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/
We haven't lost, yet.
At the least, I will still fight the good fight for property rights to exist.
I see you have ignored the explanation of the origin of rights. How convenient when you continue to put forth a false proposition.
I'll tell you again so you can continue to ignore it. The constitution enumerates the POWERS OF GOVERNMENT, it limits them. It grants no rights to individuals. The first ten amendments (often referred to as the bill of rights for those of you ignorant about such matters) reasserts some of them while making it clear in the ninth amendment that the list is not inclusive. Some of the founders opposed the amendments on the grounds that future DOLTS would attempt to make the same inane argument you advance here. They insisted on the inclusion of the ninth amendment as a compromise to allow the bill of rights to be included.
The Declaration of Independence reminds us of the origin of rights. Try reading it.
Now please fess up to being a liberal and stop the masquerade.
Translation;
Using force, in this case government force (at gunpoint if necessary) is OK to improve your business position as long as the groups doing it are able to sucessfully work the system.
It is important to note that you will have to fight so called conservatives in the battle to retain your rights.
Prpoery rigths exist. Its the owners of the property that are requesting their rights be subject to a smoking ban. Thses bans are being done using due process. This is not a property rights issue. It may be a due process issue, but property rights can be impaired so long as a due process is followed.
I have said before that I believe that in the case of a restuarant owner who was allowed smoking and where a town disallow it they have effectively taken his property and the owner has the right to compensation but the remedy is still not to allow smoking. Further, in the case of a regional wide ban I cannot see how an owner could prove lost of income unless he is at the border of the regional ban.
I have read it and I still don't see where the right to smoke is. I see what your saying about the rights for property and I see that these bans are being done with due process. I fail to see where the state cannot ban smoking and I fail to see where the smoker has the right to smoke.
Its worled since 1776. Any suggestions about a better system ?
To which you replied:
Horse s**t!
Try serving rotten meat in your restaurant...
The difference is that no customer wants to get food poisoning, whereas there are plenty of customers who want a cigar or cigarette after dinner.
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.
Well, if you ask me it is a sad day when the rights of business owners and property owners ceases to be a Republican issue.
Number 1 - They can ALREADY do that simply by making their business 'No Smoking Allowed' and letting other business people make their OWN decision whether or not to allow smoking, spitting, cussing, etc.
Number 2 - What about the business man that does NOT request that they be subject to a smoking ban? Are THEIR property rights to be trampled on simply because a majority doesn't want to enter their business if they allow smoking? (Not that I think a majority wouldn't enter simply because a business owner allowed smoking)
If this was the case the 'smoking allowed' businessman would go out of business shortly after the 'no smoking allowed' business person banned smoking from their establishment.
May I remind you that state governments made "non-smoking sections" mandatory some years back. This is an added burden on restaurants because it is an unfunded mandate by the government that a business owner set aside part of his store. It is the business owners who are now subsidizing the government's anti-tobacco policies.
Why not simply let some restaurants disallow or allow smoking by the choice of the business owner?
Incorrect. I'll fix it for you.
Its the SOME OF the owners of the SOME OF THE property that are requesting their OTHERS rights be subject to a smoking ban.
Thses bans are being done using due process. This is not a property rights issue.
Nice try, BS, but nice try.
It may be a due process issue, but property rights can be impaired so long as a due process is followed.
Nice try again, but no soap. Rights may be violated, but they still exist. If I kill you, you will be dead, but the fact that I denied your right to live doesn't mean that no such right existed. You may vote (due process) to violate my rights, but the fact that you do that doesn't mean my rights don't exist.
All this betrays your real authoritarian agenda. Stop masquerading as an American.
If a business could show that before a ban they made X amount of money of which Y was the amount of profit - and AFTER the ban they made X-30%X and the profit was Y-Z, which was LESS than they made BEFORE the ban I think that would prove loss of income.
ESPECIALLY if they could then show that businesses outside the border of the ban made X before the ban and now they made X+30%X AFTER the ban.
Whether the business working under the ban was near the border, or not, seems to me would be irrelevant.
Because it betrays the thugs of the power to run everyone's life and returns that power back to the individual. It spoils the whole fascist party. Silly goose.
I have read it and I still don't see where the right to smoke is. I see what your saying about the rights for property and I see that these bans are being done with due process. I fail to see where the state cannot ban smoking and I fail to see where the smoker has the right to smoke.
You really don't get it do you? I thought you were pulling my leg. I thought no one still clung to these childish notions.
Rights are not granted by documents, the Declaration, or the Constitution, or any other document made by men. Reread the Declaration and pay particular attention to the part that reminds us of where rights come from.
A business on the border of a ban would lose customers to the competing restaurant accross the border.
It has not worked. It has been steadily and unrelentlessly attacked and perverted since the moment the ink dried on the signatures. People like you are common.
People with your attitude and agenda are the "domestic" part of the "all enemies, foreign or domestic" line.
If I didn't know better, I'd think they were trying to help us libertarians break out of the 1% category.
To the anti's: By all means, please keep up the crusade. We need the votes, and we'll be glad to take those of business owners from you.
Not feasible unless they all "disarm" at the same time. Otherwise they can lose customers.
Number 2 - What about the business man that does NOT request that they be subject to a smoking ban? Are THEIR property rights to be trampled on simply because a majority doesn't want to enter their business if they allow smoking? (Not that I think a majority wouldn't enter simply because a business owner allowed smoking)
Yes, his rights were "tampled on" but they were trampled on using the political process. So long as the laws were followed, he has no recourse.
But lets change the scenario somewhat to "what if all the restuarant owners in SmokeFREE town decided they no longer wished to serve smokers. They have a problem even if they all banned smoking at the same time because they would create a new opportunity for a new restaurant. So they call on their town officials to enact a town wide ban. No existing property owner is harmed.
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