This will be controversial
In response to Kariyanine,
I feel that the government has (and should have) the right to take away any of our priveleges — be they legal or illegal — that can be harmful to someone else. It is no different than yelling fire in a movie theatre or searching luggage in an airport. If it makes society safer, then I’m all for it. If it inhibits me in any way, then I am still going to try to see the greater good in it.
Sure, other things cause cancer too, but does that mean we should not try to improve things where we can? I really can’t be the only one that sees the smoking ban — provided it is across the board so that nobody can have smoking in their restaurant — is the right thing?!? Can I?!?
Why should non-smokers have to sit inside their houses all the time to breathe clean air for dinner?!? The smokers should be the ones huddled outside or in their houses because they are the ones choosing to put their smoke in the air.
In my opinion, Philadelphia will be a B-list city and PA will be a B-list state until we make the changes that others were brave enough to make.
Ok, so you are saying that as long as it is making society safer that the government can take away your rights. Based on this then the government can take away whatever they want as long as they feel it is making society safer.
There are senators, on of which is R-Ted Stevens from Alaska, whom are attempting to have pay-content on cable TV censored to decent standards. Senator Stevens feels that he is helping make society safer by censoring stuff you pay for.
I understand what you are saying about smoking, and I don’t disagree that if there was no more smoking people would be slightly healthier. I say slightly because with the polution that comes out of our cars is more dangerous than what is coming out of someone’s cigarette. As I said I understand what you are saying and I don’t disagree but where does it stop.
I would hope as a writer you would feel that what Senator Stevens wants to do is wrong. To him, and many others, he is doing something that is right but if he can censor what you pay to watch, what’s next? Maybe they will censor what we write right here. While that may seem drastic, it’s not beyond logical thought.
Here’s another thought for you, as I know you drink. Alcohol is not exactly good for you, besides causing liver problems it can also impair your judgement and reflexes. Can the government ban drinking so that there will be no more drunk driving accidents? Or would that be going to far? You think that would never happen, just remember that it has happened before.
I’m not here taking the side of smokers, I just want people to see that there is a very thin line that is being walked here and maybe we should start paying attention to it.
I myself made a mistake this past November and didn’t vote. I said I didn’t care, I’m finding out that I do care.
Oh and remember that the NJ ban is not across the board.
So…when I have a pint of Guinness, how many livers does that affect around me? Livers that didn’t have a choice in the matter? You ask can the government ban drinking so that there will be no more drunk driving accidents? No, but it can ban drinking and driving, as it has.
What I am saying that the government has the right to restrict priveleges that are harmful to a third party that has nothing to do with your bad habit.
Your example about Ted Stevens does not hold water because Senator Stevens is not looking to make society safer. He is looking to restrict television content. The content does not cause anybody physical harm and it does not hurt other people in your house who have to watch it because you are.
Making these public places non-smoking does more than make society “slightly” healthier. Actually depending on which statistics you use, tobacco smoke is the Number One cause of cancer, not these auto emissions to which you constantly refer (which by the way, ARE restricted). And that makes me a communist I guess?
My argument is it can stop when a person’s bad habits don’t cause another unrelated person harm. If you want to kill yourself and your family by smoking in your house, so be it. But I will not let a smoker kill my family because we went out to eat or drink.
As a writer, what Senator Stevens is doing is wrong. It is wrong to sensor the written word or any kind of speech, unless it is harmful.
Maybe you should have voted like I did, but that would have done little to change what is right and wrong. It is wrong that non-smokers with lung cancer are now nearly triple what they were five and ten years ago.
That’s why we need rules about this, and other things like it. And we do need them across the board.
I think that’s a good point, 3rd party harm. Let me do what I want in my own home, and do what I want in the world as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. If I want to screw myself up, let me, it’s my body and my home.
And for those of us that want to go to smoke free bars, there aren’t that many choices. I think the happy medium is to just smoke outside if you want to, just like at work, just like most public buildings.
Maybe an idea is to have it licensed per bar. Let them apply for a smoking license that costs a good deal of money, and make them pay for workers health care. Then we’d probably have more bars that are smoke free, and it wouldn’t be an outright ban.
This is just one of those things that if majority wants it, then it’s going to happen. There are other countries to move to, but it seems like this smoke ban thing is happening country wide in a lot of European countries.
Ok, so here’s one for you, Brady.
I’m a biker. I use my bike to get around this city, often biking with my legs brushing up against parked cars because the drivers don’t know how to share the road. If there is a bike lane, I’m in it. If it’s safe for me to be on the sidewalk, I’m on it. I have control over my bike and can bike a steady path at a good clip. I usually wear white or orange when I bike, to make sure I’m visible so I’m doing everything I need to do to be safe.
I’ve been hit twice by drivers who weren’t paying attention or just didn’t know how to navigate their big huge death machines on a two lane road so they swiped the biker. One of those times, I was on the sidewalk.
Your driving causes danger to me as a biker. Does that mean the government can ban cars across the board because they pose a threat to me and my fellow bikers?
No, but they can make it illegal to hit a bike with a car, then punish those that do.
The same as they can make it illegal to give someone second hand smoke who doesn’t want it.
:)
cheers!
Taking away smoking in restaraunts and bars is the best thing that ever happened to NJ, and I can’t wait until they make it so in PA. Second hand smoke kills.
No “rights” are being taken away. No one ever had the right to recklessly endanger the lives of strangers around them. Do I have the right to walk into a restaraunt and punch every person in the face? Even pregnant women, children and babies? No. That is assault. Smoking in a crowded place is harmful the strangers around you, because you are doing physical bodily harm to them. I am a non-smoker for a reason. I used to smoke, but I never smoked indoors, because I didn’t want to force all the non-smokers to breath in the cancer-causing smoke. Smoking was my choice, and it was abuse to my body, not everyone elses. I quit smoking and I don’t want to be exposed to second hand smoke either. Bottom line, you are harming the people around you, and that’s not a “right” being taken away.
Actually Melyni it is a “right” being taken away. It it the “right” of the business owner to decide how they want to run their business. Smoking is legal. Despite Brady’s and many others insistence that it shouldn’t be, it still is. And until the FDA or Surgeon General make it illegal people can still smoke. As a business owner, you have the otpion to allow or disallow smoking in your establishment. By allowing or disallowing smoking you tell people that you have made a choice and as patrons you also have a choice. If you choose to go to an establishment that allows smoking then you know the hazards you yourself are putting yourself into and a disregarding them. You the patron hold the power. If enough patrons get together and don’t go to a bar that allows smoking and it hurts that business then maybe that business will change their policies.
By the government stepping in and telling the business that, yes smoking is legal but not in your privately held establishment that is a “right” taken away. They are taking away the establishments freedom of choice. And that is a right.
It is impossible to argue something shouldn’t be outlawed because it hasn’t heen outlawed. People will always have the privilege to be allowed to smoke, so long as they do not inhibit on others’ ability to not have to breathe it in.
Are you allowed to drink when you go to jury duty? No. Why? Because when you drink it inhibits the ability of the court system to do its job. Drinking is legal in this case, but not permitted in this setting.
I fully understand your argument that a business owner has the right to choose things for his or her business, but there are always restrictions in life. And this restriction is actually one that makes a lot of sense.
In the past, the patrons were given a choice…but not really. They didn’t really have the choice in that if they wanted to go out at all or to any place then they had to breathe in other people’s smoke. This new ban gives these people the choice that was previously not really there.
And that is to not even speak for the bartenders and waitstaff that need to earn a living and don’t have any sort of choice as to what they have to put up with.
Smoking is a privilege, not a right.
That also goes along with drinking in another sense. Drinking is legal. Until you drink & drive, that is illegal. Because it puts others in danger. Same should go for smoking. Smoke your heart out, away from me.