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

see my note on staff above, thats the legislative reason for the law in ireland - to prevent non smoking staff from getting sick, safety in the workplace. surely the work of the PC commie-nazis.

as for the pubs losing money argument, it was used in spades before the ban - by the drinking industry. but few if any pubs closed after. oh they did claim that sales were down something like 13% the first year - but they neglected to mention the other factors such as 5 euro a pint prices, the smell of piss when the smoke ban was implemented, cheaper booze available on special offer from supermarkets.

the pub armageddon never happened. the allure of booze is as strong st the allure of smoking

I stepped into the jerk ring (a therapy term) concerning this subject last night (stupidly and childishly) and by doing so spoke angrily and misrepresented myself and my views.
Phil, thank you for putting up with us and for starting a new thread. I apologize for getting pulled into a swiping contest.
Sheesh.

I was a considerate smoker like 2twins describes.....very aware of the people around me. I never dropped butts on the ground. I didn't think it was unfair to go outside. I thought it was the right thing to make sport facilities smokefree and so on.
I was frankly ashamed of my addiction and never questioned non smokers 'rights' not to have to put up with 'MY ADDICTION'.

That said, even after I became an ex smoker, I was not necessarily in favor of the smoking ban that came to my town two years ago. Athens is a funky town with a naughty atmosphere. I don't want that to change. I don't want to hand it over to the very well heeled and verbal cosmopolitans that lust after it. Downtown is getting too regulated.
That said again, the ban has not stopped the party. The yuppies never showed up in hordes as I feared and I like not coming home smelly.

I don't know. It's a mixed bag.
I guess basically I agree with Greger. I agree with Mellow. Basic regulations are needed in public places, what I call shared places.

Back in the 60s, a black activist/writer - perhaps it was Eldridge Cleaver, or possibly James Baldwin - made the observation that 'every society had to have its nigger.'

That is to say, we must have someone among us who is easily identifiable and set apart from us in some unmistakable manner and who is possessed of - or upon whom we can freely and uncritically transfer - characteristics that repel or even viscerally frighten us to the point that we are capable of believing just about anything of them. Such creatures are, by the implicit agreement among the majority, outlawed from our care, concern, or even our civility; they need not be considered worthy of respect and much less of companionship. We are free to treat them in any fashion we care to, because we all know what those people are like.

The smoker is the new designated "nigger" of the 21st century. We cannot pick on Jews, Gypsies, Latinos/Hispanics, Asians, "Native" Americans, women, homosexuals, the homeless, "undocumented workers", people who are physically/mentally "challenged" - not strictly true, as the "mass-challenged" are the Plan B "nigger" - or the unemplyed; therefore, we fall back on the one type of person who - by our little "gentleman's agreement" is the designated abusee of our society.

Do I ever expect to hear those standard sound-bites that the other-directed so love to use? "Some of my best friends are smokers!"..."Would you let your daughter marry a smoker?"..."Smokers have a rich and colorful history that has been deliberately ignored by the power-structure!"..."If we give smokers respect, it will empower them."..."How can we say 'separate and equal' restricted to smokers is not a blot on what the Constitution means?"

Of course, if we liberate the smoker from his status of de facto "nigger", what do we use as a replacement?

Dunno Ron, but in my town, fundamental human and Constitutional rights are regularly denied to Latinos great deal more often than do smokers, and next in line I think would be homeless people. I don't think smokers are anywhere close to "today's Ni . . . "

As far as I can see, the only "rights" that smokers are denied A) are the right to use their drug of choice wherever and whenever they want to, and B) the right to claim that their addiction is not in any way harmful to the general welfare. I grew up at a time when African-Americans were still the Ni . . . N-word of the day. To compare the condition of today's smokers to the condition of African-Americans in the early 1960's is so demeaning as to border on racist.

Perhaps another expression would be more appropriate.

Not a problem, Phil. I mistakenly thought you were looking for something more than the routine adversarial political swap in this thread. Again, no problem. Adversarial can, if nothing else, be entertaining.;-)
Yours,
Issodhos

Pound for pound, I am betting the other half of your doughnut on the obeeeeessssssseeeeeee!!!!!!(anyone with more than 0% body fat:-))
Yours in hiding,
Issodhos

What's interesting to me is that no one is treating anyone here poorly. There's a lot of overreaction...even, I dare to suggest, hyperbole.

(Correction - "What's interesting to me is that no one here is suggesting that anyone be treated poorly." Sorry - I was eating lunch.)

Please! "Mass-challenged" is so much less...er...judgemental.

And get your own damn donut! I'm tired of you bleedin'-heart do-gooders letting you inner fascist confiscate my property to salve your consciences.

I don't see smokers as being treated poorly. My original point was that I get tired of government legislating everything. While I understand your point, Julia, and understand why it helps to have government set standards by which we all might get along, my ideal is to have people become personally accountable and begin to recognise the needs of our fellows. Idealistic and I don't see it happennig, but it's what I would like to see. Frankly, with the fed going the way it's been going under Rovian mentality, I don't like nor trust government at all these days. So that 's where I'm coming from.

2wins, I understand your point and it was well made. I understand your objection to the laws (whether or not I agree with it.) As I think you saw, own point was about unnecessarily polarizing language.

I do like the way you think, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for your ideals, sorry to say. We have laws against murder, rape, and theft because there are people who haven't figured it out. I'm not holding my breath that they'll figure out (or respect) the more subtle needs without some help from the community at large.

No pun intended.