Says you. I think it hits the nail on the head.
In fact, urine in a swimming pool is a lot LESS harmful than tobacco smoke. Babies in the womb float in urine and drink it for nine months (in the form of amniotic fluid.) It's just that most people are repelled by the thought of swimming in it.
Local health agencies regulate pool water chlorination and food serving temperatures and all sorts of other minutiae on private property, when that property is open to the public and sometimes even when it isn't. But we only hear the loudest howls of outrage from "good Republicans" when local governments tell smoke junkies to take their filthy dangerous drug habit out of public accommodations like restaurants.
Some radical Libertarians and pseudo-experts in Constitutional law on this thread seem to think the Ninth and Tenth amendments forbid such smoking regulation by local governments. I believe that public health rules of this type are among those powers that are specifically delegated to the States by the Tenth Amendment.
I agree that Federal rulemaking on this subject is inappropriate, but if Nevada and Louisiana decide they want to allow unrestricted smoking while Utah shoots smokers and confiscates their property, that's the way federalism is supposed to work. Don't like it? Get a majority of your local voters to vote the other way, or start a boycott, or whatever, but don't pretend you are upholding some sacred Constitutional right to blow smoke in my face.
-ccm
I'm going to get in touch with the rest of the puff_list and not only let them know we were wrong, but direct them to your brilliant reply.
Thanks for being there when we needed you.
I agree.
public accommodations
Public accommodations are an abomination of the legal system. Sure, we can point out good things it does. Like kitchen hygiene, but those can and will be handled by the free market if given a chance. Eventually, like all other misguided but well meaning laws, it will lead to bad things, like we are seeing with this smoking issue.
A private property owner invites you to his property at his leisure. "Public accommodation" twists this invitation into an entitlement, something decidedly not conservative (Boy Scouts ring a bell?). It changes the public from guest to master. You don't own the property, so you don't have property rights. You are there solely at the owners request. If you don't like the way he does business, tough! Leave and pay someone else to do the job better. Some people call this "capitalism".
Another thing is the sheer stupidity of anti-smokers who go into a bar, restaurant or any other place that permitts smoking. Are they that stupid, that they can't figure out that "Hey, if I go in there, I'll smell smoke". This is the mindset of lemmings, mindless creatures that can't and don't want to care for themselves. Ordinary mundane decisions such as these are too taxing for their weak minds. No, they must have their betters (in government of course) make these decisions for them.
I thought Americans were better than that. I thought we were rugged individualists, capable of making even the least of decisions for ourselves. Well, I guess not. Actions speak louder than words, and these anti-smokers are screaming at the top of their lungs:
"We are too stupid to even read this sign"
Well, this is a bit of an over-simplification. Amniotic fluid starts as a substance similar to blood plasma, and over time as the baby's kidneys begin to work it will become more urine-like as the pregnancy progresses.
While I may believe that the state or local level is the appropriate venue for this debate, I still think that the state or local government shouldn't be doing this.
Restaurants are not public accomodations, they are privately owned and as such the owner has the right to run his establishment as he sees fit. If you don't like it, you're free to patron business who disallow cigarette smoking. This is radical?