The (successful) weaponization of tobacco in the destruction of rights, specifically commercial property owners such as the owners of cafes, restaurants, bars, stores...and the knock-on effects on civil liberties during COVID-1984.
In 1995, California was the first state to enact a statewide smoking ban for restaurants. I worked in NYC when the idea to ban smoking in bars and clubs gained steam, and ultimately passed in 2002. It sparked a citywide debate, with the pro-ban people gaining the upper hand. I mean, how can you defeat "I won't die of secondhand smoke and my clothes won't smell"?
And there was much rejoicing. Except...what really happened was a sort-of violation of the Takings clause. What all the anti-smokers et al achieved was the sanctioning of the state to tell commercial property owners what can and can't happen on their property.
NY has moved beyond bars, clubs, offices, and public places to outdoors. Other municipalities have enacted similar takings, erm, bans. Nobody fights anymore. Marx and Engels are laughing in hell.
Now, I get the second-hand smoke complaints and smelly clothes and bad breath. I don't smoke, but every adult when I grew up smoked. I've coughed, had smoke-drenched clothes after a night at a club, and all that.
But second-hand smoke is an externality - an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Air pollution from motor vehicles is one example of an externality, and the whole environmental movement rests on "the need for government to regulate industry to make the air clean."
When the shots granted EUAs rolled out, many people refused to take them. We then saw the pro-shot talking heads brandish anti-smoking arguments - remember "The bottom line: We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers." Regarding masks, we got Mandatory masking? What smoking bans can teach us and Despite well-documented health consequences of indoor smoking, efforts to ban the behavior were met with intense political resistance and an all-too-familiar civil liberties debate, just as we see today. But science, combined with social and political initiatives that were responsive to public concerns, eventually spurred a large-scale shift in public opinion around smoking bans. From this experience, three lessons can inform how to improve adherence to universal masking -- a life-saving public health measure: 1. Frame masking as a workers' rights issue, 2. Mandates are necessary because they work, and 3. Don't lose sight of the last mile.
I'm not delusional. Smoking has lead to zillions of deaths. It also calms people and keeps weight in check. Certainly a happy medium vs prohibition exists somewhere.
Until then, the anti-smoking campaign that gave the government an inroad into whittling away rights under the guise of public health will continue unabated.
This is an excellent post and explores the underpinnings of the changes in public accommodation of freedom.
Thank you
In certain CONFINED public places it may make sense. It doesn't make sense in outdoor parks for example. As far as private businesses, it should have been left up to the private business owners to handle it. In businesses that have minimal competition like the airlines, then I think it's in the public's interest to restrict smoking as it is a confined area.
You have a right to eat what you want, but not to make me eat some too. That is the problem with public smoking in confined places. I’m happy to let businesses decide if they want to allow smoking. Or not.
But it isn’t the same as a vaccine mandate. There is no morality issue in smoking or not, while people had moral concerns about taking untested vaccines.
And the big problem with masks is that they simply did not work - as was clearly known BEFORE 2020!