be missing (and this statement has no legal bearing) is that an owner should have a right to run their establishment as they see fit, and that the patrons of such establishment should be able to deem what goes on there. If I run a swinger club, my patrons should be able to get naked. If you don't like seeing naked people, go find your own club. Same deal with smoking. But I guess the right to peaceful assembly IN A FUCKING PRIVATE ESTABLISHMENT doesn't exist for groups of smokers, because there might be ONE person there as whiny as you, so whiny that you must force your agenda into 100% of every nook and cranny of society.
Soon, only homeowners will be able to smoke. People who rent wont have those "rights". It will be a classic case of "the rich can do what they want, everyone else can't". It will be totally freakin' awesome because I'll be able to smoke, since I own a house, but all the poor people who work on my house construction projects wont be able to smoke, because every public area will be legislated away. Nice free country we have! You can cut your penis off, but you can't smoke because someone might whine about their 0.00000001% increase of a chances of getting cancer.
You need to get a clue and direct your energy at the factories polluting out atmosphere, and the republicans trying to keep it easy for them to do so!
Similarly, my employer would tell me to work elsewhere if I didn't sign my non-compete agreement, despite the fact that it is considered "restraint of trade" and illegal in a right-to-work state like Virginia. I don't care for this practice, but I am free to work elsewhere.
If I run a bar -- I'll make sure to blow smoke in the face of anyone applying. If they cough, I wont hire them on the basis that there's a 1% chance they might be somebody like you.
I said "should", asshole. Current reality has no bearing on what "should" or should not be.
And no, it's not illegal. Not in most of the world. If it's my place of business, I'll fucking dictate whether people can smoke tobacco, marijuana, or crack! If you don't like it, run you own business. That is how capitalism is supposed to work.
You see, smoking is currently legal. I'll do whatever legal activity I want on any property I own. (Exposing people to radiation is not a legal activity, by the way. Just ask Jose Padilla.)
That should be the owner's choice. If I pay my taxes and setup a business, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. If I want to allow smoking, so be it. If you don't want to work here, then don't. End of story.
All jobs carry risks and hidden costs. Ask the coal miners; ask the programmers who have carple tunnel syndrome; ask the police who are out on the streets getting shot at. If you are not wiling to take the risks associated with a job, you can choose to work elsewhere, or not to work at all. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.
Well, except all you people who want to make me shiver my ass off and get wet in the rain just to smoke a 5-minute cigarette. (Fictitous situation, for me, fortunately: I don't actually smoke that much. 1-5 cigarettes a week.)
Incidentally, people who work in power plants must accept that they receive doses of carcinogenic radiation. People who work in construction must accept that they will breathe in gross amounts of drywall dust. etc, etc. Don't like it? Get a desk job.
Seagate sells 750G HDs with a 5 yr warrantee for $350 or so. I have 1. And 2 500s. And a 400. Anyway.... Why bother with Maxtor and their tiny warrantee? They have no confidence in their own product!
So, would banning smoking in public places have protected her from her father's smoke? I don't think so. That's a strawman when used in an argument about smoking in public. That was not public. That has little to do with what we were talking about. I never disputed the negative health effects of high, constant exposure to smoke. Though, my parents smoked a combined 4.5 packs a day, and through hospital testing [for fun] I know my lungs have a 4-litre capacity which was double what was required by my wife to leave the hospital after her appendicitis. So... I guess I'm lucky.
"If it weren't for all the jerks who refused to pay attention to private no-smoking rules, you wouldn't have laws against it now".
I call bullshit. Besides, moral prohibitionists wont stop until every drug of any kind is completely criminal and outlawed.
Anyway -- you are over-sensitive to smells. I actually have an excellent sense of smell (i.e. coming up to a campsite in the woods, in the dark, and smelling and identifying the 1 cup of red wine that someone was drinking, 10 feet away, within seconds -- I dunno, can't really characterize one's smellability). Not much passes by my nose without me noticing. But I like the smell of anything burning. Especially a campfire.
Your so-called "nuisance" is simply that you don't like smelling things you don't like. Why is smell so sacred? If you didn't like the shirt I was wearing, would you have a right to demand that you don't see it, simply because you don't like the way it looks? If you didn't like the music I was playing (assume: public space, legal boomboxes), would you have a right to demand that I don't play it, simply because you don't like the kind of music? This sounds like an argument against aesthetics you don't agree with. I happen to believe I should be able to paint my house pink, with green polka dots, if I am so inclined (and bought a house with no homeowners association). Seems to me that you think that you have a right not to sense anything with your 5 senses that you don't find aesthetically pleasing. You have that right -- in your own home. Not in public. I can make sights, sounds, and smells that you do not like. I can fart in your general direction and there is nothing you can do about it.
But maybe farting should be criminalized, as well, because "my right to fart ends at your right to not smell it".
So you think it's disgusting habit. I think voting republican is a disgusting habit. Unfortunately, thinking something is disgusting is not a reason to legislate it away. (A lot of people found interracial marriage and gay marraige to be disgusting, and they passed laws against that as well. Doesn't make it right.)
Oh, and by the way -- the reason smokers are clustered around the entrances is because they are no longer allowed to smoke inside. You people brought it on yourselves. It's cold out there.
Conidering that by your own admission, the majority of people don't smoke -- then you should have no problem finding plenty of public spaces that don't have smoke. But that's not good enough. You want 100% control of all 100% of public spaces. That's bullshit. This isn't "tyranny of some lone jerk", this is "tyranny of the majority against a bunch of lone jerks".
Hint: Me smoking 1 cig next to you isn't gonig to give you cancer, and if you are tin-foil-hattish enough to believe so, you need to be doing more than avoiding public spaces. You need to move to the country, preferably away frmo any active volcanoes, which tend to spill out more pollution than the entire human race (when they erupt, anyway). And you need to get an air filter. And maybe a surgical mask.
100 people in a park. How big is the park? How much space is that per person? How much space does smoke take up outside, and how fast does it dissipate? So if 20 of the 100 smoke, the other 80 raally can't find a place that isn't full of smoke? TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT. You don't NEED 100% control of all public spaces (which is what LEGISLATING a solution IS). Furthermore, there are plenty of private places where you can go and not be offended by things such as smoke.
I go in public. Not much, but I do. How often does smoke waft in my face? VERY RARELY. I expect it in a bar, and guess what? People who don't like smoky bars don't go to them. No one is forcing them. And if I ran a bar, I would absolutely make it smoking. And I wouldn't open up an establishment, period, if I was not allowed to have my patrons do whatever the fuck they want (within reason). But people like you seek to prohibit even that. And it wont stop there. There are already areas where you can be prohibited from smoking in your own *home* that you *own*.
You people, and your emotional, over-moralized, whiny responses to cigarette smoke are a problem because you are overlooking the actual causes of lung cancer. Care to venture a guess as to how many non-smokers die of lung-cancer caused by things other than cigarettes, vs how many non-smokers die of lung-cancer caused by cigarettes? You've got bigger problems than telling ME what to do, buddy-boy. (BTW: I suggest a radon test at your house. But a mold test will cost you $1100.)
I don't buy cigarettes. I smoke them when offered (socially). I can only handle about half a cig at a time unless I am drinking. I "quit" 16 yrs ago when I read about radioactive half-lifes in the lungs. (I don't believe in Cold Turkey; moderation is better. People who quit 100% always come back.)
But funny how all the anti-smokers who chime in all have emotional reasons for their responses. Personal allergy. Personal diminished lung capacity. And now: Feeling that it represents a personality flaw, therefore should be banned so you can feel good about helping people. (Meanwhile, lung cancer deaths still happen due to pollution and, GASP, natural reasons like radon.)
The point is -- an individual smoker is only "polluting" the air in his immediate surrounding. If you don't want to go to a smokey bar, then don't. No one is forcing you to come. If you want a smoke-free bar, open one up yourself (or live in Washington--hah). If I'm in the middle of a park, you have plenty of room to go elsewhere. You are not surrounded by smokers on all sides, unable to escape, with tubes taped to your mouth, forcing you to smoke it. And you're not going to get cancer from a few incidental exposures. If you think you will, you need a serious reality check.
Of course, if you legislate my freedom away completely, I'm stuck in my home. Unless it's an apartment that bans smoking on tenants. Then, I can't practice my LEGAL act of smoking tobacco ANYWHERE. (Prohibition already failed, by the way.) But of course, it's much more impotant that smokers can't smoke ANYWHERE, than a 1% chacne that you might stand near somebody smoking for a few minutes.
You guys are so full of yourselves. Probably support the war on drugs too.
Slashdot Mirror
received from Netflix on their computer 35 minutes later. "Popping" vob files is the ONLY way I will watch a movie, period.
Nothing to hear here. Move along.
http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2006/04/14/294/
Relevant comments, too, INMNSU(unbiased)O.
This definitely looks harder than the jetpack in "Worms: Armageddon".
Now, I hate repugnantcans more than democraps, but both are enemies of the state. DMCA was under Clinton's watch. Just wanted to point that out.
(age: 32, home: inside the beltway, homeowners association: none, was this a deciding factor in buying the house?: yes)
You had to learn the word gigabyte. Learn the word petabyte.
Use them in that order. Use them now.
Rent it. Watch it.
I do think there are many who know what "right" is (and are correct about it), and have known since way before Hammurabi's Code, and have continued to know since way after.
They, apparantly, and unfortunately, do not encompass the majority of the human species. And then there are apologists like you who try to legitimize the actions of those who don't understand what is right and wrong.
I am absolutely sure there are plenty of people who thought slavery was wrong -- way before slavery was abolished in *any* country. But hey, if everyone's doing it, I guess it's okay.
And no, I wouldn't beat my children, and I also would likely try to avoid immunizing my child to the extent that it is legally possible. I also would not circumsize him, but more importantly: I am not going to have children, ever.
So some idiot parents lobotomized their kids. You use this as a defense for your position?!?!! They are simply in the category of people who can't tell right from wrong, and obey the herd and prevailing attitudes (as you would probably say "current definition of what right or wrong is") of others. They were wrong. They are the equivalent of the parent today who thinks videogames make their child bad. Those idiots today are following the same herd of people who proclaim what is right and wrong, based on their [often evangelical!] peer groups. And many parents realize videogames are no threat, and let their kids play them, even though this may be considered "wrong" by some "current definition".
Fortunately, a lot of people can think for themselves. A lot can't. And you're making excuses for them. Sorry, but I take umbrage with that.
So, for example, if you're my next door neighbor, and I rape my children -- then you can beat your children and pat yourself on the back for treating them so well in comparison.
I find your logic extremely flawed. It also smacks of a herd mentality (judging your actions by the actions of those around you.) How about just doing what is right, regardless of what everone else is doing? Is that so hard?
Hacking someone can and does in fact teach you how to administratively remove a security hole, especially by showing one where the hole is.
Analogy: Failed.
And people who work in power plants do get exposure to radiation. They have rotations, yearly quotas, and everything. Not necessarily relevant, but just saying...
Anyway, to say that everyone has a right to work at a job and receive no health deteriments whatsover is a kind and noble thought. It is not a reality. I mean--I guess construction workers get new knee & hip replacements for free when they retire. And I guess my employer owes me free back surgery, free carpal tunnel surgery, oh and the air conditioning is too low & I caught a cold so I think think they should pay for my DayQuil too. And when my 20/20 vision goes, they should pay for free lasik because I have to stare at a monitor all day. Oh, and by the way, there are some studies that have shown that staring at monitors might slightly increase my chance for eye problems, goddamnit! Therefore, people should not be allowed to take their laptops to Starbucks! They are making me go blind, goddamnit. Your right to use a laptop ends when its monitor damages my eyes! (Yes, I realize I am confusing CRT & LCD, it's just an analogy for chrissakes.)
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000602.html
Since almost all of the epidemiological evidence about the health effects of secondhand smoke relates to long-term exposure in the home, the fact that this is the one place exempted from current and proposed smoking bans suggests a residual concern for property rights. Yet business owners have property rights, too. If the government respected their right to establish rules about smoking on their own property, potential employees and customers could take such policies into account when deciding where to work or which businesses to patronize. Whether secondhand smoke is a health hazard or merely a nuisance, such a voluntary system is the most appropriate way to deal with the conflicting demands of smokers and nonsmokers, since it allows for diversity and competition, rather than simply imposing the will of the majority on everyone
The evidence concerning the health effects of secondhand smoke is not nearly as conclusive as the evidence concerning the health effects of smoking. The research suggests that people who live with smokers for decades may face a slightly higher risk of lung cancer. According to one estimate, a nonsmoking woman who lives with a smoker faces an additional lung cancer risk of 6.5 in 10,000, which would raise her lifetime risk from about 0.34 percent to about 0.41 percent.
Hint: Me not signaling when I change lanes in front of you is a far greater threat that increases your chance of death, I would estimate, far more than the 0.07 percent increase from DECADES of smoke exposure. Especially if I driver like an asshole in front of you every day. (In reality, there seems to be a DIFFERENT asshole in front of ME every day. I manage to swerve away in time, usually.)
Soon, only homeowners will be able to smoke. People who rent wont have those "rights". It will be a classic case of "the rich can do what they want, everyone else can't". It will be totally freakin' awesome because I'll be able to smoke, since I own a house, but all the poor people who work on my house construction projects wont be able to smoke, because every public area will be legislated away. Nice free country we have! You can cut your penis off, but you can't smoke because someone might whine about their 0.00000001% increase of a chances of getting cancer.
You need to get a clue and direct your energy at the factories polluting out atmosphere, and the republicans trying to keep it easy for them to do so!
Similarly, my employer would tell me to work elsewhere if I didn't sign my non-compete agreement, despite the fact that it is considered "restraint of trade" and illegal in a right-to-work state like Virginia. I don't care for this practice, but I am free to work elsewhere.
If I run a bar -- I'll make sure to blow smoke in the face of anyone applying. If they cough, I wont hire them on the basis that there's a 1% chance they might be somebody like you.
And no, it's not illegal. Not in most of the world. If it's my place of business, I'll fucking dictate whether people can smoke tobacco, marijuana, or crack! If you don't like it, run you own business. That is how capitalism is supposed to work.
You see, smoking is currently legal. I'll do whatever legal activity I want on any property I own. (Exposing people to radiation is not a legal activity, by the way. Just ask Jose Padilla.)
All jobs carry risks and hidden costs. Ask the coal miners; ask the programmers who have carple tunnel syndrome; ask the police who are out on the streets getting shot at. If you are not wiling to take the risks associated with a job, you can choose to work elsewhere, or not to work at all. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.
Well, except all you people who want to make me shiver my ass off and get wet in the rain just to smoke a 5-minute cigarette. (Fictitous situation, for me, fortunately: I don't actually smoke that much. 1-5 cigarettes a week.)
Incidentally, people who work in power plants must accept that they receive doses of carcinogenic radiation. People who work in construction must accept that they will breathe in gross amounts of drywall dust. etc, etc. Don't like it? Get a desk job.
Seagate sells 750G HDs with a 5 yr warrantee for $350 or so. I have 1. And 2 500s. And a 400. Anyway .... Why bother with Maxtor and their tiny warrantee? They have no confidence in their own product!
"If it weren't for all the jerks who refused to pay attention to private no-smoking rules, you wouldn't have laws against it now".
I call bullshit. Besides, moral prohibitionists wont stop until every drug of any kind is completely criminal and outlawed.
Anyway -- you are over-sensitive to smells. I actually have an excellent sense of smell (i.e. coming up to a campsite in the woods, in the dark, and smelling and identifying the 1 cup of red wine that someone was drinking, 10 feet away, within seconds -- I dunno, can't really characterize one's smellability). Not much passes by my nose without me noticing. But I like the smell of anything burning. Especially a campfire.
Your so-called "nuisance" is simply that you don't like smelling things you don't like. Why is smell so sacred? If you didn't like the shirt I was wearing, would you have a right to demand that you don't see it, simply because you don't like the way it looks? If you didn't like the music I was playing (assume: public space, legal boomboxes), would you have a right to demand that I don't play it, simply because you don't like the kind of music? This sounds like an argument against aesthetics you don't agree with. I happen to believe I should be able to paint my house pink, with green polka dots, if I am so inclined (and bought a house with no homeowners association). Seems to me that you think that you have a right not to sense anything with your 5 senses that you don't find aesthetically pleasing. You have that right -- in your own home. Not in public. I can make sights, sounds, and smells that you do not like. I can fart in your general direction and there is nothing you can do about it.
But maybe farting should be criminalized, as well, because "my right to fart ends at your right to not smell it".
So you think it's disgusting habit. I think voting republican is a disgusting habit. Unfortunately, thinking something is disgusting is not a reason to legislate it away. (A lot of people found interracial marriage and gay marraige to be disgusting, and they passed laws against that as well. Doesn't make it right.)
Oh, and by the way -- the reason smokers are clustered around the entrances is because they are no longer allowed to smoke inside. You people brought it on yourselves. It's cold out there.
Suicide should be legal. What lame reasoning.
If more people were like you, we would ALL have better service.
Hint: Me smoking 1 cig next to you isn't gonig to give you cancer, and if you are tin-foil-hattish enough to believe so, you need to be doing more than avoiding public spaces. You need to move to the country, preferably away frmo any active volcanoes, which tend to spill out more pollution than the entire human race (when they erupt, anyway). And you need to get an air filter. And maybe a surgical mask.
100 people in a park. How big is the park? How much space is that per person? How much space does smoke take up outside, and how fast does it dissipate? So if 20 of the 100 smoke, the other 80 raally can't find a place that isn't full of smoke? TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT. You don't NEED 100% control of all public spaces (which is what LEGISLATING a solution IS). Furthermore, there are plenty of private places where you can go and not be offended by things such as smoke.
I go in public. Not much, but I do. How often does smoke waft in my face? VERY RARELY. I expect it in a bar, and guess what? People who don't like smoky bars don't go to them. No one is forcing them. And if I ran a bar, I would absolutely make it smoking. And I wouldn't open up an establishment, period, if I was not allowed to have my patrons do whatever the fuck they want (within reason). But people like you seek to prohibit even that. And it wont stop there. There are already areas where you can be prohibited from smoking in your own *home* that you *own*.
You people, and your emotional, over-moralized, whiny responses to cigarette smoke are a problem because you are overlooking the actual causes of lung cancer. Care to venture a guess as to how many non-smokers die of lung-cancer caused by things other than cigarettes, vs how many non-smokers die of lung-cancer caused by cigarettes? You've got bigger problems than telling ME what to do, buddy-boy. (BTW: I suggest a radon test at your house. But a mold test will cost you $1100.)
But funny how all the anti-smokers who chime in all have emotional reasons for their responses. Personal allergy. Personal diminished lung capacity. And now: Feeling that it represents a personality flaw, therefore should be banned so you can feel good about helping people. (Meanwhile, lung cancer deaths still happen due to pollution and, GASP, natural reasons like radon.)
The point is -- an individual smoker is only "polluting" the air in his immediate surrounding. If you don't want to go to a smokey bar, then don't. No one is forcing you to come. If you want a smoke-free bar, open one up yourself (or live in Washington--hah). If I'm in the middle of a park, you have plenty of room to go elsewhere. You are not surrounded by smokers on all sides, unable to escape, with tubes taped to your mouth, forcing you to smoke it. And you're not going to get cancer from a few incidental exposures. If you think you will, you need a serious reality check.
Of course, if you legislate my freedom away completely, I'm stuck in my home. Unless it's an apartment that bans smoking on tenants. Then, I can't practice my LEGAL act of smoking tobacco ANYWHERE. (Prohibition already failed, by the way.) But of course, it's much more impotant that smokers can't smoke ANYWHERE, than a 1% chacne that you might stand near somebody smoking for a few minutes.
You guys are so full of yourselves. Probably support the war on drugs too.
... Thanks for enlightening me in spite of my laziness. :)