Pangloss

I think I've been very clear in drawing a distinction between bars/restaurants and office-type environments. I support restrictions on office complexes/buildings, because it's a restriction I can understand -- those are places of employment where there's no expectation of entertainment/relaxation, which is what smoking is for. Yes, I realize people work in bars and restaurants, but they can work at other bars and restaurants (and let's face it, except in states where there are restrictions already in place, they went to work there knowing about the smoke). It may not be a perfect solution, but in my view that's a reasonable compromise. And obviously I disagree. The phrase "if something poses a health hazard, it should be regulated" is disturbing to me, because it lacks the perspective of the user's knowledge and/or ability to avoid that danger. In situations where that's not possible (people can't know what they're dealing with, or make a choice about it), then yes, I agree.

Yes. Absolutely. If a restaurant owner wants to cater to people who are killing themselves' date=' why the heck not? What aspect of "free society" is so hard for people to understand? This is fundamentally no different than the born-agains getting a law passed forcing everyone to show up at church on Sunday. Makes sense to me. But because I KNOW that someone is going to misunderstand/misconstue that (because I'm the one being misunderstood/misconstrued in this thread, sir, not you), I'll note that that's different from public health regulation. The difference, again, being choice -- with FULL KNOWLEDGE of the risks.

I missed this in the flurry of posting above, but thanks for clarifying. That seems like a reasonable position to me. I certainly agree that if smoking is dangerous then we should be doing something about parents who smoke in a house with children. It's ironic that due to the nature of how our society works that that's the LAST place where smoking would/will be stopped.

So they don't do it. (shrug) Their (and here's the operative word) choice. But you didn't, because you knew that would have been wrong.

Since smokers can be completely isolated from non-smokers, obviously I disagree. That analogy is inappropriate, because automotive exhaust affects general regions, regardless of an individual's specific location. The same cannot be said for smoking. I think I have a valid point here, and I think the general tone of response I've gotten from this thread has been a revealing indicator of how politically correct this issue has become. You go right on spouting statistics and taking people's rights away for actions that have zero impact on anybody but the fully-aware user. Just keep telling yourself it's all worth it because you're saving their life. What could possibly go wrong?

Didn't you just get through telling me to re-read someone else's post?

I'm not refusing to consider anything. I can't believe you're chastising me for not skimming over a vast amount of scientific material that I've never been exposed to before and then making a snap judgement on that material based on whether or not it happens to be the same as yours. That's science to you? Wow. Kinda makes me wonder how much time YOU'VE spent reading the surgeon general's study. Oh but that's right' date=' you'd already made your determination. Interesting, considering the evidence was only released last week. Are you sure you're the one who's making a scientific judgement here? I've promised to withhold judgement until I've read that material. I also happen to think there are peripheral issues which I can still discuss. I'm sorry you feel differently. So as a child you decided, without any scientific evidence whatsoever, that smoking was harmful to your health and should be banned. Got it. No sign of any agenda there.... Because non-smokers aren't rooted to the ground like trees. And they have no more right to force everyone to adhere to their personal preference than smokers do. If we can find public smoking areas that don't impinge on the right of non-smokers (entering a building, sitting in the only available rest area, ride in a closed airplane environment, etc -- all should indeed be smoke-free), then that's what we should do. Restaurants and bars are different -- the people who own them have a right to cater to smokers if they wish, and non-smokers have a right not to go there to eat.

It's a reflection on the fact that there are no smokers around me at the moment, Ecoli. Why? Because I've chosen not to be around any.

Good points Mokele, about the ends not justifying the means and also about dissent. Not only is it patriotic, but it's absolutely necessary. Ironically extremists recognize this when talking about themselves, but fail to recognize it in their opposition. Great quote from John McCain on this:

My last post was regarding a hypothetical posed by john5746, and should have been viewed in that light. He was supporting the position that smoking should be banned regardless of health risk, simply because it is annoying, which is something that I disagree with. So ecoli's and Edtharan's responses above are inappropriate to that hypothetical discussion. As I said, I've pledged to read further before commenting on the health risk of cigarette smoke, and I intend to do that. It's not fair to criticize someone's opinion on an incorrect basis. If ecoli and Edtharan care to reformulate their responses on an appropriate basis, I'd be happy to respond.

Should everything that's annoying and serves no useful purpose be banned, regardless of its relevancy to health matters? Golf is harmful both to players and to bystanders, and arguably serves no useful purpose. General aviation (flying small aircraft) is more dangerous than automobile traffic, poses a threat to the general public, and arguably serves no useful purpose (and is a heck of a lot harder to get away from). I could go on. Are these items next on the agenda? Or will people wake up at some point and remember that freedom means "freedom TO..." not just "freedom FROM..."?

Sorry you're having problems, Herme. Vista certainly does some interesting things with hardware, and it's likely that that's the source of your issues here. I was speaking with a fellow professor the other day who described a Vista situation in which he put the system in Hibernation, removed the Vista-loaded HD from a system and replaced it with a WinXP HD, and when he booted it he saw a flash of the Vista startup screen followed by immediate and thorough corruption of all the data on his WinXP hard drive. Strange stories like that abound in Vista beta discussions these days. This has been my experience as well, using brand-new, top-of-the-line "Vista Compatible" hardware (specifically a Dell XPS 600 with a Pentium EE 945, 2gb 667mhz RAM and ATI X1900 XT video). I've had trouble just getting the machine to *POST* after some dumps. POST! Show any kind of video at all. Once I had to actually unplug the machine to get it to work again. Truly bizarre. I happen to like Vista and IE7 (reminds me more of KDE than OS-X, but maybe that's just me). But it's beta, and problems are likely to continue for a while yet. After all, if it were problem-free then it would have been released by now. (grin) Good luck!

Obviously I disagree' date=' but even if that's so then it's obvious that opposition to public smoking predates any kind of proof that [i']second-hand[/i] smoke is harmful. It's not so much the opposition to smoke that bothers me, as it is the witch-hunt atmosphere that surrounds the issue. Even if it turns out that the fears were right all along, that doesn't excuse the way presumptions and political correctness have dominated the public debate. I have a problem with society's rules vacilating with the winds of popular opinion. And so should you. At any rate, I've promised to read the relevant material before commenting further on whether or not second-hand smoking is actually dangerous, and I've not forgotten that pledge. I've learned from this thread already, and I've no problem with keeping an open mind about the issue until I've become more educated on the science involved. I just think it's a shame that more people don't do that. These decisions should be based on science and the presumption of freedom, not "ew gross, that should be banned".

There are many things that happen in public places that sully my clothes and clog my nostrils. Are we going to ban all those things as well? Why not simply go elsewhere? This just smacks of the will of the majority trumping the rights of the individual, something that's supposed to be explicitly protected in our society. I don't think the anti-smoking crowd would be happy allowing smoking even if there were zero health risk AND no impact on non-smokers at all. I disagree with KLB's implication that smokers believe they have a right to put their smoke in your face. That ship sailed years ago -- smokers today are clearly well aware of the current social situation, and are generally willing to go to great lengths to avoid confrontation. Obviously there are exceptions to this, but I believe they understand that it's their habit, not yours.

Try taking one step back instead. That's like saying there's no inherent right to ride roller coasters or eat tuna fish sandwiches. Is that a conspiracy by Disney and Star Fish? Come on. Here's another one: There's no explicit right to privacy in the constitution either. I agree that if there's a public health risk than it shouldn't be allowed -- that's common sense. But the proof is required BEFORE the prevention. That's ALSO common sense -- not a vast right-wing conspiracy.

I don't know about "complete", but the surgeon general is explicitly warning about the issue of smoking in the home, because of the impact on children, who take the greatest risk second-hand smoke.

Ah, but that's just it -- the surgeon general wants to stop you from smoking in the privacy of your own home. Sure, but two wrongs don't make a right.

That would be why I put the friendly wink at the end. (I wish the software converted those, the way it encodes the smileys, but maybe I'm just not encoding it right.) But serially, I know that we're talking about a grey area here. Like I said before, we make certain compromises to freedom when we start businesses, I just don't feel that this is one we should be making, so we're at the "agree to disagree point", and that pretty much closes the debate to all but humorous retorts. (grin)

And it's up to us to straighten them out! Good-think Americans' date=' unite! Lead the doubleplusungood harbingers of capitalism to the light! Amen, brother! Hallelujah! ;-) "'I will worker harder,' said Boxer. 'Napoleon is always right.'" Hehe, sure. Some of my favorite books were written by people I can't possibly see eye-to-eye with. (grin)

EXACTLY! DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! Lack of availability = opportunity = entrepreneurship = MONEY. The American way. What the heck is wrong with that? Why do we have to DICTATE everything? Are we really THAT lazy? (Yeah I know, health problems. Comes back to that.)

Wups, I meant to say: "If we find (just for the sake of argument) that no health problems are caused by second-hand smoke inhalation" I'll edit the O. Thanks!