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To: SheLion

Smokers enjoy the same rights as anyone else. Of course they have rights.

But their right to burn tobacco around other people may not exactly be covered by the Ninth Amendment.


33 posted on 02/15/2005 9:07:27 AM PST by PeterFinn (Why is it that people who know the least know it the loudest?)
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To: PeterFinn

You got that. Of course the 9th doesn't cover their right to burn candles, charcoal or propane gas around others.

Take a look at the 11th, there you will see it is the right of the property owner to allow tobacco burning on his property.


50 posted on 02/15/2005 9:19:51 AM PST by CSM ("I just started shooting," said Gloria Doster, 56. "I was trying to blow his brains out ....")
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To: PeterFinn
"But their right to burn tobacco around other people may not exactly be covered by the Ninth Amendment."

And why would it not?

There is no credible, statistically signficant, replicable study that proves that "secondary" smoke is eminently dangerous to the health of other individuals.

Protection from an eminent danger to another citizen"s "rights" by another citizen is the one of a few justifications for government to exist.

A citizen's rights are not in eminent danger because they do not like the scent of burning tobacco. If it was, then you could make the same case for perfume, deodorant, and body odor.

Then there is the issue of "private property." How did government constitutionally gain jurisdiction over private property?

Some say the commerce clause is the federal government's constitutional justification. As to state government's constitutional jurisdictional justification, the police powers of the state to protect the safety and health of the citizens is the state's justificaton.

Well if that is the case, then your federal government has legislative jurisdiction within most citizen's homes, emanating form the commerce clause, because most citizens have a home loan with a financial institution that is involved in interstate commerce.

Wait to the fed's do not allow smoking in your home, the storage of gasoline for your lawn mower, the storage of paint, the state orders you to recycle your trash, reduction of electricity use because of air pollution, etc.

If the state does not have to prove "eminent" danger to health and safety of citizens when denying or disparaging rights on private property, in particular, then we obviously do not have any rights at all.

85 posted on 02/15/2005 10:40:24 AM PST by tahiti
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