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The point is that the "peeing in the pool" stuff is an immature, juvenile analogy.

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.

-ccm

Your point MIGHT have merit if you could bring up an instance of a study, that hasn't been debunked , or completely thrown out, that says Environmental Tobacco Smoke causes harm to anyone that doesn't have a pre-existing medical condition.
For every study you find I'd be willing to bet that I can come up with one that says ETS is NOT harmful.
If there are no harmful effects, what right does the government have to ban it in privately owned business settings?

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
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Ever hear of the 14th? Any law that violates our rights to life, liberty, and property, without due process, is unconstitutional.

Obviously, if a law allows Utah to shoot smokers and confiscate their property, we do NOT have due process.
Prohibitory laws, - laws that decree some activities 'illicit' or criminal just because you "get a majority of your local voters" to vote them so, are not based on due process, or on the constititional principles of free republics.
They are based on raw majority rule democratic tyranny.

Well that settles it. You're right and the rest of us, with all our court cases and scientific backing are wrong. I don't know why I didn't see it before, but you've brought crystal clarity to the subject.

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 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.

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"

Babies in the womb float in urine and drink it for nine months (in the form of amniotic fluid.)

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?

I'm surprised I made it as far as this post before I responded. There is a possibility, I suppose, that you are a witty Libertarian, hoisting the pig-stupid statists on their own petard.

I reject that possibility because of the inimitable odor of smarmy and priggish 'Whited Sepulcherism', America's leading form of political thought, in your flatly Fascistic posts.

You understand, of course, that you are setting yourself up as the enemy of all Americans interested in maintaining a culture of liberty. That someone such as yourself, no dummy, I'm sure, can actually believe the numbing principles of totalitarian socialist utopianism, is a sad comment on American society and schools.

Frankly, I pity you. But not too much--you will deserve whatever grief comes your way as a result of your bloody-minded authoritarianism.