Yesterday, I wrote about a gentleman who is having a dispute with his son’s school. And last week, I got into an argument on a talk-show with a representative of Seatbelts Are For Everyone, who is pushing to make not wearing a seat belt a “primary offense” in Massachusetts, meaning that the police can pull you over for violating it (whereas now they can’t, but can ticket you if they pull you over for another of the 1300+ reasons they have to stop you). Those two examples helped me tie together a fundamental principle of my personal philosophy.
I believe that we all have the basic right to be wrong.
In one of my favorite novels, the author puts forth a rather novel political and philosophical system. In the setting of a classroom, the students are taught all year about life, history, politics, sociology, and a ton of other subjects under the heading of “Global Ethics.” The class concludes when one student comes up with what I’ve considered the finest definition of freedom:
“Freedom is the right to be responsible for one’s actions.”
To me, that says it all. We have the RIGHT to be responsible for our actions, right or wrong. And if I want to do something mind-bogglingly stupid,, the government has absolutely no right to stop me — unless what I am doing is posing a clear and present danger to others.
Wanna smoke? Go ahead. Ride a motorcycle without a helmet? Feel free. Drive around without your seat belt? Fine. As long as you are ready, willing, and able to accept the consequences of your actions.
Now, there are exceptions to this. You wanna build a bomb in your basement? That’s a clear and present danger to your neighbors, and we’ll stop you. Jump off a bridge? You might land on someone, and either way someone else will have to clean up your mess. Short of that test, we’re simply dealing with the “nanny state” that wants to make sure that we all do the things that are good for us and don’t do those that are bad for us. If I wanted to be mothered that badly, I’d have married a certain ex-girlfriend of mine years ago. Or I never would have left home. Or I’d move to Massachusetts.
It’s a very, very simple ethic I have. I might try to dissuade someone from doing something stupid, but unless they are posing that threat, I won’t stop them. And if it’s really, really stupid, I’ll simply chalk it up to “Active Darwinism” (a term I started using about 20 years ago, long before I’d ever heard of the Darwin Awards) and say they’re doing the world a favor.
As is their right.
And yet, Larry, Bodiddly hit the nail on the head when he said, “the government has no business passing laws “for my own good,” but we’ll accept the laws if they’re “for everyone’s good,” and we’ll ignore the intrusion into our personal liberties under that same banner.” If you want to keep hammering away, you will find that many of us will say , screw it, what does the constitution say, which I believe is, the government has no business passing laws for my own good.
Larry will never get it, he wants a nanny state to restrict the rights of others because he’s too stupid to go to places that don’t allow smoking. It’s that simple, his opinion is the only one that matters. He’s a selflish little spoiled child that needs a nanny to protect him. He says anyone that disagrees is dumber than hammered shit, I can find bars and restaurants that allow smoking, he can’t seem to find those don’t. How stupid does that make him? He’s about one step from burning books that he doesn’t like, or more likely asking the government to do it for him. That’ll probably be his next campaign, starting with any books that contain the bill of rights. Maybe if non-smoking tofu-eating tree-hugging sandal-wearing leftist anti-smoking idiots weren’t such dullards the restaurants and bars that cater to them wouldn’t be so pitiful, they must be pitiful if they insist on crying like little babies when they visit ours by choice. Seeing how the other side lives pisses them off, if non-smoking places offered the same quality of food and the bars were anywhere near as fine of entertainment they wouldn’t need to go anywhere else. As it is now they only have other non-smoking morons to keep them company, how pathetic must that be?
smoke eater, just because you have insurance, and no doubt higher premiums than me, that doesn’t mean that my rates are as low as they would be if you didn’t smoke, or I still have higher rates because you smoke, just not as high as yours.
Robert F, if all cigarette taxes were plowed into the health care system you’d have a point, but they are not. And I wish they were.
Larry, you blur one major point, but from your imbecilic rants, I’m hardly surprised:
the anti-smoking laws don’t say “you cannot smoke”, they say “you cannot smoke HERE.”
Anti smoking policies by restaurants, bars, etc., do say “you cannot smoke here.” Anti-smoking laws, however, say that you cannot smoke here, or here, or here, or here . . .etc., regardless of the wishes of those establishments’ owners. Anyone that can’t see the distinction is, in your own words, “dumber than hammered shit.”
Let me try to draw a picture. When a restaurant says they won’t allow smoking, I have the right (frequently exercised, actually) to go somewhere that will allow me to light up while I wait on my food, or after my meal, without stepping outside into the elements. When an entire state or municipality passes a smoking-ban law, however, I am deprived of that choice. I am given the choice of either going without cigarettes or not eating in public. How would you like having the choice of dealing with smoke or not eating in public?
Laws that require establishments to provide nonsmoking areas go quite far enough to ensure that nonsmokers can enjoy their food in a smoke-free environment. Often, that translates into me eating in the “bar” section of a restaurant, complete with loud televisions playing the night’s major sporting events (an irritant to me, personally, but I haven’t heard much about a restaurant TV ban).
If only idiots like you would stop looking to the almighty government to make all your petty little dislikes go away, we wouldn’t be dealing with the giant bureaucracy that our Federal government has become.
And, Larry, “believe what you want,” the laws aren’t being passed to “protect” anyone. You’re not going to find any study that links occasional exposure to second-hand smoke to any sort of malaise. The laws are being passed to appease those folks who are so important in their own eyes that they really believe that their own likes and dislikes trump the rights of others.
Whatever happened to all that money that came from the Big Tobacco Settlement? It was supposed to fix all of the medical and social problems caused by evil tobacco companies. Somehow those billions upon billions of dollars never made it from the Evil Capitalists to the Little Guy. The last person seen with the money was… Fat Cat Bureaucrat. In the Conservatory with a candlestick!
Yeah, I’m still batting 1.000. Smokers simply cannot understand the problem and will not address the issue. They’ll yammer and scream and whine until the sky falls and they’ll say anything about everything except the issue, but admit that there just might be something wrong with intentionally polluting the air? Not a chance.
Hey Sue:
The money from the Big Tobacco Settlement was “throwing money to the wolves.” It wasn’t meant to “cure” anything. It was meant to get the government off the backs of Big Tobacco. If the government gets money from Big Tobacco, then government has a stake in the success of Big Tobacco. It has worked really well, hasn’t it?
Larry, why don’t you devote your time and effort to the air pollution that can actually have an effect on your well being (and water and land pollution, for that matter), and when you’re done with that deal with the cigarette smoke that will never harm you, ok? I’ll have a smoke while we wait.
BoDiddly, you don’t get it either. If “no smoking sections” in restaurants worked, then we non-smokers wouldn’t still be complaining, would we? Nobody teaches the smoke to stay in the smoking section and it doesn’t.
This is your statement: “You’re not going to find any study that links occasional exposure to second-hand smoke to any sort of malaise. The laws are being passed to appease those folks who are so important in their own eyes that they really believe that their own likes and dislikes trump the rights of others.”
You live in a dream world. The only people who don’t admit that smoking is hazardous to everyone who breathes it are smokers. The laws are being passed to prevent the rights of non-smokers from being trumped by the rights of smokers to harm themselves.
Yup. There ain’t a smoker alive who will admit that the problem exists. But, you pinheads keep on yammering. Meanwhile, the laws are being passed to teach you how not to misbehave. I’ll keep laughing.
I’m outta here. Talking with smokers about smoking is like talking to a Halloween pumpkin. There just ain’t nuthin’ inside the head.
Larry, maybe you complain to much. There should be a law, “no one shall exhale”, your carbon dioxide is contaminating with my oxygen, you getting my drift.
and
It was the Loquacious Lawyers, in the study, with their imaginations.
A man of obviously questionable mental ability (can’t figure out which restaurants and bars cater to non-smokers) still insists on calling people who can stupid and telling us we just don’t get it. He doesn’t get it and never will. He’s unable to grasp the idea that he can choose not to spend his money in places that allow smoking and spend his money where they welcome people like him. No sense it trying to convince anyone of this species, if they don’t catch on after the first 200 or so times it’s explained to them they won’t ever catch on. Now if you told him we should ban his favorite Al Franken radio talk show he’d be the first one to tell us we have a choice which station we listen to, and point out that there are plenty of others on the dial, that much he gets. We might as well be spending out time trying to convince John Kerry to sign that form 180 like he’s promised to do several times, the odds are better, slim to none vs. none to whatever the hell is less than none.
-1
Larry
I’m raising my hand as a life-long NON-smoker..never did more than try a couple of cigarettes as a teen, found it a waste of time, and have never been tempted ever again.
AND I THINK THE HISTRIONICS OVER SO-CALLED ‘SECOND HAND SMOKE’ are just that…histrionics more in keeping with a fundie morality only tangentally connected with health.
(you may put that in your pipe and smoke it)
If a private business…say a bar, wishes to be for smokers or smoke free, let the market decide. The idea that people can be fired for being smokers WHEN THEY ARE NOT AT WORK is as abhorent as firing someone who attends Star Trek conventions on their own time, or political rallies.
And that is what the “Tobacco is the Devil’s Weed” program of the Church of Our Lady of 24 Hour Fitness and Clean Living has led to.
If a private business…say a bar, wishes to be for smokers or smoke free, let the market decide.
There. It. Is.
It’s funny, I was just reading the Reader’s Digest condensed version of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.
That’s Frederick, not Salma, for the bunch of boob-ogling pigs who comment here. And possibly for Larry, who’s probably a big fan of Marx. Karl, not Groucho.
OK, Larry. I’m game. Bring me out of my “dream world.”
Cite a study.
Or shut the fuck up.