"Well, why are our own FReepers bashing us just because we enjoy a legal product???? Now, common! If they hate smokers and smoke so much, stay the hell away from smokers. How hard can it be?"
I don't hate the smokers. I hate the smoke. I also object to people that try to take away my right to vote.
It can be really hard to avoid smoke. I went to get a phone at a kiosk in a mall that was right near the entrance and every time the door opened I got a lungfull of the crap. Also waiting for you luggage at the old RSW was hell. I was standing at a lower landing of a hotel entrance a month or so ago and a guy tossed a lit butt at my feet.
If smokers were more considerate they would not be facing this. But just like everything else if people were more considerate we would not have to overlay regulations on otherwise legal products.
"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.
The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men. The fundamental danger to political freedom is the concentration of power. The existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few individuals enables them to use it to coerce their fellow men. Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination of power where that is possible, or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated.
It essentially requires a system of checks and balances, like that explicitly incorporated in our Constitution..."
-- Milton Friedman, The New Liberal's Creed: Individual Freedom, Preserving Dissent Are Ultimate Goals," May 18, 1961
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009267&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
Since I've read everything that my adopted Grandfather, Milton Friedman wrote, and since he died last week, it's up to me to carry on his message:
The Free Market works. Non-smokers should have plently of smoke free establishments since 75% of people don't smoke. Business owners will cater to your (understandable) desire to not have smoke blown in your face while you eat fried cheese curds and drink alcohol. The free market will also provide a place for people who enjoy a legal product like cigarettes, cigars to enjoy that legal product on PRIVATE property. Everybody will be happy.
EXCEPT THE SOCIALISTS.