IF THEY WEREN'T SERIOUS, THIS WOULD BE HYSTERICAL

The Cigar Show ^ | 2 October 2002 | Chuck Cason

[SheLion]

The movement to get the Dallas City Council to pass a city ordinance to make ALL establishments 100% smoke free is gaining momentum. They advocate preventing a bar or restaurant owner to make his or her own decision about giving a choice to the customer. They advocate putting into LAW that you can't... CAN NOT... smoke anywhere in the City of Dallas. "Well, how about the cigar bar in Del Frisco's after a big steak dinner?"

Nope. In fact if they get this passed, they might come back and try to get a law passed that we can't eat a big steak dinner because they found a study that suggests that the side-effects of other people enjoying a steak is bad for "the children".

In fact, there is no stopping a group of people organizing, coming up with their own "research", and lobbying to take our rights away because they don't like what others do.

 I know that sounds ridiculous and that is why no normal citizen, who enjoys the rights that people before us fought and died for, ever thinks that anything as absurd as a law to take away any of those rights could be even considered as serious. That is where we have been wrong... dead wrong. It seems that advocates share a certain trait with politicians: they both feel the need to get "involved" with the issue of guiding our citizenry. In the meantime, our citizenry is comfortable knowing that our Constitution is protecting us so we can go about our daily lives working and enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Well, guess what? We were wrong.

There is a group in Dallas that is working hard to "ban" smoking in any establishment in the city limits.

They contend a restaurant owner has no business making a decision about his or her own policies. They think that the local government should decide what type of customers they should try to attract. This group has even stooped to the over-done, we-should-do-it-for-the-children-and-if-you-disagree-with-that-you-hate-children tactic.

 They wonder why when they are with their "children" (because after all, they are pro-family... aren't you?) and someone in a restaurant lights up, the government isn't there to protect the health of their family. They wonder why they are expected to make a decision not to go to that restaurant instead of making everyone around them change so they don't have to.

To find the wisdom in our system, it is often necessary to read what our leaders said a long time ago. It was Abraham Lincoln that had words for this situation:

"Those who deny freedom for others deserve it not for themselves".

Let me be clear. I do not smoke cigarettes. They are nasty and dangerous. There are probably many chemicals and poisons that are let out into the air by smoking. But I reserve the right to smoke one day, if I want to. I won't smoke at your church, school, or in your government building. If you don't allow it in your home, I will totally respect that. I won't smoke in your car, or even near you when I can... I am not rude. However, when I choose a restaurant that wants me as a customer so much as to have a section for me, and you want to go there too (because the food and service are great), we have both made a decision based on personal freedom. Since you have made that choice, why is it my fault that you aren't comfortable? Why do you insist that city government get involved to make sure your dining experience is more pleasant? If you walk by a club and the rap music from inside is so loud that it seems offensive, will you go inside? No, of course not, and you wouldn't run to the city council wanting a law against rap music.

You simply wouldn't go. Get it?

I am not even going to start in on the junk science and so-called "surveys" presented as "irrefutable fact" by this poster group for political correctness. I will give you the link to the web site. Twenty years ago this web site would have made a great satirical magazine. It would have shown, in a ironic way, how fanatics try to push their agenda using any scare tactic they can. Sadly, this is not satire. It is a group that will not be content until others behave the way they think they should. It is time for common sense to replace political correctness.

It is time that people realize a perfect world is not formed by laws.

 

Here is the web site. Enjoy. http://smokefreedallas.org/

[FreeTally]

If you deny the power of government to regulate health and safety issues in places of public accommodation,

Ahh, the old "once you operate a business on property, it becomes public property" argument. That dog don't hunt here. If I own property, I own it, and make the rules that GUESTS must abide by.

[ccmay]

If you want to put up a sign saying "Peeing is permitted" over your own pool, why should anyone else care?

My point exactly. If you want to smoke your demon weed in the confines of your own house, or piss in your own pool, go right ahead.

But if you think you can build a swimming pool, open it to the public, charge admission, and then put up a sign saying "Pissing Permitted" or "Pissing zone at east end of the pool", then you have another think coming, courtesy of the county health department.

How is this different from keeping disgusting, unsafe tobacco smoke out of restaurants and bars? Private homes are not the same as restaurants and other public accomodations. This has been settled law for decades.

No serious Republican challenges the right of local governments to regulate filth in public swimming pools or spoiled food in restaurants. Nor should they object when the public decides they are sick of having smoke junkies polluting the air in bars and restaurants.

If you disagree, based on your own weak-willed dependence on nicotine, then maybe you ought to leave the Republicans and join your fellow drug addicts in the Libertarian Party.

-ccm

[VRWC_minion]

Your consistent defense of mob rule is tiresome.

My defense is of the republican form of gov't. I merely named the driving force as economic and attempt to teach you that when things are motivated by economics its a pretty strong force to stop.

If you want to avoid the majority and the economics on this issue then you will need to get an amendment to the constitution to protect your precious right to smoke. Hint:It ain't gonna happen.

[js1138]

I used to smoke. When I quit I became sensitive to other people smoking. I ask for non-smoking sections in restraunts.

But any politician or any political party that pushes banning of smoking in privately owned places will lose my vote forever.

[Madame Dufarge]

you will need to get an amendment to the constitution to protect your precious right to smoke.

No, you'll need to get an amendment to the Constitution to protect your phantasmagorical "right" to protect your precious neuroses.

The rest of us look to the Fifth Amendment.

[VRWC_minion]

If smokers/restaurant owners had a fifth amendment right, where are the cases ? Looks to me like the idea that there is a 5th amend right is just smoke.

[ccmay]

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.

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

[Just another Joe]

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?

[Madame Dufarge]

If smokers/restaurant owners had a fifth amendment right, where are the cases ? Looks to me like the idea that there is a 5th amend right is just smoke.

The smoking Nazi tsunami by statists like you is relatively recent. Couple that with statist, liberal judges, whose photographs you probably carry in your wallet, and this constitutes a mighty force for small businessmen to come up against in terms of legal costs and time better devoted to running their businesses. This is what people like you count on.

I'm confident that a case will be brought in the future.

[tpaine]

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
__________________________________

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.

[ccmay]

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.

So the heck with people who have asthma or emphysema, that's just a pre-existing condition, and a smoke junkie's right to take his drugs in public outweighs the right of an asthmatic to go into a bar or restaurant without suffering an attack? Is that what you are saying here? Doesn't seem like very firm ground to me.

-ccm

[metesky]

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.

[freeeee]

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"

[Madame Dufarge]

So the heck with people who have asthma or emphysema, that's just a pre-existing condition, and a smoke junkie's right to take his drugs in public outweighs the right of an asthmatic to go into a bar or restaurant without suffering an attack?

Please cite your source for this "right" you claim for whining crybabies to demand that the whole world accommodate their genetic weakness.

I can't swim, I don't go in water over my head. I don't demand the oceans be drained.

Get the analogy?

Probably not.

[VRWC_minion]

I'm confident that a case will be brought in the future.

Why the wait ? Each year that goes by the worse it is for smokers to turn around the momentum. Could you imagine a rally of smokers fighting for their const rights ? There would be about six that would actually show. And I can only imagine the way the reporters would taunt them.

Face it there isn't going to be some white knight that is going to come riding in. The current state of affairs is more like the smokers as the black knight in Monty Python. Its over. The dye is cast. The majority want smoking banned everywhere and its just a matter of time. There is no "right" that is going to save the day.

[Liberal Classic]

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?

[VRWC_minion]

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.

What is your opinion if the majority of restaurants want smoking banned and work together with the state to enact a ban ? isn't that a private property right of the owners to petition for regulations ?

[freeeee]

The majority want smoking banned everywhere

And given the way this country is going, they'll get it. When they do, will they finally be happy? Will their crusade be over? Oh, not by a longshot. They'll have someone else in their social engineering sites very soon. Once they've ruined someone else's life's joy, or livelihood, or rights they'll move on to another. And another....

One day, and take my word, it won't be long, they're going to rain on your parade.

[Liberal Classic]

In my opinion, no, I do not believe that if a majority of restaurant owners simply want a certian thing that they should have it. I do not believe in a pure democracy such as that.

Does the state constitution give the government the authority to do so? And what about the rights of those restaurant owners who do not approve of such a ban? Do they not have some expectation of private property rights when it comes to the manner in which they run their business?

[VRWC_minion]

I don't see any const right to smoke in public. In lieu of that the majority pushes their representatives to pass laws that favor them all the time. In this case the costs of doing business for a restaurant are greatly reduced if smoking is banned.

So, the general public benefits in that the cost of their meals is lower and they don't have to subsidize the added costs of providing a smoking section.