Brian H,
Do you really believe that businesses are not harmed by smoking bans? If so then why do so many fight them? Why have so many failed or closed their doors due to them? Here is a link of just some of the establishments that have closed their doors or have been harmed by smoking bans:
http://www.smokersclub.com/banloss3.htm. You see, the reason business owners oppose bans on their establishments is because THEY KNOW THEIR MARKET!
The ‘economic studies’ used by the anti-smoking radicals combines bars and sit down restaurant/bar combinations with fast food restaurants to get biased results. McDonalds and a local sports bar have different markets. Their studies also rely upon manipulated statistical calculation methods.
I love how you answered an economic response to one of your questions by using the cancer card. Here are some interesting facts:
1. The 1993 EPA ETS Secondhand smoke study was thrown out by known anti-tobacco federal judge William Osteen in 1998 for biased science and manipulated statistics/research. This study is the main one used by the American Lung/Heart Association, as well as the U.S. Surgeon General in his 2006 pro-smoking ban speech, even though it was thrown out. How is this ethical?
Even more studies have proven the actual risk of secondhand smoke is inconclusive. I’m not saying that it’s great for you, but it isn’t as deadly as it is now assumed.
2. A 1999 Environmental Health Perspective survey of 17 ETS-heart disease studies found only five that were statistically significantly positive.
This study is important because it brings to the debate what many refuse to talk about, statistical significance. Statistical significance refers to whether an increased or decreased risk falls outside the bounds of what could be expected by chance.
3. A 2002 analysis by International Agency for Research on Cancer, Unit of Environmental Cancer Epidemiology, which looked at 48 studies regarding a possible ETS link to lung cancer found 10 that were significantly positive, one that was actually significantly negative, and 37 that were insignificant either way.
Many may not want to hear it but the science behind how deadly secondhand smoke is big on politics and little on fact.
More importantly, I ask if you don’t like smoke around you then why do you visit places that allow it? By banning smoking on PRIVATE PROPERTY ESTABLISHMENTS you are violating private property rights. Just because you are invited into a bar or restaurant does NOT mean that it is then made public property or public domain. Smoking bans are also an infringement on the right of trade of a legal product. Remember the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lloyd Corp v. Tanner which upheld that a place of business does not become public property just because the public is invited in. The Constitutional law of the land.
I ask also if you really support smokings because you just don’t like smoking? At least admit that your dislike of smoking is your real motive…not public health (I refuted the science above) and not public domain (highest court in the land ruled in favor of private property as our Founding Fathers spoke of the sacredness of private property rights).
Here is the kicker…..NOBODY FORCES YOU TO PATRON AN ESTABLISHMENT THAT ALLOWS SMOKING. Nobody holds a gun to your and makes you enter a bar or restaurant or makes you work at a certain place where smoking is allowed. We have the free choice to use our own intelligence to decide where to go and where to work. If you have medical problems, allergies and etc then you don’t have to go to places that allow smoking. Why should private property owners change their business policies to accommodate every single individual likes or dislikes?
People who choose to go to places that allow smoking but then complain about it are like people who complain about high gas prices yet they refuse to drive less or adjust their budgets to accommodate the increases. The same can be said for those who suffer from asthma yet choose to go into places that allow smoking then complain about their condition acting up. No individual responsibility. Banning private property owners from wanting to allow a legal activity on their property just because some don’t like that activity, even though they have the right to choice to enter that establishment or not, is the ultimate in selfishness.
I am sure you are thinking of using the ‘smoking costs taxpayers money in healthcare costs so a ban is a way to save all of us money’ argument. False. One can not use the ‘cost to state healthcare’ argument to push a ban on smoking on private property. They can’t because cholesterol is the number one killer and cost to healthcare, so, under this line of thinking the state would have to regulate what we eat, drink and play as well. I agree that if one chooses to smoke, drink or eat heavily then gets sick late in life that they should fit their own bill. You promote limited government and personal responsibility by making them pay off the bat….not banning the product and/or activity. Responsibility is a two way street and those who choose to partake in certain habits or activitys should face the consequences on their own dime.
Smoking bans lead to more big/liberal/nanny government. The same people/groups who have pushed smoking bans in the past were behind the trans-fat bans in NYC and are pushing unrealistic and anti-private property rights laws against trans-fat, alcohol consumption, SUV’s, gun rights and even driving while talking on cell phones (even though we already have reckless driving laws on the books.). The same council members in Philadelphia who pushed last years smoking ban there are now pushing for a trans-fat ban. Same in California, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky. These people are promoting an entire agenda to force us to their way of thinking via big government.
California passed some of the first smoking bans in the late 1980s. Now they have either banned or are considering banned SUVs, spanking, light bulbs, guns, trans-fat, contact sports, metal baseball bats (NYC just banned those), driving while smoking or talking on cell phone. Chicago passed smoking ban only to have same activists ban Fois Grasse, trans-fat and no cell phones. NYC passed smoking ban first then passed cell phone ban, trans-fat ban, metal baseball bat ban, SUV tax and are now considering a ban on walking on the sidewalk or across street while talking on cell phone or listening to Ipod. Big/nanny government only grows and it starts with smoking bans.
Just because a majority don’t smoke doesn’t give them the right to force their views on private property owners. We are a constitutional republic, not a mob rule democracy. The Founding Fathers, when writing the U.S. Constitution, feared that ghost from England’s previous Civil War that was the English demagogue and military dictator Oliver Cromwell. The Founding Fathers, in their realist wisdom, created an electoral college to prevent urban and population heavy states and areas from terrorizing the rural and sparsely populated states and areas. They also made the U.S. Senate an even numbered institution regardless of the population size of a state. It is interesting that at the founding of our Republic only males who owned property (PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNERS!) were allowed to vote. They founding fathers held private property as sacred and credited private property owners as being extra knowledgeable. There was a healthy fear of ‘the angry mob’ in the Founding Fathers thinking. The very fact that we have a representative republic and not a mob rule democracy is a testament to the Founding Fathers realist world view. If every Greek were Plato all together they would still make a mob. In our republican form of government the will of the angry mob is BALANCED against individual/private property rights. In our form of government the rights of the majority are considered but not set into stone. Just because a majority of citizens want this ban is NOT a good or constitutional reason to give it to them.
Beware do-gooders baring gifts. The most fundamental problem of modern politics is self-righteousness, NOT the control of wickedness. Nothing is more dangerous than people convinced of their own moral superiority because they deny their political opponents that very attribute. Why has there been no mention of compromise by the pro-smoking ban side? Because they view compromise on this issue as a threat. THOSE WHO OPPOSE ANY COMPROMISE ARE THE TRUE THREAT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS AND FREEDOM. Tyranny is the result of the self-righteous via their new tool in the form of big/nanny government. The anti-smoking/freedom activists want a government effort to stamp out a habit THEY don’t like. There was once a nation that did this. They restricted tobacco advertising, banned smoking in public, restricted and regulated tobacco farmers growing abilities, and engaged in a sophisticated anti-smoking public relations campaign. In fact, the leader of this government gave gold watches to all his ministers who quit the tobacco habit. Plus, the phrase ‘passive smoking’ (i.e. secondhand smoke) was coined by this government. You want to know of what nation I speak of? Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Makes one think.
Sorry but the arguments for smoking bans are just……smoke and mirrors J
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Arguments For Smoking Bans FAIL
