Would You Be In Favor of a Statewide Public Smoking Ban? (Plum: sales, attorney)

[61scout80]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

And why should freedom to smoke trump the freedom to BREATHE? And don't tell me just to avoid places where people smoke....that is virtually impossible. If someone in traffic is smoking in the car in front of me, it wafts into my car....


what about the exhaust from the car itself, far more toxins in there than in a cigarette. the larger the engine the worse too! ban cars!

if I'm walking down the street, there are smokers blowing smoke around me....

still less than those cars going by, or even a nice cozy fire - ban campfires, fireplaces and wood!.

and how about kids who have no say in the matter and are forced into cars and homes with idiot parents spewing smoke into their lungs? How about the unborn babies whose moron mothers smoke...how many babies are born with health problems due to smoking pregnant women? Why should their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have to be interfered with because of someone elses filthy habit?

because that person has the right to have a filthy habit. i don't disagree that parents should not be exposing a child to cigarette smoke, but i feel strongly that there should be no law against it.

i like my government small, the less the law makers do the less they can possibly screw up.

[CosmicWizard]

61scout80 wrote:

i like my government small, the less the law makers do the less they can possibly screw up.

We're on the same wavelength!

IF Big Brother with all of his great wisdom made smoking illegal, it wouldn't stop the smokers from smoking. It would just turn more people into criminals with the stroke of a pen. Then Big Brother could have its war on tobacco which is likely to be about as succesful as its foolish war on drugs, and we the taxpayer would have even more of our money wasted on yet another one of Big Brothers winless wars.

[FightinPhils]

Originally Posted by 61scout80

because that person has the right to have a filthy habit. i don't disagree that parents should not be exposing a child to cigarette smoke, but i feel strongly that there should be no law against it.

i like my government small, the less the law makers do the less they can possibly screw up.

Using your rationale, the government should not regulate food for safety, either?

Maybe we should do away with driver licensing as well? It shouldn't be the government's job to keep unsafe drivers off the road, right?

Maybe we should do away with police and fire departments, right? We can just police ourselves and put our own fires out.




I just don't get the whole "big brother" paranoia thing.

Oh, and as for cars and their emissions....cars are a necessity, lighting a stick of carcinogens on fire with the sole intent of breathing in the fumes is not.

[61scout80]

Originally Posted by NewAgeRedneck

61scout80 wrote:

i like my government small, the less the law makers do the less they can possibly screw up.

We're on the same wavelength!

IF Big Brother with all of his great wisdom made smoking illegal, it wouldn't stop the smokers from smoking. It would just turn more people into criminals with the stroke of a pen. Then Big Brother could have its war on tobacco which is likely to be about as successful as its foolish war on drugs, and we the taxpayer would have even more of our money wasted on yet another one of Big Brothers winless wars.

here in Arizona we have the smoking ban. not only does the smoker get fined if they smoke inside or withing 20 feet of the entrance to an establishment, so does the owner. a business owner in a strip mall can be fined for not policing the area in front of his door for smokers walking past. woot!, go go government! make it HARDER for small businesses to make a profit!

[CosmicWizard]

Mr Krabs wrote:

Using your rationale, the government should not regulate food for safety, either?

Maybe we should do away with driver licensing as well? It shouldn't be the government's job to keep unsafe drivers off the road, right?

Maybe we should do away with police and fire departments, right? We can just police ourselves and put our own fires out.

I just don't get the whole "big brother" paranoia thing.

The governments success in food safety regulation is of questionable value, though I really don't have an issue with the government attempting to do so.

Most of the unsafe drivers on the road DO indeed have drivers license. Personally, I have no issue with the government issuing drivers licenses. The drivers license program seems like a good application of government intervention.

Doing away with police depts and fire depts makes absolutely no sense to me. Government does have its place.

It's not an issue of paranoia with me. I simply believe that government ( aka Big Brother ) is better when it is small and as non-intrusive as possible.

Of course we will all have different opinions of what is intrusive and non-intrusive, where government is necessary and where government is interfering. What a boring place this forum/society would be if we all agreed with one another.

[61scout80]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

Using your rationale, the government should not regulate food for safety, either?

bang up job they are doing, maybe they should worry less about people choosing to poison themselves and more about lead filled fish imported from china

Maybe we should do away with driver licensing as well? It shouldn't be the government's job to keep unsafe drivers off the road, right?

there are no crashes?

Maybe we should do away with police and fire departments, right? We can just police ourselves and put our own fires out.

now your getting absurd....but, aren't many fire departments manned by volunteers? wouldn't that in essence be exactly what you just said?




I just don't get the whole "big brother" paranoia thing.

Oh, and as for cars and their emissions....cars are a necessity, lighting a stick of carcinogens on fire with the sole intent of breathing in the fumes is not.

no public transportation in scranton, or is it inconvinent?

i see the "big brother" thing this way. we all have activities in our lives others do not apporve of. lets say one of the things you really enjoy is being taken away because some people don't like it. how would you feel?

[FightinPhils]

Originally Posted by 61scout80

no public transportation in scranton, or is it inconvinent?

i see the "big brother" thing this way. we all have activities in our lives others do not apporve of. lets say one of the things you really enjoy is being taken away because some people don't like it. how would you feel?

Unless you're in a large city like Philadelphia, public transportation is usually not an option to get everywhere you need to go. You can't get everywhere in small cities/towns with the level of public transportation available, and the buses do not run into the evening. Trust me, I would take public transportation to work to save on gas if it was available from where I live to where I work, but that is not an option for me, since Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties operate separate bus systems (which is asinine in an area this size that Scranton and Wilkes-Barre both are covered under different bus systems).

And like I said about smoking....I have no problem with people choosing to smoke...as long as they keep the smoke to themselves and don't spew it into non-smokers' breathing space.

[61scout80]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

And like I said about smoking....I have no problem with people choosing to smoke...as long as they keep the smoke to themselves and don't spew it into non-smokers' breathing space.

that's where it comes in to the choices. if enough people stop going to a bar because its smokey the tavern owner will eliminate smoking. you have every right to kick a smoker out of your house, but the government shouldn't be able to limit our freedoms anymore, especially in a state as restrictive as Pa! the restrictions are why i originally left.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

Trust me, I would take public transportation to work to save on gas if it was available from where I live to where I work, but that is not an option for me, since Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties operate separate bus systems (which is asinine in an area this size that Scranton and Wilkes-Barre both are covered under different bus systems).

I couldn't agree more. Scranton and Wilkes-Barre each need to stop competing against one another and must strive to complement each other if we ever want to see both Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties vibrant again. Today was a good start with volunteers driving up from Wilkes-Barre to man Scranton's fire stations while the Electric City's fire fighters attended Capt. Robeson's funeral, and I'm hopeful that Scranton would have done the same for the Diamond City if the shoe were on the other foot.

For as much as I think Ozzie Quinn needs to take medications to control his anger, I agree with him wholeheartedly that the Times-Leader should begin to cover news in Lackawanna County on a more regular basis. I believe Ozzie's plea was for a separate edition to cover the Scranton Area, but I'd actually propose simply expanding the existing newspaper to cover both cities in the metropolitan area. As residents in Wilkes-Barre read more about the happenings in Scranton and vice-versa, residents of both cities will gradually start to shed their irrational fears or resentments of the other and social cohesion between the counties may begin.

COLTS has begun running bus service from Scranton to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Plains Township. I would hope that LCTA would likewise start running daily trips into Lackawanna County---perhaps from Wilkes-Barre to the Shoppes @ Montage or even to Downtown Scranton. It is indeed very asinine and archaic that people in Avoca think they'll vaporize if they step foot across that invisible county line into Moosic and vice-versa; I run from my home into Lackawanna County and back all the time as part of my workout route. I was in heavily-congested traffic around 4:30 PM this afternoon on I-81 southbound between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, and I couldn't help but wonder how many folks commuting from one city to the other were vying for space on this narrow, outdated freeway, as well as how many of those folks might consider trading their vehicles for mass transit between both cities.

[CosmicWizard]

Getting back on topic here, read this unusual smoking related article (broken link).