Posted on 03/11/2003 4:42:21 AM PST by chance33_98
Bill Would Limit Smoking by Apartment Dwellers
California smokers may soon have one less place to light up. A new law would make it difficult for apartment dwellers to smoke at home.
Assembly Bill 210 would make it illegal to smoke in any in any common area of a multifamily dwelling, including outdoors. It would also forbid use of tobacco products in any apartment not specifically designated a smoking unit.
If it becomes law, AB 210 would allow residents, landlords or homeowner's associations to sue tenants who allow second-hand smoke to drift beyond their apartments.
The bill's author says that the legislation is necessary because drifting smoke can be both a nuisance and a health hazard. "You can sue someone to force them to turn off their stereo at 2 a.m., but you can't sue someone to force them not to smoke, even though it comes into your apartment," said Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael. "There's something wrong with that."
Critics say it's not the government's job to tell people where they can smoke, and call the measure a violation of their rights.
The bill comes up for committee hearings later this spring. Assembly Bill 210 can be read in its entirety by clicking on the link below.
Full Text of Assembly Bill 210
Recognition........ it's no such thing, it's the result of the ever whining anti smokers.
It seems off topic to the point being made in anycase.
Just curious. How come you accept one contract that the founding fathers entered into on your behalf but not the constitution ?
No wonder you don't get it, you are an anarchist. It is accepted law that we are indeed subject to the authority of the state we live in.
Let me give you fair warning, even though you declare yourself as independent from the state the state will beg to differ.
Nah, you were trying to be difficult. :^}
That didn't happen. No contract was entered into in either instance by me. I never accepted any contract.
No wonder you don't get it, you are an anarchist.
Incorrect.
It is accepted law that we are indeed subject to the authority of the state we live in.
Off topic and strawman.
Let me give you fair warning, even though you declare yourself as independent from the state the state will beg to differ.
More strawmen. I never did such a thing. And the people with the most guns always have the authority. Whether it is legitimate or not is a different question.
Okay, your not an anachrist but you think the person with the most fire power is supreme and you don't accept any authority but yourself.
If that is the case then we must agree to disagree. It would have been nice to see how you fit your theories compared to reality but I'm really not surprised you didn't take the challenge.
I happen to accept that we are citizens of a constitutional state and that we enjoy more benefits from that then we do imposistions. I also accept that I will continue to submit to state authority until the time the state needs to be overthrown and replaced with a new government. You apparently are not subject to any outside authority and i wish you godspeed.
It was indeed this ideal of Right or Natural Law which gave birth to the concept of constitutionalism, from which in turn the world's great constitutions grew. This concept, recognizing the existence of higher laws than those enacted by mortals, places clear limits on the activities of government, establishing boundaries between the individual and the state, forbidding the state to trespass into certain areas reserved for private action. Constitution is traditionally recognized as being the highest power in the land, thus transcending even the decisions of democratically elected legislators.
The concept of Natural Law and its integration with constitutionalism was fundamental to the political philosophy of Henry Bracton, whose (Latin language) document On the Laws and Customs of England written some 30 years after the Magna Carta, the Great Charter of 1215, is one of the oldest systematic treatises on English Common Law. Bracton particularly stressed that the king must "be under God and the Law", by which may be understood the "natural law" or Right Reason.
"The King must be under God. For the King is not fulfilling his legal obligations when he rules by personal will, rather than by the due process of law under the ultimate Will of God".
Following this same tradition Sir Edward Coke attempted to impose the discipline of "right law" upon the Acts of Parliament in the early 1600s.
Coke became attorney general in 1594 and retained this Elizabethan appointment until 1606, when King James made him chief justice of Common Pleas and later, chief justice of the King's Bench, a post he retained until 1616. It was during this period, in 1606, that the first Virginia Charter was drawn up, in part by Sir Edward Coke.
Before beginning a new career as a member of the House of Commons in 1620, Coke devoted himself to writing his Reports and Institutes which became the basis of legal education in England and America throughout the 1700s.
As a student, Coke began to trace the medieval origins of common law, collecting ancient precedents that later filled the volumes appearing under the title The Institutes of the Laws of England and the Reports of Sir Edward Coke Kt. in English in Thirteen Parts Compleat. While preserving the common law's continuity he reinterpreted it in his own way, reaffirming the "natural law" element and defending it against all encroachments.
In his opinion given in Dr. Bonham's Case (1610), Coke declared: "when an Act of Parliament is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the common law will control it, and adjudge such an Act to be void."
The ideal of subjecting law-makers to procedures of conduct and to basic concepts of "common right or reason" persisted after Coke's death in the turbulent years of revolution. A political reform group active during the Civil War years of the 1640s later known as the Levellers, held that parliament itself should be bound by certain "fundamental laws" assuring for example religious liberty and forbidding military conscription.
This attempted triumph of "right" over royal or parliamentary "might" was not destined to become a permanent feature of English legislative discipline or procedure. Perhaps this was because the "common right or reason" had not been, and indeed still has not been clearly defined. But such concepts would later inspire in the new United States of America the idea of codifying the essential procedures, safeguards and liberties gradually assembled over the centuries into one single written constitution. Indeed the very concept of constitution attempts to identify certain basic precepts of Right Law, and to set them above majority will or the enactments of legislatures.
The first written constitutions of the 1700s were motivated by two then-current political theories: social contract and natural law.
The "social contract" element reflected the principle that government is established as a result of a compact in which individuals promise to accept the judgements of a common arbiter. An important implication is that, having put their trust and political destiny in the hands of a central government, the people are thereby entitled to expect from that government justice, honesty and competence.
And since it is all of the people who are subject to law, not only those who have voted for the specific party for the time being in office, it follows that there is a presumed obligation upon any party in power to act in the overall national interest, avoiding solutions favoring specific sectional interests.
Though this ideal may be difficult to define, it has nonetheless been possible to limit government from practicing the grosser extremes of in-justice; this is achieved through the constitution, the function of which is to set out the specific terms of this "social contract" including the procedures, obligations and limitations to which government should be subject.
The "natural law" element in constitutions gave them the sanctity of a higher law.
"The modern constitutional state at the time of its origins was justified and to a large extent legitimatized in terms of natural law theory. While the ancient idea of a divinely inspired, immutable, eternal natural law had been secularized by the seventeenth century it still provided a source of permanence in an ever unstable world.
"John Locke used natural law to support the natural rights of the individual, thus limiting the powers of government. The written constitutions which followed Locke's philosophy embodied such traditional natural rights in detailed provisions."
[Blaustein and Sigler: Constitutions That Have Made History, Paragon House, NY, 1988].
The US Constitution - Limiting Democracy
You know the Constitutional Peasant Scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Arthur is speaking with the peasant guy (Dennis)...("Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.")
I can't help but get an image of you as that guy. And I instinctively want to take the role of Arthur and simply respond by saying "Shut Up!"
:)
Fact. It might not be legitimate, but it is true and always has been. (and I sure don't want to be a anachrist, whatever that is, I like Christ, he is my savior)
and you don't accept any authority but yourself.
Untrue, another unfounded charge.
You apparently are not subject to any outside authority
What you find apparent is not true, and I never said anything along that line.
and i wish you godspeed.
Thank you.
A curse on those pinheads for ruining what once was a wonderful State in which to live.
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