from today's CATO Daily Dispatch(www.cato.org)

[alan]

Not gun related, yet bound to upset some amongst readers. For those so inclined, please carefully read and consider the comment about PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE OWNERSHIP THEREOF.


Study Says Smoking Ban Cuts Heart Attack Risk by Half
The Chicago Sun-Times reports, "People who live in Helena, Mont., got more than just smoke-free meals when they voted to ban smoking in public buildings last year. They also halved their risk of suffering a heart attack, a study presented Tuesday to a Chicago medical conference showed.

"Doctors said their study was the first to find that smoking bans--enacted in Helena, New York City and the state of California, among other places, and proposed but not passed in Chicago--might have immediate heart benefits."

In the name of "public health," smoking ban proponents often claim that the potential health benefits of smoking bans outweigh the imposition of such bans on private property owners. But Cato Institute Senior Fellow Robert Levy, writing about the New York City smoking ban in "Bloomberg Smokes Out Property Rights", says: "To put it bluntly, the owner of the property should be able to determine -- for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all -- whether to admit smokers, nonsmokers, neither, or both. Customers or employees who object may go elsewhere. They would not be relinquishing any right that they ever possessed. By contrast, when a businessman is forced to effect an unwanted smoking policy on his own property, the government violates his rights.

"That's the controlling principle. Private property does not belong to the public. Employing a large staff, or providing services to lots of people, is not sufficient to transform private property into public property. The litmus test for private property is ownership, not the size of the customer base or the workforce."

Christopher Kilmer, editor, [email protected]

 

[bastiat]

There was recently a discussion of this on the radio. One of the callers said he had been out to california and noted how 'nice' it was to be able to go into bars that had formerly allowed smoking and are now smoke free. He used that as his justification for such a ban. No legal or constitutional standing, just that he liked it better without smoking, so it's hunky-dory to ban it. Apparently the fact that he thought it was much 'nicer' trumps the right of the property owner to determine whether or not to allow his patrons to smoke.

Too many people that say they like freedom (and I'm sure some of them will chime in when they see this thread) and individual choice are willing to cite the will of the marjority when it comes to smoking. They may not like it when government does X, but when they want government to do Y, they're all for it, basic property rights be damned.

"Yes, you are wearing government mandated chains, but we all voted for them. Besides, they're really nice and shiney and it makes me feel better to see you in them."

 

[Justin]

One of the callers said he had been out to california and noted how 'nice' it was to be able to go into bars that had formerly allowed smoking and are now smoke free. He used that as his justification for such a ban.

You know why he said that? Because he's a fool.


Freedom is Slavery indeed...

 

[faustulus]

Did you know the two studies anti smoking rights groups use to support their bogus claims are fake. One is a WHO report that actually found that there was no statistical link between second hand smoking and disease, yet the headline on a WHO press release about the study claimed the opposite. The other study was done by the Envoiromental department and was later throw out by a federal court. The court found the study was "pure fabrication" finding that the numbers had been manipulated and the data the study collected did not support its conclusion.

 

[Khornet]

JUNK SCIENCE

if there ever was a junk "study", this is it. ONE YEAR after a smoking ban, these 'researchers' can detect a change in disease risk? For a disease which is the cumulative effect of decades of behavior and biology? In a teeny town like Helena? In the tiny subset of residents exposed to smoke in public buildings?

There is simply NO WAY any responsible researcher could claim to find such an effect, and no responsible researcher would generalize a single data point to the universe. This ain't science, it isn't even junk science...it's politics.

Or as one wag said in another context:

"That isn't right....it isn't even wrong."

 

[Kevlarman]

While this "study" is highly dubious, I for one am happy that I do not have to put up with secondhand smoke in restuarants or bars. Wheter you're for or against smoking, you can't debate that inhaling any type of smoke is going to be harmful to your lungs.

 

[Al Norris]

Kevlarman, I don't much care what you think about smoking or second hand smoke. It's irrelevant to the entire topic. Address the issue of property rights.

It's "your" property and "your" business. What gives the government the authority to meddle in it? Because a majority of people say so?

A majority of people can tell you that you can't conduct a legal business? A majority of people can tell others they can't indulge in a legal pastime?

Smoking is bad. Guns are bad. Smokers are bad people. Gun owners are bad people. How can you be for the rights of one and against the rights of another?

There is a word for this kind of thinking.

 

[alan]

Al Norris:

Re your quite valid response to Kevlarman, his position might be summed up as follows, though I'm absolutely certain that some would disagree. His personal feelings, he is "happy" with smoking bans will always trump such arcane and unimportant issues as individual rights/responsibilities.

His "feelings" obviously superceede the questions you ask/the points you make, though I for one would like to hear him squeal when someone elses "feelings" become superior to his individual rights, as sooner or later, given his line of thinking, will surely come to pass, if it hasn't already.

 

[Pendragon]

This was beated to death and back on TFL.

If you think it is ok to allow smoking at work, then you should think it is ok to allow sexual harassment and sexual favors for employment/advancement.

You could actually make a pretty good libertarian argument as to why sexual harassment should be legal.

After all, if you dont want to ****/inhale, you should just go elsewhere right?

 

[bastiat]

Pendragon wrote:

If you think it is ok to allow smoking at work, then you should think it is ok to allow sexual harassment and sexual favors for employment/advancement.

I can't believe you actually made that comparison. This is what it has come to - demonizing smokers has become so acceptable that it is now proper to categorize them with someone who sexually harrasses another. It's an insulting comparison, both to smokers and to the integrity of someone who would make such a comparison. It's disgusting that you have to resort to such tactics, and it shows the bankruptcy of your position.

Here's a comparison that's not as silly: I don't drink. I don't like being around people who drink. A lot of fights start because people are drunk and act stupid. Drunk drivers kill thousands of people on the road each year.

So should I be able to demand that people should no longer be able to drink in public? Bars should be only able to serve soda, water, juice and milk. They'll be much more enjoyable to go to because you won't have loud, obnoxious people acting like they're really funny. Waitresses won't have to worry about being harrassed by drunk men (look, I got to use your sexual harrasment angle!). Thousands of lives would be saved because people won't be driving home from bars drunk!

Now most sane people would say that this is just ridiculous, because people who go to bars know that there are going to be people around who drink. They go into them knowing the risks, and remain there voluntarily. If they don't like what is going on there, they could leave. And after all, it's the bar owner's property and business, and he should decide whather he allows drinking and all the potential negative effects that come with it on his property.

The same goes for smoking: You go to a bar or restaurant of your own volition. You assess the situation and decided whether you want to patronize the establishment or go somewhere else. The power to choose remains in your hands. However, the anti-smoking extremists feel that choice is good for them but bad for smokers and businesses. They can't stand the fact that somewhere someone might want to enjoy a cigarrette and some bar own might have the gall to actually let them do it!

If this thread continues, I can predict what will happen, because I've seen it too many times: The pro-freedom side will cite property rights and a constitutional basis for the ability of property owners to allow smoking, while the shrill anti-smoking side will take up the tactics of the anti-gun crowd to justify their positions. To wit:
Anti-gun argument: "We should ban guns because all have a right to feel safe" (a Diane Feinstein original)
Anti-Smoking argument: "We should ban smoking because we all have a right to breath" (even at a private establishment I don't own and may never go to).
And as illustrated above, they're willing to make inflamatory comparisons that have no basis in facts (guns are only made for killing / smoking is like sexual harrassment). Throw in the "Guns kill / second hand smoke kills" comments that are just meant to inflame rather than inform, because there's no context provided with them.

It's sad that some of the same people who demand personal freedom, hard facts over emotional arguments, and constitutional safeguards when it comes to gun rights will abandon those same standards and principles when it comes to smoking. It explains why gun owners always have to worry about protecting their rights - because people say they want freedom for themselves, but when it comes to something they don't like, they're all too willing to have the other side's freedom taken away and ignore anything that might stand in their way.


edited because I used the wrong 'to' earlier. Doh!

 

[Ol' Badger]

I would like to find where that guy lives and sneak into his house and smoke a big stinky Cigar in his bed
Maybe in his closet too

 

[dustind]

well said Bastiat, my thoughts exactly

I hate smoking but respect others rights to do so, as with drinking, i will never do it, but respect others rights, and i respect property rights on a matter of principal

 

[alan]

Bastiat:

I believe that the subject might well have been "beat to death" at The Armed Citizen also.

In any event, I believe that your comments are the most lucid exposition on the subject that I recall having seen.

Seems that entirely to many folks either never understood/knew about, or have forgotten the virtues of Living while letting others do the same.

 

[MitchSchaft]

I want to hear somebody refute bastiat's comments.

 

[Pendragon]

Im busy at work, but the refutation is coming

In the mean time:

Why cant I as a private business owner say things to female employees that are currently considered S.Harassment?

If it is "something I enjoy" and "it does not really harm anyone" and "they don't have to be there" then whats the big deal?

should we not let the business owner exercise his rights to be a chauvanistic exploiter - as long as he does not physically force anything - right?

I realize that is very provacative, but please explain the difference.

I am exercising a behavior that I enjoy, on my private property and I am not physically harming anyone - if people want to enjoy the benefits of being at my establishments, they should decide what they are willing to tolerate and make their decision accordingly.

[Note: I find sexual harassment as abhorrent as you all do.]

More to come.

 

[TheBluesMan]

Pendragon - When you respond, you might want to use the exaple of blackmail rather than sexual harassment. Libertarian purists believe there's nothing wrong with that. (Not to say that you're a libertarian purist, but maybe you are. I don't know.)

 

[Pendragon]

Thanks Bluesman,

Honestly, I just kind of pulled the idea out of the air, mulled it for a minute and ran with it.

I think the parallels are pretty striking.

Blackmail is nice just because it is not going to disproportionally affect women - but S.H. is essentially black mail.

Really - all three of these things involve the same elements:

1. Private property owner wants to engage in conduct that he enjoys or benefits from.

2. Employees or customers or patrons have to make a decision - will they accept the behavior to get the benefits of staying at the establishment or will they cut and move on.


If anything, you could argue that blackmail and S.H. are less abhorrent because they do not expose people to chemicals that may (I said "may" so drop it) create a health risk. Although "submitting to the end game of the harasser may lead to a bio hazzard exposure.

Ok all you defenders of freedom - tear it up.

 

[Al Norris]

Danged hard to beat a strawman to death, since he was never alive to begin with....

 

[Pendragon]

LOL!

If this was the worst thing we had to worry about, we would be so free that this discussion would be silly.

Still, its a fun argument.

 

[Yohan]

Smoking is bad for your health. Haven't the TV ads thought you guys anything?

 

[dustind]

Those anti smoking ads on TV have caused an increase in smoking, who would fall for such stupid propaganda?

Those comercials piss me off, but guessing by who pays for them, its no wonder, they are ment to increase smoking.

 

[bastiat]

Well, since a diversionary strike has been launched, I suppose it must be dealt with it before the real issue is tackled (which for the record is smoking, not sexual harrassment).

Here's where that silly little analogy falls apart: Sexual harrassment is a quid-pro-quo arrangement that is not part of the job description. Basically a "you're a secretary in my office, but if you want to keep your job, you had better sleep with me". It falls outside of the requirements to do your job. More on this later.

Now we have smoking, and I don't know how in the world these two things got put together, but someone did it. You come in for a job at a restaurant. You see that the restaurant has a smoking and non-smoking section. You can take that job or leave. You know the conditions of the job and it applies to all people working at the job. You are not being singled out, and you are not being asked to have sex with someone or lose your job. And it's certainly not that you didn't realize you'd have to deal with cigarrette smoke and your boss makes you sit 2 feet away from him while he deliberately blows smoke in your face under threat of termination. They are two competely different circumstances, and trying to draw any correlation between them shows a lack of thought in making the analogy.

You may say "Now Bastiat, do you really believe that it's okay to make an employee put up with second hand smoke just because they knew about it beforehand? You can't make someone have sex with you just because they knew they would be required to as part of the job."

But yet again you'd be wrong. The thing is that you _can_ require a person to have sex as part of a job - it's done all the time in the adult entertaintment industry in this country (which oddly enough, is really big in california - the same state that thinks that waitresses putting up with second hand smoke is a health risk. I wonder what they think the health risks are in adult entertainment...but I digress.) If you're an actress or actor in adult films, and you know your job requires you to engage in sexual activity or be fired, than you have no grounds to complain when you're fired for refusing to engage in sexual activity as directed.

The key to destroying this attempted sexual harrassment analogy once and for all is the nature of the job. Any person going into a waitstaff job - male or female, young or old, ugly or attractive- is going to have to put up with cigarrette smoke. And they're going to know it from the beginning that it's part of the job description. And that's what it is - a necessary part of the job. It's not something that's forced on them from out of the blue like a boss sexually harrassing another employee.

Alright. Now that horse is dead and buried. Let's stop throwing out distractions and get to the heart of the matter. Here's a question for the anti-smoking crowd:

Do you believe that your assumed rights as a person that doesn't like to breathe second hand smoke, and who may or may not ever patronize a particular bar that allows smoking trumps the constitutionally derived property rights of the person who owns the business, pays property taxes, and earns their livelihood by operating the bar as they see fit?

Yes or no?

 

[general]

OK- try this on for size....

It's my house (Biz) and I'll burn it down if I want to!

(I think that made the revelant point I wanted to convey)

They are trying to put this on the ballot in C.S. Co and
I for one will oppose it - smoke 'em if you got 'em I say.

 

[bastiat]

OK- try this on for size....

It's my house (Biz) and I'll burn it down if I want to!

(I think that made the revelant point I wanted to convey)

I'm not sure what your point is, but you can destroy your own property if you so desire. However if you're in the city, you have to make sure it doesn't damage other people's property (and they're on their own property, not yours, so it really doesn't fit the smoking situation). Demoltion is done all the time. Burning really isn't the preferred method since fire can be unpredictable depending on the conditions surrounding your property. If you're in a rural area and want to burn down your property to destroy it, you should arrange it with the fire department, because they'd probably want to use your house as a practice burn (and they'd probably give you help with it for free in exchange for the training they'd get).

So yeah, you can burn your building down if you want to, just make sure you respect other people's property while you do it, otherwise you'll be in the same situation.

 

[general]

What I was trying to get across is ... (devils advocate here) is it ok to risk someone elses' health if they are unknowingly risking it? Or entering into some sort of contract by going into a smoky club of their on violition? (I guess the house thing was a little over the top - cigarettes don't quite emit that volume of toxins) follow me?

Answer to question - No.