Let Freedom Ring
posted by memorex at 01:35 P.M. EST on Fri Jul 02, 2004 #
We might as well bring back asbestos. It makes the same kind of sense. Tobacco kills. Asbestos kills. If it's worth eliminating one from the workplace, it worth eliminating the other. If people want to use tobbaco, they should have the same rights to do it as they can to use asbestos - OUT OF THE WORKPLACE! And please don't say that a private club (which is really a bar), isn't a place where people work.
posted by Chaz at 07:06 P.M. EST on Mon Jul 05, 2004 #
Tobacco kills. Asbestos kills.
So does a car, alcohol and weapons in the hands of citizens. Let's just ban those, too.
Chaz, dear Chaz, when I look in the latest version of American Political Dictionary, there's your picture right there beside the entry for Liberal. If anything, I'd like to see people using the term "Neo-Liberal" since at the end of the 80s Liberal thought really wasn't all that extreme.
The thing you Neo-Libs are getting on your high horse about is -- yes, once again a flashback to the Terrible Neo-Liberal 90s -- power. The Toledo city government is on a power kick about this smoking thing (for reasons I still don't know ... it could just be a Neo-Lib infestation).
The funny thing about the entire affair is that with the wide selection of semi-public drinking establishments, the exposure to tobacco smoke is a self-selection action. Bars had already formed themselves into various ranges for those who want one thing or another, and density of smoke is one of those ranges. I could easily detect this, even without being an ardent bar-goer.
I say all this, as a person with "hypersensitivity" to cigarette smoke. I'm guaranteed to get an upper respiratory illness if exposed to a reasonably smoky area like a "sleazy bar". BUT ... that's MY problem, not everyone's else's. Hence, I avoid bars almost entirely. (I have other problems with my smoke hypersensitivity, like sharing an automobile with smokers ... but again, that's for myself to resolve with others, and is not something that government needs to step into and regulate, much less actually ban.)
The foundation of liberty is tolerance and negotiation. You Neo-Libs want none of that. Which makes you as tyrannical as the Neo-Conservative Republicans eating Toledo's steak in Columbus.
posted by Guest at 07:41 P.M. EST on Mon Jul 05, 2004 #
Oh no, guest, you have it all backwards. People who work at bars and restaurants are forced to do so. They have no choice. Just ask Chaz from an earlier post:
...many of these people rely on those wages for daily sustenance, alternatives are rare...[Smokers] kill others who are forced to live or work with them.
Guest, we live an oppressive society controlled by a bunch of thugs who think they can go around enjoying their life, being successful in a free market and doing whatever they choose. The only hope we have to curb the activities of these bruts is our government. After all, Chaz put it best when he defined the government's role:
Government exists to PROTECT its citizens.
The most important concept to keep in mind here, though, is that we, the oppressed must take back the property that the freedom thugs paid to buy and struggle to maintain. Can you believe that they have the arrogance to call it private property when we all know that their bars and restaurants are public places?
posted by babbleman at 06:10 A.M. EST on Tue Jul 06, 2004 #
"We might as well bring back asbestos."
Chaz and the Blade have something in common.
In a Blade op-ed from last November that discussess City Council members getting re-elected and the smoking ban, the op-ed writer attempted to compare second-hand smoke to asbestos. Obviously, logic is not a requirement to write op-eds for the Blade.
"Confiscates private property? How? Back in the 1970s, federal regulations were adopted that hurt manufacturers of asbestos because asbestos was determined to be a health hazard. The government neither owed nor paid compensation to asbestos makers just because they suddenly were selling less of the stuff. The point is that the central theme we are hearing from the opponents of the ban - that they are losing business - has been offered before and rejected."
posted by jr at 08:54 A.M. EST on Tue Jul 06, 2004 #
I am proud to be a liberal. I am also amused at all of the angst coming from conservatives (particularly conservatives that hide their identity on message boards). It's funny how just the thought "liberal" seems to equate me with some kind of hideous insect or alien.
Yes, we liberals are terrible. So, you might as well take back everything that we have introduced into our society. Step 1. Eliminate Social Security (introduced by that hated and horrible liberal Franklin Roosevelt). Step 2. Eliminate laws that allow non-whites to vote, sit anywhere on public transportation, use "white only" restrooms and live in our precious "white" neighborhoods. Step 3. Destroy buildings created at the order of the liberal Roosevelt during the Depression (like the Toledo Zoo and Art Museum). Step 4. Close immigration and boot out foreigners who have entered the USA through liberalized immigration laws (including those who escaped death due to ethnic cleansing). Step 5. Since conservatives hate taxes, eliminate them. Of course, if someone breaks into your house or it's on fire, you will have to just deal with it on your own conservative talents. You can also find a place to put your conservative garbage.
Anyway, I digress. Young people need money to pay for college and other basic needs. Public places, like bars and restaraunts, employ these young people. However, exposing them to second-hand smoke, which has been proven to cause cancer and heart disease, should be illegal. You would have hundreds of thousands of people die unnecessarily.
Tell me, if you were at the deathbed of a restaraunt employee dying of second-hand smoke-induced cancer, what would you say to them? Would you say, "oh, gee, um... I'm really sorry you're dying, but those damn liberals were trying to CONTROL us, so we fought against those stupid liberal smoking laws." Can you live with that?
How about this, "Well, we heard people say that bar owners in states that have imposed smoking bans have experienced very little reduction in business and many have actually experienced an increase in busines. We know that just couldn't be true so we defeated those liberal-led laws here. Um, sorry."
How about this reply, "You can die proudly with the knowledge that your death is saving bar owners from an imagined loss of business. Yep, we conservatives are really sorry that you are dying from smoke inhalation, but it's more important that we save bar owners from any possible (imagined) reduction of business." After all, we can't let those darned liberals enact laws that that save lungs but could possibly, perhaps, potentially, maybe... reduce bar owners' incomes.
Wonder why I'm a liberal?
posted by Chaz at 05:46 P.M. EST on Tue Jul 06, 2004 #
Babbleman, I don't buy it. You are confusing regulation with banning. If the government really wanted to illustrate that they cared about the employees (and I note that this is the first time I have heard anyone say "it's for the employees" -- hint, hint) and in general whoever would walk into that bar, then they should have outlined inspect-able standards for ventilation for all bars. That way, any bar that wanted smoking could have installed the appropriate level of ventilation and then continued to accomodate smokers.
But Toledo's Neo-Lib "thugs" didn't do that. Besides some very minor categorization, they banned it. And Da Blade is singing the glory of this crapola almost daily as the cancer spreads to other cities, following the metastasizing cells known as Toledoans.
I don't smoke. In fact, I find cigarette smoke directly harmful to me considering how fast it causes (or facilitates) an upper-respiratory illness. But it's the right of a smoker to smoke in places public (like parks) and semi-public (like bars). If it really bothers me, I'll leave. I negotiate this in every car that I share with a smoker. And in every case, I haven't "banned" their smoking; we just negotiate ventilation.
Negotiation is what equals do. And the anti-smoking crowd in Toledo doesn't believe in equality. As well as it fails to understand that public space must be SHARED ... meaning those who smoke and those who do not.
posted by Guest at 12:38 A.M. EST on Wed Jul 07, 2004 #
"Young people need money to pay for college and other basic needs. Public places, like bars and restaraunts, employ these young people. However, exposing them to second-hand smoke, which has been proven to cause cancer and heart disease, should be illegal. You would have hundreds of thousands of people die unnecessarily."
Then why did Bowling Green change their smoking ban to exclude businesses that earn less than 35% of the revenue from food? In other words, smoking is allowed in bars.
I suppose not smoking makes too much sense? The information about the ills of smoking have been available for at least 30 years. And look at how many people under the age of 30 still smoke. I'd say, anyone under 40 who smokes should have the word idiot stamped on their forehead. That's the problem.
I don't understand why people smoke, but if that's what they want to do, despite the information available, then so be it. Tobacco is a legal product. Of course, that's not the concern. We don't care what the smokers do to themselves. It's the concern for the non-smokers who happen to exist in the smoker's orbit.
Since people are too weak-minded to quit smoking or too inept to take responsibility for themselves and limit their exposure to second-hand smoke, then the only true solution is to outlaw tobacco.
Why doesn't the government make tobacco illegal? That's the simple solution. All problems would be solved, and there'd be nothing to argue about on this topic.
posted by jr at 12:43 P.M. EST on Wed Jul 07, 2004 #
Yeah, let's outlaw tobacco.
After all, outlawing alcohol worked really well.
And obviously the War on Drugs works well, too.
Face it, the government spent, and still spends, more money on enforcing those bans than if it would legalize and taxed the hell out of the stuff.
As for workers, nobody MAKES them work in a bar or restaurant. They choose where to go. If the economy sucks so badly that the only job they can get is food service, then that is the issue that should be addressed.
It's great that you want to look out for the health and welfare of others, but it's flat-out WRONG when you do it under the guise of pushing your own agenda.
The whole "awww, think of the poor/underadvantaged/unequal/children/whatever" thing is BS and both the liberals and conservatives use it to push their own agendas. Agendas which the groups they claim to support actually have near-zero say in.
Anyway, the big myth is that the liberals/Democrats like more government regulation and the conservatives/Republicans like less. The TRUTH is they like whatever regulation suits them and their backers: you can bet that the big companies want deregulation because then they can stomp all over the little guy, engage in mergers, and do whatever the heck else they feel like, but they want regulations like patent/copyright/litigation reform so they can keep everyone else from competition and from suing their butts off. The small companies want a different set of regulations and deregulations: namely they don't want to have to deal with all sorts of costly regulations just to do business when they're trying to turn a profit, and they want government to keep the big boys from engaging in dirty tricks and anticompetitive practices so that they can actually get a start in the market.
posted by anonymouscoward at 06:50 P.M. EST on Fri Jul 09, 2004 #
Dear Anonymouscoward and babblecrap,
Should we allow people in public places to be exposed to asbestos? How about formaldehyde? Perhaps cynanide?
Government exists to PROTECT people. Should we remove seat belts from cars? Should we ditch air bags? How about killing speed limits? None of these safety factors would exist were it not for government intervention (most certainly car manufacturers lobbied against seat belts and air bags). If we had listened to them, many thousands more would be dead today.
The argument that people should be allowed to do whatever they want, regardless of their own health hazards is wrong. Because of tobacco-related illness and death, you and I pay too much for insurace. And, for those without insurance, we (through taxes) pay for their healthcare mistakes. If smokers are too weak to quit, then government should regulate it as much as possible, until they quit.
If you can imagine the world in a hundred years, it's difficult to think that anyone who is not psychotic would be smoking tobacco.
posted by Chaz at 11:03 A.M. EST on Fri Jul 23, 2004 #
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