Well, shoot. I missed your message. Sorry. Here, have some hot dogs. Better then nothing. heh!
Posted on 10/17/2003 9:51:26 AM PDT by CSM
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:37:24 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The greatest danger to freedom is overcrowding.
If America's population continues to grow, there will come a time when the single-family home will be discouraged by being taxed out of existence, or failing that, siezed under eminent domain so as to free the land for more efficent use by building high-rises on it.
What's left of the wilderness will be turned into great outdoor museums, which people will wait on line for months to visit--and when visiting, will be disallowed from venturing from wilderness paths.
Needless to say, those people will not be able to pick flowers or berries without a picking permit and bag limit (as today we have hunting and fishing permits--something our forebears would have thought a crazy idea, too), and no cutting of firewood.
In fact, no campfires or fireplaces--too many people whose activities already spew too much pollutants for "necessary" activities, to allow a few people the "luxurious waste" of a wood fire for purely aesthetic reasons.
The problem with etiologially associating smoking tobacco with death is that it can't be simply demonstrated that a dose-effect relationship can be measured and all such associations must be studied at great length and subjected to rigorous control methodologies to arrive at a statistically significant cause-effect relationship.
Long-term studies clearly show that career-smoking is harmful to one's health but so are many other normal and daily acivities such as driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic or crossing a busy street.
What hasn't been shown is a clear and present danger to being exposed to ETS in ordinary living arrangements.
As I said, I am opposed to general bans on smoking by government because it amounts to another abridgement of free association among groups. Current bans prohibit a gathering of all-smoking patrons in any place where one or more of the participants is an employee; only an idiot would think that this would lead to an improvement of these people's health - they will continue to smoke even if elsewhere, singly or in casual groups, and the general welfare neither gains nor loses.
It is the overarching reach of the big hand of government to which I object.
Could you point out the "flaws," please?
I do suffer from asthma, and cigarette smoke does aggravate it. The transition from smoking-allowed to smoke-free was wonderful for me.
But that's not why I asked the question. Over the years I've found that people who argue as you do -- demanding "direct evidence," and all that -- tend to be smokers. I figured, based on your responses, that you must be a smoker, and I was correct.
Now, we need not know the exact cause of death to know that smoking has a very significant effect on life expectancy. The difference between smokers and non-smokers is several years (see, e.g., here, search for "smoke").
As for ETS, it's been shown to aggravate existing conditions in children, such as asthma, and some studies like this one claim to have found that ETS is a significant factor in the development of asthma.
The point, again, is that significant exposure to ETS does have negative effects on some people, even if the exact mechanism is not specifically known.
Good point- and it goes to the larger issue that smokers have been pretty bad at fighting the pr battle on this whole thing.
You apparently misunderstand: the "flawed study" is the same one Milloy is writing about.
Well, you've got to admit they have an uphill battle: smoking is smelly; the smoke permeates clothes, hair, furniture, and carpets; you get to listen to "smoker's cough;" and -- for women especially -- you often get to enjoy the the beauties of "smoker's face." Smoking seems to offer very few redeeming features.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Smoking bans seem to have started in bigger, densely-populated cities. I think when you stick more people together, you need more rules, and some of these rules are going to be pretty burdensome.
People being what they are, I don't see any other solution, in a lot of cases.
We're not really overcrowded in this country- large swathes of this nation are essentially untamed wildernes. Hell, Southern New Jersey is basically woddland with a few towns here and there. I won't even talk about how empty the West is.
Overcrowding occurs becuase certain places are a magnet for Americans- Manhattan, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami etc. etc. Those places become crowded not because there isn't enough space in this country, but because people voluntarily move there.
I realize I'm going seriously off-topic.
Societally-approved behavior can change over time. Used to be, being a functional alcoholic was no big deal, for example. Drinking and driving used to be no big deal. Over time, society has decided that certain types of behavior is not acceptable and laws/rules have come about to deal with that. Since no legally protected rights seem to be at stake, there's really nothing preventing the majority from imposing these rules on the minority.
That'll teach me to read more carefully.
But to plow ahead, freedom is messy.
I read a remark years ago by I think, Fran Liebowitz, to the effect that being "out in public" means I put up with your bad habits and you put up with mine. Private property is the refuge.
The smoking Jihad has eliminated the refuge of private property, simple as that.
It really is the death of common sense, and the descent into crybabyism.
All risk removed, and the ascendancy of mediocrity.
But hey, who wouldn't want to die of boredom?
Well, shoot. I missed your message. Sorry. Here, have some hot dogs. Better then nothing. heh!
Stunned silence.
It is obviously necessary to be very careful if one has to decide on an abridgement of property rights -- and "jihad" is not too far off the mark in the case of some anti-smoking campaigns. But once it comes down to a question of harm to others, then your property rights properly come under scrutiny.
All risk removed, and the ascendancy of mediocrity.
It's a bit much to claim that lack of smokers will lead to mediocrity....
heh!
Why stunned? The example would be one of public drunkenness. Do we have a right to stagger around drunk in public? Well, it could be so-argued (and you could probably find a FR libertarian to argue it). But in reality it doesn't seem to violate anybody's legal rights if drunks are instead taken to the tank for the night.
It's a little disconcerting to think about, but the only behaviors local and state government can't ban are things that are constitutionally-protected (whether US constitution or the state constitution). Everything else is fair game.
I can't think of any argument that can support the proposition that you have a right to smoke.
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