Posted on 07/02/2025 5:21:54 AM PDT by DoodleBob
BS. Nobody took away the freedom to smoke, you just can’t cancel out everyone else and their right to not put up with it.
Smoking somewhere else is an option too. One person and their right to stupidity, doesn’t outweigh someone else’s rights.
What is this “right not to put up with it” of which you speak? Is it enshrined in the Constitution? There is a lot of nonsense with which we put up, like misinformation, social media, public schools. They all carry negative externalities that, arguably, cause more harm than second hand smoke. Yet, we combat but haven’t criminalized those things because we recognize that’s the cost of freedom.
Again, second-hand smoke and air pollution are the same thing - a negative externality. The environmentalists have weaponized “hate” over negative externalities and turned it into a quasi-religion with fangs that have EPA tattooed on ‘em. I sorry, but anti-smokers are cousins of environmentalists, as they share the same genetic underpinning.
And crusaders are never happy. Many of us grew up around parental second-hand smoke. Parenthetically, we’re not dead yet. Are you suggesting that the govt should enter the home and imprison mom and dad? I mean, if negative externalities are all bad, and anti-smokers are gleeful over the destruction of commercial property rights, then the logical conclusion is regulation of parental smokers. Marx wins.
Second hand smoke regulation is a dangerous slippery slope. We’d be better off letting the market sort it out. Repeal all smoking laws. Let restaurant owners compete with smoking and non-smoking venues. Let’s see who wins. Or, better yet, we all win with freedom and choice. Happy 4th.
Anyone has the right to smoke. Since it IS harmful to others, they don’t have the right to smoke around other people in public that don’t choose that. Someone has their rights, but they don’t supersede someone else’s rights in public. Would you suggest people have the right to drive drunk, and if others don’t want to be put at risk by it, they just hide at home? Freedom doesn’t mean you can be reckless WITH EVERYONE ELSE.
Car exhaust, factory emissions, and other pollutants are “harmful to others.”
In the spirit of communism, we gave the govt and the EPA the power to make the air clean. And that worked out just peachy. Not.
Drunk driving : The govt owns the roads. If you use public property, then you gotta play by their rules.
Are you suggesting that the govt owns the air?
I hear you, but, in a free society, you can’t always get what you want. If you don’t like second hand smoke, frequent establishments that ARE smoke free.
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