Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Constitutional Issues Smoking in Public and Whose Rights are they?

That doesn't seem at all rational to me. It seems, in fact, quite irrational. It seems, well, downright spiritual.

Issodhos, there is nothing "moral" or "natural" about a person's right to do what he or she please with property except your saying so, which, shock shock, is no more compelling than my saying it isn't so.

This natural rights argument always ends at the same place -- an assumption. It is a tautology and proven only by its own conclusion.

Many cultures over time have adopted an opposite and equally compelling tautology. You happen to believe in one of several sets of possible "natural" laws.

Rational and Irrational arguments are of equal value, it's called "balance." What's natural and unnatural are also equal for the same reasons. As we all know, Democrats and Republicans are just the same. Can't we all just get along?Unless of course, you don't want to, which is fine. Everything's equal anyway.

It is a well that has been plugged up for most of human history and across most human cultures.

Ardy:


Lemonade splatter. Very sticky on the keyboard. Watch it!


"We hold these truths to be self-evident . . ."

Why? Because, well, what other evidence is there?

Yes, and powerful forces continue to attempt to do so to this very day, Ardy. The foundational principles of the philosophical upstart, individualism (necessary to a concept of natural Rights), represent a deadly threat to the authoritarian power structures that have dominated and do dominate in our world. But, just as it is the pressure in an Artesian well that causes it to flow, so to does the spirit of man push him to advance against the darkness that has been his past.
Yours,
Issodhos

Individualism that is aimed at personal rather than communal interests is retarded development. It is a natrual stage for a teenager who must hold parents at bay to prove that he or she has the right to be separate and have separate interests.

But if the teenager never gets to the point of seeing that one's life is given as a gift to the world around oneself, life is never actualized and one is left empty and unsatisfied. The illusion that being an individual is the highest form of human expression is a deformation of life and like any cancer, will either kill the host or lead it into a painful existence.

The natrual rights of man, to the extent they exist as more than a shiboleth, are natural only if the add to the planet and its inhabitants. If not they are an abberation, a deviate state, an evil illness that needs heeling.

'Individualism' aimed at "communal interests" ceases to be the individualism we are discussing -- which is the political relationship between the individual and the state. This is a straw man that we need not bother with, Phil; individuals are not teenagers to a state Momma and Daddy.



Another straw man, Phil. We are not discussing the levels of personal actualization, nor are we discussing the "highest form of human expression".


And I am not interested in lapsing into a New Age Gaian "We are one with mother Universe" substitute for a political philosophy concerning the relationship of the individual to the state and to his fellow man. That is what this thread has been about.
Yours,
Issodhos

Phil, you tend to scare me with your statements about wanting the government to set our personal habits into their jurisdiction. It makes me wonder how far you will go to control the actions and habits of all Americans.

I tend to lean into the New Age Gaian but only in my personal actions and would never ask that I set the standards for anyone else. I spent over 20 years in Topanga, the hippy center of California. I could have cared less what my neighbors did, smoked, or injected. I was able to live off the land and grew our food except for the meat. My neighbors grew their own weed and I made no move to stop them.

Not everybody has to add to the planet. I come from many professional musicians who can perform if they sober up. If they don't, so what? I leave others alone and expect people to do the same for me. Gosh I guess I'm a deviate and need healing. Sorry, but you are too late.

Sandy I have no interest in nor objection to what any person may want to ingest. None.

I just don't want to be forced to ingest it with them. And if both the ingester and I are in the same space that isn't that person's private space, then I say my right to breathe normal air and be free to both stay where I am and be free of another's smoke or whatever trumps any right they have to pollute me.

Now it would be wonderful if the world worked that way, that smokers were smart and caring enought to not smoke in the presence of anyone who was not or at least anyone who askes them not to. But they arent. That is why laws are passed.