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

Sandy, it is a health hazard to inhale second hand smoke. Therefore people can band together to prohbit that behavior which produces it when it affects anyone other than the smoker. If you cannot agree to that there is no point to this discussion.

Los Angeles county this year banned new wood burning fireplaces because they produce a high level of air pollutants and we have a severe air pollution problem. Same reason for rules about tailpipe emissions, etc. Are you challenging these laws as well?

Ron and Iss, you both keep professing it isn't about the smoking laws per se, yet I try to find what your issue is related to them and all I get are "but no one is saying ...][fill in the blank]

I started this thread because i thought we could engage in a thoughtful consideration of where the limits of regulation are vis a vis individual rights. I appear to have been wrong.

Actually Phil, I moved from L.A. County when the smog got too much for me. I moved 300 miles north up the coast and it took 20 years before it too became contaminated. I located an area where the monsoon winds keep our air clean enough to breathe. I am much more concerned with the fact that our scientists are rated 37th in the world and 60 percent of our kids can't even graduate from high school. Corruption in all levels of government is at an all time high and nobody is addressing the population growth that will kill off our civilization. Every problem that I see in existence comes from the government and asking the government to fix the government is ludicrous. The problem is not hazardous air it is the contamination of the human brain that sits in front of the television whining about all the evils in America. There is no fix for anything these days as the government has built a 20 foot wall between the people and those who can approve of improvements. The patent office is one of the most corrupt places on the planet. Even our universities that use to furnish the minds that made improvements in our lives can't find students who can read above a 5th grade level.

So stay on your laws and make it impossible for anyone to feel the freedoms that we older folks grew up with. I cannot watch network television as it insults me and I hang out on the Science channel as it is the only place where intelligent changes are discussed.

You are not wrong Phil, you are still putting your faith in the power of the government and many others have been hurt by that same government. I do not want to add to the power of the government and I sure as hell don't want to take anything from it that I did not put in involuntarialy by the way. Every damn book I read about the problems that big government under Big Daddy could do, has been done. We have had every warning possible given to us but most of you are too stubborn to see the truth.

I spent many years reading Star Trek scripts looking for stuff that Brick could build. Those scripts were incredible and Roddenberry understood the racism, bigotry, that too much government could and would kill off our spirits if not our physical being. I have not seen the television shows but I have read his brilliant scripts and have made a friend of his Executive Producer who retired here in Scottsdale.

I think America is facing a survival problem. Whether we hit a warming period or an ice age, few of us are prepared to take care of ourselves and family. During several earthquakes my wood burning stove fed us. It was the only cooking surface we had and if one smart ass attorney tried to tell me I couldn't burn wood in it he had better have his running shoes on.

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Now, on what basis would you suppose social progressives would want to outlaw recreational drugs?

Another regulation that really sets Liberals on edge is "seat belt laws". On the one hand, traditional Liberals argue that the individual should have the right to endanger him or herself by not wearing one, since it has no impact on anyone else. On the other hand, social progressives argue that everyone suffers indirectly when a serious injury or death results from such risk-taking, as is often the case.

Similarly, even if cigarette smoking harmed no one but the smoker, everyone pays for the overall reduction in the health of the population that results from widespread abuse of any drug, whether nicotine, alcohol, or crack cocaine. Smokers already pay higher health insurance premiums, but are they high enough? Or are non-smokers subsidizing smokers' habit?

My Beloved Partner also suffers from allergy to some perfumes. But not everybody does. In fact, few people do. On the other hand, everyone suffers from the noxious fumes produced by motor vehicles. Hence, each and every state in the union has laws regulating vehicle emissions. Similarly, everyone suffers from the noxious fumes produced by smokers.

I am glad that you found a viable solution. Unfortunately if all of us now living here did the same thing it would

Grant you that schools are a government related problem, although I would add as a major factor the disitintegration of families and neihborhoods as equally as significant. I do not look to government to solve anything except those matters that are so large in scope that it takes government, as the agent of the people.


No, Sandy, it is the hazardous air.


Sandy, I have no idea what freedom I am keeping you from, but if you tell I will rectify it. And pardon me, but I think what I write exhbits a satisfactory level of intelligence. Possibly I am wrong.

It is clear: any restriction on my right to do what I wish to do when and where I wish to do it is a violation of my Natural, Almighty-granted rights.

If one should choose to smoke in one's own air or drain one's effluent into one's own river or build a factory on one's own Malibu property, that should be the individual's choice and no one else's. No one is forcing anyone to stand next to the smoker, live down river from the copper mine or look at the factory building.

"Live and let live" should apply here.

You certainly have a way of getting at the truth of the matter, Irked.

That is obvious. It is also not what I pointed out as being the principle upon which you have been basing your argument. Your position so far has been based on the "might" of the mob, and the state as its surrogate, to use the violence of legitimized force to deny the owner of a property the Right to allow or not allow others on his property the privilege of engaging in the legal activity of using tobacco products while on his property. As has been pointed out before, it is not about the right to smoke or the 'right' to drift through life in a pristine, tobacco-free environment regardless of where you may be.
Yours,
Issodhos

I suggested quite early that you be specific as to what you wanted the topic of this thread to be and you basically told me to get lost. Too late to complain now. I have stated my argument as to why I consider property Rights to be natural; I have stated why I think the owner of a property has the Right to decide what legal activities may take place on his property; and I have pointed out why that does not interfer with the Rights of those who may not approve of an owner allowing smoking on his property.

It is time you presented some sort of principled reason why you think you have the right to go onto another person's property and tell him he and his guests must not smoke or you will see that they face the violence of the state.
Yours,
Issodhos

Your argument is that Rights are subordinate to mob rule (the evil of democracy when practiced without the written, understood, and spirited constraint of recognized pre-existing rights). From the point of view of an individual, it is no different than the proclamations of a dictator.
Yours,
Issodhos

Perhaps in other things, Stereoman, but not in this case. Irked has completely missed the fact that in a system where property Rights are honored, any damage or transgressing against the property of others by the operation of copper mines and factories would be subject to civil action resulting in either a cessation of damaging action, compensation, or acquital based on pre-existing circumstances.

Currently, politicians determine how much damage to downstream properties is acceptable and, in the real world, those politicians are usually owned or leased by the owners of the copper mines.;-)
Yours,
Issodhos