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/
Telling me once again what I meant. This is precisely why the rest of us won't let self-selected "individualist-objectivists" decide what the Constitution means. And yes I do deny "massive erosions of individual liberty...in the last century." Unless, of course, you consider it your individual liberty to produce, transport, sell, and consume illegal drugs. Otherwise, the record is spotty, some cause for cheer, some for concern. I would say that the greatest cause for cheer and the greatest cause for alarm in the past century both occurred in our political liberties. In that span, women and Blacks secured the right to vote. On the other hand, the concentration of money in the federal government's hands threatens to overwhelm states, counties, and municipalities. Conservatives welcome help from individualist-objectivists to work with us through the legal process established by the Constitution to stem then reverse that tide.
It's nearly all they think about.
yes I do deny "massive erosions of individual liberty...in the last century."
Thank you. - Your denial of obvious factual reality is all I wanted to establish in his exchange.
Trying to prevent all change is pointless. Some of it happens anyway, despite our efforts against it. But, it seems to me, we can prevent fundamental alternation of our chosen method of change -- that is, change through the constitutional process. That’s the core, around which all else orbits. To accept, then, an individual’s “right” to interpret the Constitution in his own way is to accept a blow that tilts the core and throws out of course all the other orbits.
I agree entirely that “small” and “locally” do have sensible definitions -- sensible at least to me. But they are by no means universally-accepted definitions and political disputes about them ought to be resolved by the political method we have chosen, not by fiat or by some self-selected “individualist-objectivist.” For me, “small” and “locally” are perhaps the most injured of all concepts in our politics. Without expecting a return to a nation of small farmers and shopkeepers, it seems to me that we could have arrived at better compromises than those which produced Enron and the Department of Education.
I stress representative democracy because that’s the way we practice politics in this Republic. We are a Republic created by our Constitution. That same Constitution created the framework and institutions of our representative democracy. The descriptions are not mutually exclusive nor in dubious battle. A Republic is “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.” That describes representative democracy.
You write: Democracy, especially egalitarian, implies that my desires of the moment are to somehow make their way into the process and there was nothing further from the founders' intent. But, why was that? It was to keep the tyranny of the majority in check. Sure Numbers matters and deciedes things. But only those Numbers and by those processes framed in the diverse process of our constitutions. Thereby the Majority is kept from (1) violating by whim of the moment, (2) intemperence, (3) the will of demogogues, (4)violating prescriptive principle honored from time immemorial (as opposed to abstract rights), and (5)never being given the ability to announce any One decision, of merely 51%, as the ultimate public will.
We can’t have “numbers don’t matter and don’t decide things” and “sure numbers matter and decide things.” Unless we insert “sometimes,” the conflict boggles our mind’s effort to grasp the whole. Besides, neither statement is precisely true when applied to the Constitution. Numbers -- and other things -- matter even with the sacred Bill of Rights. These were intended to be rights that government was prohibited from contravening for any reason. Still, the Constitution itself provides ways to contravene them. Numbers decide, for example, who gets elected to the Senate and the presidency and, therefore, who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can decide that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms only as part of the militia; in other words, the judges decide what the Constitution means. Further, the Constitution provides a way for the Constitution itself to be changed by amendment. A constitutional amendment through the elected (where numbers count) Congress and a vote of 3/4 of the states or through a Constitutional Convention (membership appointed by the state legislatures, where numbers count) could remove the Second Amendment and replace it with “no citizen has the right to keep or bear arms.” That would be devastating, but it still would be “legal” and within our constitutional process. That can happen but it hasn’t. Why? From the Founders onward the citizenry have generally favored a middle course between extremes, sometimes going off impulsively in one direction, then reestablishing equilibrium by returning toward the middle reaches of painful compromise. If and when this habit fails, the method of change we have chosen may fail as well. To have a system that may fail does not mean it must inevitably fail. This is part of the risk and tension of our representative democracy.
The framework is neither absence nor counterpoint. It is a method, a process, through which disputes about “meaning,” “good,” “conduct” and others can be resolved in a manner approved by most of the participants. Sowell may criticize “utilitarian primacy” but he’ll get no argument from me. After all “utilitarian primacy” describes monarchy, socialism, autocracy or any other method of organizing a community. The Constitution does not establish “the greatest good” or “abstract rights.” It establishes the process through which disputes over what constitutes “the greatest good” or “abstract rights” can be resolved without resort to arms. Even then, it failed at least once in our national experience, when passions overwhelmed respect for the constitutional process.
You write: In your third paragraph, I agree the citizen must submit to just and proper authority. But he also must resist and fight improper authority of the acquisitive nature of those in authority will overturn his society. So if I agree that Judges Interpret as well as Adjudicate, I will always make that resistance when they Legislate rather than Interpret. So you see that we are once again back to the plain meaning of Words.
In the “plain meaning of words,” what is “just and proper authority”? What is “improper authority”? It is because these phrases are not self-evident in all places and cases and times that they are so frequently disputed. The Constitution does not explain them; instead, it gives the citizen a process for resolving the disputes in ways that are applicable in his daily life and business. The judicial system is part of that process. When a judge goes beyond interpreting and legislates, as I think some do, what is the process for determining that the judge “legislated” and,therefore, his judgment is null? Right answer: The process provided by the Constitution. Wrong answer: Each person will decide for himself.
About smoking your pipe in your (future) bookstore. As we say in Abilene, go ahead on. If it’s against the law, however, and you claim the “constitutional” right to do it anyway, you may be punished according to the law. Meanwhile, I’ll claim the “constitutional” right not to be saddled with your smoking-related illnesses. And we’ll let the constitutional process resolve it. Fair enough?
I can't give a very through discussion to this at this time but I will try to clear up a couple of items. By using the term Numbers as opposed to "majority rule" I was trying to stress Process, that process given in the Constitution. The Constitution, the rules of the branches established thereunder, and the various rules of the Federal courts, establish many rules of Numbers seperate and different from plain Majority. So, democracy or majority rule, is a simplistic standard, actually much foriegn to our tradition.
Secondly, the evening address by Ann Coulter I attended a couple of years ago comes to mind. Let's do what she suggests and ask prospective Judges as a qualifying question: "Are you prone to hallucinating or seeing Pernumbri when reading the US Constitution." That is where we have gone wrong.
Whether its the activism on the court that led to Dred Scott, or leftist activism that creates things whole cloth, in no way are those Judges anything but the members of government most removed from appointment from, or repair by, the traditonal participatory representative scheme that is our heritage, whether called Democracy or any other name.
If our "democratic" tradition was the bar to monarchial tendancies of our Anglo heritage, it needs to surely be the bar to Rule by Judges (Kirk's term for that escapes me at the moment)
There are whole fields of questions, about the reach of government, outside of the Private Property question and certainly outside of those areas beyond Public Accomodation, where I think I would be agreeing with you. But, you have brought the blunderbuss of a great arguement to do battle in a pretty clouded area of dispute here, hence the need I felt for the original distinctions I drew.
If prohibition of the usage of tobacco is the end of all these measures, why then it should be argued on its own merits, because that is what it seems to many that the effort is for. And like Prohibition of liquor, frail mankind, won't abide that much good government.
I hope to continue the issue of communitarian perview on other threads and I will have hoped to get Robert Nisbet read prior to taking you on there, LOL.
Disraeli, Newman, Tocqueville, Bourget, Godkin, Babbitt, all of them, down to such conservatives of our own day as Oakeshott, Voegelin, Jouvenel and Kirk, have stressed nothing if not the bounden necessity of the political state holding as far back as possible from meddling in economic, social and moral affairs; and, conversely, in doing all that is possible in strengthening and broadening the functions of family, neighborhood, and voluntary, cooperative association ... the hallmark of conservative politics has been its greater affection for the private sector, for family and local community, for economy and private property, and for a substantial measure of decentralization in government, one that would respect the corporate rights of the smaller unities of state and society.That is the balance I admire.
Additionally, I might offer Nisbet's essay on Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins which has been previously disscussed on this forum. If Nisbet can find the common ground, many of us can as well. See my home page for a link to that essay's discussion in The Pursuit of Liberty series we had here back in the days of common purpose.
It absolutely is. WE take the paper because my husband likes to sit on the porch, work the crossword puzzle, have his coffe and CIGARETTE each morning. I quit reading it right after 9/11 when the editorial page would have 3 or 4 editorials about the abused ME folks in the area. That went on for weeks. Just incredible! I pick it up once in a while and there is more news about Mexico in it than America.
Now Dallas is broke. A large percentage of the people who live in Dallas are not exactly taxpayers. Why in the world would a city want to put such a hardship on businesses that are bringing tax dollars into the city? I wish they would all relocate.
Suppose fatty desserts were declared "drugs" and the obese "food addicts." Would you suggest jail for eaters of Krispy Kremes?
Do you feel the same way about alcohol consumption? Would you make the consumption of alcohol in public places a jailable offense?
Far from ignoring our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property, they are at the core of my comments. If we have "inherent natural rights," the only way to make them meaningful in ways that can be applied to ordinary lives. To argue that one "natural right" is an "inalienable" right to life secured by the Constitution makes it unconstitutional for a state to execute legally any individual for whatever cause. Such is not unconstitutional. How do I know that? Read the Supreme Court's rulings on the death penalty -- unconstitutional at one point, constitutional now. You may reply that Supreme Court rulings merely make some conduct "legal," not "right" or even constitutional. It's your inalienable right, I suppose, to hold whatever views you prefer but you have no inalienable right to determine what the Constitution means. We have chosen a process for that, framed by the Constitution and continually tested, both in politics and law. It's that process I defend.
Similarly, "liberty" can be construed by an individual to mean that he has the inalienable right to do as he pleases -- run over pedestrians on public streets, shoot his neighbor, burn down city hall. He doesn't. There is lawful conduct and unlawful conduct, both of which in our country are determined by the processes of a representative democracy as framed by the Constitution.
The same is true of the rights to property. An individual may interpret that to mean that the community has no constitutional authority to pass a law against his factory spewing toxic chemicals into a public stream. Toxic chemicals were not mentioned in the Constitution, he might say, and therefore no law one way or the other can be made concerning them. Not so. How do I know that? That and similar disputes have been played out in the political and judicial processes which, through a representative democracy, define "Constitutional rights" at any particular time. Spew toxic chemicals into a public stream and you may be arrested, tried, and punished.
Criminal law is very much the issue. You assert that the community cannot pass and enforce laws that conflict with your reading of the Constitution. I say the community can and does. If you break the law, the community may punish you whether you think it is constitutional or not. We have a chosen method, or process, for testing provisions of the Constitution. You are not it.
You say we all possess inherent "natural rights" which nullify any law you disagree with. The right to life? Texas has demonstrated 37 times this year that it is constitutional to deprive a person of his life for the violation of certain laws. The right to liberty? Sell crack, get caught, and we'll see whether or not the community has the constitutional right to deprive you of your liberty. The right to property? Set up a factory, spew toxic material into a public stream and we'll see whether or not the community has the constitutional right to stop you from that use of your property. Ready for the first test?
Why would one restaurant want to ban smoking in another restaurant? If a group of restaurant owners got together to get the state to ban smoking, isn't that equiviant to price fixing? Why doesn't this group of restaurants just ban smoking in their own places? By the way, I am a non-smoker.
So therefore any ongong argument is speculative (although I don't see associations being particularly anxious to take up the issue).
To answer your question, the only reason price fixing is illegal is because it was made illegal by passing a law. This is the same process that is being used to ban smoking in restaurants. In the event associations wanted to pursue such laws I see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to. In fact a wide enough ban on smoking would raise income for larger restaurants who would have reduced staffing costs and equipment costs.
You could change a word or two of that sentence and get, "When the majority decides I should be executed, I'm gone."
You guys scare the hell out of me.
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