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I'm proud to say that I support the ban on smoking.
i see the loss of this particular "freedom." you should probably just move on to the next one before it's gone though, instead of championing a lost cause. slippery slope!
I'm proud to say that I support the ban on smoking.
Austin has proved that to be untrue with its full ban. Folks can go outside the city limits to smoke, in some cases mere blocks away from in-town bars. It hasn't happened.
Smokers might. I'd just go to the bars I go to now, just like the smokers did after the ban was passed.Austin is a strange town but if they lifted the ban tomorrow do you think all these bars and pool halls would still enforce non-smoking? I don't think you can honestly say yes. Even if some did over time people would migrate to the smoking venues because they "choose" to do so.
In this case, no. I really don't.Do you not see the freedoms people are losing.
oh well, the smoking ban only makes corpus a slightly less badass place.
Well I can't agrue that.
the only thing i would have to say about that is business owners can't really run their businesses as they see fit for the most part, unless they are a private club with members who pay dues.
true. it started with the ADA.
If thats the case then you and I have nothing left to say to each other. Your work in this thread is done. Nothing left for you here. Move along.
I won't dispute your previous points. They may be founded. My argument has definately shifted more to the stripping of rights than about fiscal ramifications. You guys have done a decent job convincing me that a total across the board ban isn't as harmful to establishments than a partial ban.
I understand your point is about freedom of choice. I agree that big brother already makes up our minds for us far too often. I get it, and I agree with that.
But smoking bans, I think, are one of those issues that will be difficult to get a lot of public support as a matter of people's right to choose being violated, however.
Only about 20% of Americans smoke cigarettes, yet 100% of people in the vicinity of a smoker are affected by that person's choice to smoke. In my mind, the 20% of people who are smokers are a 'small interest group' that's previously prevented me from enjoying the same activities that they enjoy.
In a not so subtle way, smokers prevent nonsmokers from enjoying the same venues that a smoker enjoys. What non-smoker enjoys sitting near a smoker? Being in a smoke filled bar? Or bowling alley? Or sitting in the smoking section of a restaurant? Personally I would only hang out in any of those places if I was forced to, because I hate cigarette smoke. Sure I have the choice...I could go and deal with the smoke filled room, or just not go to those places at all. The 20% who smoke were negatively affecting, inconveniencing, or preventing altogether, the enjoyment of that venue for the 80% of us that don't smoke.
Now the 20% are inconvenienced. The rest of us are liberated. The smokers aren't being prevented from going to those places, they just can't smoke there. They'll have to choose whether to deal with it or just not go at all. I don't see it as a bad thing. Had the smokers not invaded the personal space of the nonsmokers with their smoke in the first place, the need for the ban wouldn't exist. I blame the smokers for this law...and pitbulls.
If smoking in public affected no one but the smoker, I'd say these laws are certainly a violation of people's right to choose. But I'd argue that all these bans do is force smokers to do what seems to be what common decency should dictate, which is not subject others to something potentially harmful that you choose to participate in. Smoking around a nonsmoker could be considered an invasion of privacy for the nonsmoker.
The 80% have spoken. Majority rules. It's as American as apple pie.
Personally, this should help me avoid unfortunate confrontations in which I've asked smokers near me to 'move it elsewhere'. Sometimes those conversations didn't end well.
Fair enough. Again, I equate it more with a seat belt or helmet law. I can see why it pisses people off, but ultimately I'm sold on the benefits.I won't dispute your previous points. They may be founded. My argument has definately shifted more to the stripping of rights than about fiscal ramifications. You guys have done a decent job convincing me that a total across the board ban isn't as harmful to establishments than a partial ban.
Well, at least there are some non-pussy states left in the union. Sadly, I dont believe Michigan will be long on that list. The smoking ban will die for the 5th or 6th time in the Michigan Senate, per usual.
Private establishments. Dont want smoke on your clothes, in your healthy, sanctimonious lungs? Dont go to that bar, nancy boy. Simple.
You would think the chicken who ranted on and on and on about the sky falling would have taught these yellow belly pussys something.
I guess I've watched a few do entary's and made a handful of posts here on ST extolling the virtues of omega 3 derived from hemp oil, but admittedly I'm not an activist, so mainly I've done nothing for hemp other than smoke the out of it's female counterpart.
No. I found it on the internets. I was a lowly hired hand for an indoor grow back in 2004 though. I guess that helped the hemp cause.Is that you pictured?
Last edited by balli; 12-18-2008 at 02:36 AM.
When there was no smoking ban in other public places such as grocery stores, were you also saying "Private establishments. Dont want smoke on your clothes, in your healthy, sanctimonious lungs? Don't go to H-E-B. Grow your own crops and milk your own cow, nancy boy. simple."
fyi, probably more the helmet law than the seat belt law...
I've talked to EMT guys that have said that there are plenty of times during initial accidents that unbuckled passengers have flown through the windshield hitting other cars passing by causing second or third accidents.
/sidebar
Right. I won't deny that. What I'm saying at this point is there should be compromise here. Most are willing to understand even advocate the ban in a large portion of public areas but to ban it from adult oriented business that center around its social use afterhours is too much.
True or false, second hand smoke is hazardous to your health.
2nd hand bullets are probably hazardous to your health too......Thank goodness some time around the late 1800s our government stepped in and decided to outlaw guys walking into saloons with six shooters on their holsters
I know.......it sucks that those gun toters had their rights stepped on.......private establishments.......yada yada
So you're unfamilar with concealed handgun laws. You must also not be familar with most business owners having the right to establish firearm laws within their own property.
I can still walk around with a six shooter in my holster it just needs to remain concealed up to the point where the sign on the storefront specifically says no guns.
Terrible analogy. Do you have to be an adult to enter HEB? Are you carded at the door?
Does HEB serve alcohol?
Try again. Look, you dont want to be in an adult establishment, thats fine. Dont.
Or even better, how about you, the vast majority who dont smoke, start your own bars that are non-smoking?
Why cant you do that? Why must every bar be non-smoking? If youre the "vast majority", wouldnt smoking bars be the minority?
Explain that logic.
The porn shop to me seems to be the closest reasonable analogy. If you don't like gay porn in the adult only porn shop then don't walk in but don't expect the business to remove all gay hardcore porn because you simply don't like it and want to purchase your regular straight porn in the comfort of a gayfree environment.
I hate how I have to smell other people's when I go into a public restroom to take a leak. My piss doesn't smell, why should I be bombarded with the stench of feces? Not only does it smell bad, it's potentially toxic... I mean, essentially, microscopic particles of someone else's are entering my lungs. Why can't they take a crap at home?
I propose mandating urinal-only restrooms for men.
The infinitesimally small amount of time you spend in a bar where there is smoke will not lead to cancer.
Unless you work in a smoking establishment or you live with a smoker, you have ZERO chance of contracting cancer due to second hand smoke.
Is it your life's work to perpetuate lies? Or just fears? Do you make your kids wear helmets on their bikes, too?
When did this country (maybe this world) get so damn pussified? What the are you so afraid of that you would want to legislate against an entire portion of population for?
Obviously the "second hand smoke causes cancer" bull isnt a reason. Is it because it makes your clothes smell like ?
DONT GO! Start your own non-smoking bar. Youre the majority, you should do real well, right? Because everyone that doesnt smoke hates it just as much as you, right?
I think today's American is being influenced by special interest groups and start regurgitating the propoganda spewed in our media and try to pass it off as cold hard fact.
Like secondhand smoke. Sure, you might get cancer, and it may even increase the likelihood. But thats only for those who a) work in heavy smoking establishment (bartenders, waitresses at bars...no, not the lady who works the smoking section every now and then at Chilis) or b) lives with a smoker.
If you go to a bar every weekend and spend inordinate amounts of time there, that just isnt enough. Sorry to pull the plug on your alarmism.
Youre being coddled and you dont mind it. The people who finance these initiatives to ban smoking arent people like you, Blake. Theyre insurance companies who dont like the medical bills associated with it. Their first step is banning it in public places. Second is in your car with a minor. third will be in your own home with minors. Fourth will be outright banning.
How others choose to live their lives is none of your damn business. Cancer in this country has less to do with smoking than it does with what we stuff in our fat, uneducated faces. Its the food we eat approved by our Food and Drug Administration that really hurts our health, but I dont see legislation being passed in the best interests of the American people on that front.
All the Kraft Cheese Slices, non-organic feed used for the beef industry, mass disease associated with high concentration cattle ranches, inbreeding, chemical stimulants and steroids, the insecticides and mass storage of mainland food is what causes cancer in this country.
Secondhand smoke and the effects it has on nonsmokers is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the list as to be considered alarmist at best, negligible at worst (again, outside the criteria I mentioned earlier).
Why dont you and your friends go trumpet that cause, huh?
Oh, thats right. They dont advertise that on television where all the mindless drones can get together and come up with a proper groupthink that can be applied to the rest of society not ignorant and alarmist enough to believe the propoganda. Thosee who dont live their lives fearing every decision and input of energy or toxin as the end all be all of their existence obviously cant coexist with those who do.
Because those who live a more healthy lifestyle couldnt possibly fathom or understand those who choose not to. Something must be done about that, I am sure. Call the government.
Nannystaters and the people who support them can go right to ing , you worthless bags of flesh equipped with only an absorbed opinion. Your only advantage is that you are now the majority.
Thank your public school system. Maybe theyll make a PSA about our lack of education in this country so you drones can get in a tizzy about that, too. Oh wait, thats counterproductive to big government and capitalizing corporations, dont hold your breath. Or just smoke, because youre going to die of cancer anyway.
Last edited by DarkReign; 12-18-2008 at 11:17 AM.
To be clear...
Ban smoking in establishments that dont require you to be an adult to be in attendance.
I completely understand that.
But when I get IDed at the door to enter, I expect others to be adults as well. Who knew how far off that assumption could have been? Im surrounded by adult-children crying about the way their clothes smell like a little girl who just skinned her knee, trying to pass of their concern as faux-healthy living.
Start your won damn bars!
Youre the majority, right? You should win that war, right? What the do you care what other bars do?
right, concealed. You can't walk in 3 Amigos style.
Not the best analogy I have in my arsenal of bad analogies, but the point is that this is one of those things that government needs to step in and make a law about.
Explain the logic that says that alcohol = cigarrettes.
Better yet, how about the vast majority of us who don't smoke start laws against smoking inside a building in the public domain.
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