Posted on 10/01/2002 11:16:00 PM PDT by 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/
You're obviously referring to the whining crybabies with a genetic predisposition to become hopeless nicotine addicts. You're absolutely right, there is no reason whatsoever that the rest of us should have to breathe the vile by-products of their public drug fixes. Why would any sane person think we need to accommodate such weak-willed crybaby smoke junkies, indeed? Clear them out of public life and let them inflict their pollution on their own homes!
Glad you agree with me.
-ccm
At this point, I'm not sure WHAT you posted.
I posted our discussion from start to finish in my last response (112) to you. Besides, you can follow the discussion back through the reply links that are with every post made.
What do you think? I asked you first in my last response. Honesty is honorable -- that's more than gracious and both a hint and a recommendation.Are you with us or against us???
Horse s**t!
Try serving rotten meat in your restaurant, or selling pot under the counter, or putting up a sign that says 'No blacks allowed.' Crimes and public nuisances are protected by no statute and it matters not whether they take place on public or private property. Tobacco pollution falls into the same category.
If you want to convince your fellow citizens otherwise, feel free to carp on FR or the libertarian sites about your grand theories of why it's Just So Unfair. But as time goes by, expect society -- including the courts -- to pay less and less attention to the whining of smoke junkie crybabies who want to take their nicotine fix in places open to the public.
-ccm
Then you have never watched anyone close to you die a slow and painful death from lung cancer.
I hate the demon weed. I don't hate those who smoke it but I hate the arguments they put forth in forums like this.
Why they should their own lack of willpower give them the privilege of inflicting their filthy smoke on all the rest of us?
Why should they be allowed to go around puffing on their drug fixes within sight of impressionable children?
That's what I hate. The poor pitiful junkies, I just feel sorry for them; they are in the grips of a drug craving worse than heroin in its addictiveness. Most of them will admit this. Those few who go around blustering about their "constitutional right" to blow filthy smoke into the air I breathe have my pity but not my respect.
Their arguments resemble the typical rationalization and excuse making of any other drug dependent addict. We don't listen to the ravings of smack addicts when we make laws against heroin, and I don't see why we need to have the least concern about nicotine junkies jonesing for a smoke when we set public policy on smoking in a bar or restaurant.
-ccm
I think that ugly stupid people should be put up against the wall and shot. If that gets passed down here in Florida cc, I would suggest major plastic surgery before visiting our state.
Give it up with ccmay. He's a facist with communist leanings. He could care less about your freedoms. He's only concerned about those that affect his ability to hug trees and donate to Jerry Brown out in Commiefornia.
Remarkable, and wrong on every single accusation. Is that all you have to add to the discussion? You must need a smoke...
-ccm
Your argument would make more sense if they could drop their Jewish identity outside the door of the restaurant and pick it up again on the way out.
As it is, it's a complete non sequitir and grossly insulting to the memory of those whom Hitler killed. I hate what smokers do, not who they are, and if you can't see the difference, shame on you.
-ccm
You do also realize that many of the people you are arguing against are non-smokers, don't you? I've never used a tobacco product in my life, and yet I'm using the same arguments as those addicted smokers. I don't need a nicotine fix. I simply care about freedom, which is the real issue here.
To return to your point about asthmatics or people with emphysema, where can one of these people with a pre-existing medical condition go NOW that they are not inhaling diesel exhaust, gasoline exhaust, particulates from many many sources? If the person KNOWS that there is a hazard to their pre-existing condition it doesn't sound too smart to me to enter that place.
There are plenty of smoke free places NOW that they can go, or would be if the market dictated such, so why use the power of government to force a business owner to abide by a policy they might not otherwise make for the sake of one or two customers.
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