So here is the question... why keep the no-smoking laws on the books? The state has made it's point, it's gotten the marketplace out of the rut of believing that all bars have to be smoking. They've shown that that's not the case and, according to anti-smoking supporters, even the bar owners are happy with the results.
So why keep the law on the books? You've convinced them. You've gotten the market to become accustomed to smoke-free bars. So what good is the law still doing? Now all you're doing is preventing a niche smoking club, a place for the handful of smokers to enjoy tobacco.
Why take the laws off the books? As you say, the marketplace is convinced. Therefore, there is no face for the fist to swing at. The laws are, at their very worst, archaic. Since everybody will happily comply, nobody will ever violate them and no police, courts or judges will ever get involved.
Also, you sure do need to upgrade your understanding of how courts actually work. For example, I really wouldn't recommend that if you are ever sued, you take the position "ha ha, I can just not show up in court and you can't hurt me".
mythago on
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In bold is truth, but the thing to understand is that the justification isn't virtue-based- the state is not, in the case of indoor smoking laws, attempting to tell people how to live their lives. It's looking at empirical evidence that strongly suggests second-hand smoke is harmful to the people around the smoker, especially employees in those situations. Under the fundamental tenets of liberalism, asking smokers to smoke outside is more than an acceptable compromise; it sacrifices a minor liberty for the health of others.
What empirical data are we using in this case? I accept that there is some level of risk with smoking tobacco, but I haven’t seen any objective, confirmed science that second hand-smoke is any more dangerous than perfume to my asthmatic girlfriend. This is debatable material. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that all the scientific research checks out in your point. How do you explain states that have expanded the smoking bans to beaches and other outdoor areas, private clubs where private membership is required, and even within people’s own cars and households?
The first article that appears in a search for “second-hand smoke” on The Lancet is a meta-analysis finding “603 000 deaths were attributable to second-hand smoke in 2004, which was about 1.0% of worldwide mortality…. DALYs [Disability-adjusted life-years] lost because of exposure to second-hand smoke amounted to 10.9 million, which was about 0.7% of total worldwide burden of diseases in DALYs in 2004” (Oberg, Jaakkola, Woodward, Peruga, Pruss-Ustun). Experiments, observational studies and meta-analyses are a dime a dozen. If we want to question the science- which I’m in no position to do- that’s kind of another thing. But it is fair to say there is strong evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful.
Now, outdoor smoking bans? I think that’s largely bullshit, unless similar levels of harm can be attributed to it (which AFAIK is doubtful). I would agree with you that outdoor smoking rules should be the territory of the property owner; it’s little more than a nuisance. The point to take home is that these are not the same issue; one has an empirical basis and is a matter of health, the other is the result of poorly-justified, pandering, majoritarian policy.
The immediate counter-argument is that, well, if a bar owner doesn't want smoke in his establishment, he'll prohibit it. Except for the part where that would be suicidal for the business. One bar changes the rules and smokers stop going there. Here's the problem of collective action (which libertarian arguments tend to gloss over): every bar owner realizes this, and so no one is going to take that risk. The marginal utility of staying in business an additional day outweighs the marginal disutility of inhaling a day's worth of smoke.
The law means that the bar owners don't have to take that risk at all. It means that the rules are the same everywhere, so no bar will face disproportionate loss of business by patrons who resent the rule.
Non-smokers who drink constitute as much of the population as smokers who drink. Are you asserting that there is no market to appeal to this percentage of people? Saying that none of us have to inherit such a risk by allowing the state to interfere stands in complete diametric opposition to the principles of free-market enterprise. It is a business owners’ responsibility to collect data, research and develop, and take risks based on the information he/she has ascertained.
Absolutely, there is a market. It’s the distribution and behaviour of the market that matters. If that market coalesced in certain bars, and employees so inclined were able to find work at these non-smoking bars, then would this legislation have ever come to be? If the market behaved as you describe, there would have been no demand for this legislation. You’re characterizing the policy as having been instituted a priori, to prevent the market from acting on its own; but rather, it was instituted as a result of the market’s failure.
You’re right- it’s up to business owners to assess their own utilities and determine how to operate. And most or all concluded that instituting a smoke-free rule would be detrimental to their business, unless everyone else also did it. If every owner realizes this, none act. It’s the problem of collective action.
Getting back to the bolded sentences, you're correct that many vices are risky, but we should still be allowed to do those things. The sticky point is that the risk must be limited to ourselves, and that any risk to others must be negligible. This is why smoking outside isn't illegal, and shouldn't ever be- all the risk is to yourself. But inside, or in a car, the effect on others is an order of magnitude more harmful, especially in the long term.
Assuming that smoking outside isn’t already illegal, which it is in a lot of areas, this might work. However, the fact that lawmakers have banned smoking outside kind of contradicts the original “limited to ourselves” argument. So maybe its pollution and bad for the earth and you may drink water with carcinogens in it? When we add the environmental variables to the equation, the whole picture gets even more skewed, and inadvertently we’ll have to include things that aren’t demonized just so that our logic checks out. The reality is that it just became acceptable to hate cigarette smoke and even more acceptable to ostracize and dehumanize smokers by claiming they contravene everybody’s right to inhale smoke-free air.
I’m arguing a normative liberal position, not saying that’s how the legislation was made. Demonization of smokers is absolutely a factor in the legislation. I’m an avid proponent of drug liberalization, so I’m familiar with this idea, and I agree that it’s not a proper way to legislate.
The libertarian argument in a case like this focuses on the smoking patrons like their liberty is to be considered more important than the ability of the owner, staff and other patrons to have a smoke-free environment. Part of liberty is freedom from bodily harm.
This is based on an assumption that customer complaints are not an effective way of changing policy. If there were enough complaints about indoor smoking, then a good bar owner will know that a counter measure has to be introduced. If it is exhibited that complaints are frequent, then compromise is in the owner’s best interest. Smoking ventilation systems, for example, are possibly the best way to purge the area of harmful toxins in the air (some even remove mold spores and other microbiological allergens). The systems are cost-effective, consumer-driven, and beneficial to both parties. If it was about public health, why didn’t the state attempt to pressure bar owners to install these systems rather than just banning the entire practice? It’s actually easier for state inspectors to catch someone without a working ventilation system than it is for them to catch someone smoking.
The burden of proof is on the proponent of “smoking ventilation systems.” I can’t find anything quickly through my school, but this showed up on Google. Far from definitive, but discouraging. I’d certainly be open to it as being a viable alternative.
In bold: again, we don’t know what proportion of customers were complaining to businesses, or if they were being listened to. What we know is that bars predominantly had no smoking rules, and market forces hadn’t changed it. Again, an issue of chronology: the government didn’t create these laws before bars or the free market existed; the government created the laws as a response to protect the rights of non-smokers.
Sometimes the state has to take these actions because market forces alone are incapable of doing so, because of the problem of collective action, or (as Keynes stresses) because market forces will not bring about a desired outcome on a reasonable timeline. Sure, maybe a bar could eventually dig out a niche as the one smoke-free joint in the city, and attract the non-smoking crowd; this presumes a specific set of conditions, ignores the problem of collective action, and employs my favourite free-market term, "eventually."
Yes, it would be financial suicide to appeal to non-smokers the same way it would be if someone started a fetish club for the masochists (yet surprisingly those who do generate excellent profits, hmmm).
What’s so bad about “eventually”? Eventually with market forces smoking can become antiquated in a completely voluntary environment by offering new-age products to the market that people actually want to use rather than being forced not to use. Take electronic cigarettes for instance. They’re cool, they’re available, they work. I’m not saying smoking needs to become antiquated, but there are better ways of getting people to take control of their health than just saying, “Don’t do it, it’s against the law!”
If smokers constituted a majority of people who frequented bars, then yes, bartenders alienating that demographic would be doing considerable harm to their business. Again, problem of collective action. If smokers did not constitute a significant portion of the demographic, then it would clearly have been in bar owners' interests to gear policies to non-smokers.
“Eventually” is bad because some things should not be left alone. The free market works for many things, even most things. But some problems have to be addressed on a reasonable timeline. If indoor smoking is killing over half a million people a year, is it seriously acceptable in a modern society to just let that go on? It’s like watching a dog chew on your toddler while you stand aside and say, well, he’ll let go eventually. Well, the economy will pull itself out of the recession, eventually. People will learn not to drink and drive, eventually. Bankers will learn not to give loans to people who won’t be able to pay, eventually. Polluters will learn to limit greenhouse gas emissions, eventually.
“In the long run, we’re all dead.”
Not a trivial quotation.
Also, is anyone aware of any research done following the implementation of indoor smoking laws? Intuitively, I see it having a positive effect overall on business, since non-smokers will be deterred to a lesser extent. I imagine any immediate drop in business would be temporary, as people get pissed off then adapt...but I haven't heard of any empirical studies.
Now we’re talking about spin. I can take a video camera and interview 500 people that think the smoking ban sucks cock, and another 500 people that think the smoking ban made everything fresh as daisies. Empirical data is too refutable. If you look at the hard statistics there were businesses who suffered, some that stayed the same, and others who had better quarters than years before. If it was just about “things being better”, why bother in the beginning? The facts were that smoking didn’t hinder business. Bringing up these arguments to show that it made things “better” is just rationalizing a defense for lawmakers to back special interests and moral monopolies rather than supporting people’s liberty and right to chose.
Empirical data are not spin. I think you're confusing it with anecdotal evidence.
And no, it’s not going to be universally beneficial or detrimental to business. And the hole argument is that the health of patrons is worth the potential cost; I was speculating that there might be a benefit to business purely as an externality. Smoking didn’t hinder business that we know of; that’s not what the law is for.
But here’s the essential problem: we’re both basing our arguments people’s liberty and right to choose. Libertarianism is a simplistic, reductionist position: the bartender has the right to allow smoking, patrons have the right to choose to go elsewhere if it bothers them, workers have the right to work elsewhere if they believe their health is threatened. If there are non-smokers who want to go to a bar, a bar owner will adapt their business to accommodate that demand. Makes sense, as long as the world is simple and people are perfectly rational.
The problem lies in your assumption that the market necessarily maximizes liberty; that’s kind of a huge leap. I’m not arguing that government always does either, but rather that normatively speaking, there are things the government has an obligation to do because the market isn’t capable of doing them reliably or expediently.
But here’s the essential problem: we’re both basing our arguments people’s liberty and right to choose. Libertarianism is a simplistic, reductionist position: the bartender has the right to allow smoking, patrons have the right to choose to go elsewhere if it bothers them, workers have the right to work elsewhere if they believe their health is threatened. If there are non-smokers who want to go to a bar, a bar owner will adapt their business to accommodate that demand. Makes sense, as long as the world is simple and people are perfectly rational.
Libertarianism makes a lot more sense if you substitute 'karma' for references to 'the market'.
That is, the belief that the market will preserve all liberties and right all wrongs is about as realistic and fact-based as a belief in karma. (And by that I mean the 'what goes around comes around' definition of the term, not the strict religious definition.) Where a believer in karma says that bad behavior is punished because it upsets the karmic balance, a Libertarian says it is punished because it does not lead to optimate results according to The Market. And short-term injustices should be ignored in the secure knowledge that, sooner or later, Karma/The Market will get the bad guys.
mythago on
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
But here’s the essential problem: we’re both basing our arguments people’s liberty and right to choose. Libertarianism is a simplistic, reductionist position: the bartender has the right to allow smoking, patrons have the right to choose to go elsewhere if it bothers them, workers have the right to work elsewhere if they believe their health is threatened. If there are non-smokers who want to go to a bar, a bar owner will adapt their business to accommodate that demand. Makes sense, as long as the world is simple and people are perfectly rational.
The problem lies in your assumption that the market necessarily maximizes liberty; that’s kind of a huge leap. I’m not arguing that government always does either, but rather that normatively speaking, there are things the government has an obligation to do because the market isn’t capable of doing them reliably or expediently.
And none of that even means that a smoking-ban is the best choice, the government could be wrong and could be wrong on any number of issues but the essential part is that you acknowledge that the government could also be right.
Sometimes the market is the best way, sometimes the government. Sometimes even the government works best via market-forces or vice-versa. The important thing is that even if you are only concerned about the maximization of liberty there is no reason to think that such a thing can only be achieved through one way.
The ban in my mind was an issue of ensuring workplace safety, not impugning personal freedoms. The government has repeatedly demonstrated its intention to promote workplace safety since the gilded age. Obviously it fails in some areas but regulations that improve the health of generally lower income and uninsured people is a positive good.
The ban in my mind was an issue of ensuring workplace safety, not impugning personal freedoms. The government has repeatedly demonstrated its intention to promote workplace safety since the gilded age. Obviously it fails in some areas but regulations that improve the health of generally lower income and uninsured people is a positive good.
It's because the tobacco industry colluded to make it appear as if there was questions about the health risk of secondhand smoke. Something they wound up getting tried and convicted over.
The ban isn't about "enforcing wise habits" or whatever; obviously if you wish to smoke, there are lots of places you can still do it (even in the many such establishments that have dedicated smoking rooms/lounges, at least in my state.)
The law is about protecting the health of the employees of those establishments, who unlike the patrons don't have a choice (at least, assuming they like to eat and make rent) about whether to be in a smoke filled bar for 6-8 hours a day.
Let's not be ridiculous and pretend that a large part of smoking-bans isn't about "enforcing wise habits". Even the most cynical person would agree with the most idealistic person that these kind of laws are at least partly about stopping the evils of smoking.
If the state wanted to simply reduce smoking, there are lots of more effective things it could do than just ban it in open bars. Most states don't even ban it in all bars, just bars without specific smoking-oriented facilities.
States do a lot of things to reduce smoking, like levying prohibitive taxes and funding public advocacy campaigns. The ban on smoking in bars (and restaurants/etc) is pretty much exclusively about employee health; the national wave of legislation is more or less a direct response to the surgeon general's public findings on the subject.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Am I allowed to point out that governments themselves are largely unregulated and subject to market forces, meaning that if libertarianism was correct, they would have already settled on libertarianism?
They're actually not, they're natural monopolies with all of the related consequences. But that just goes to show that there's no such thing as a free market.
The ban isn't about "enforcing wise habits" or whatever; obviously if you wish to smoke, there are lots of places you can still do it (even in the many such establishments that have dedicated smoking rooms/lounges, at least in my state.)
The law is about protecting the health of the employees of those establishments, who unlike the patrons don't have a choice (at least, assuming they like to eat and make rent) about whether to be in a smoke filled bar for 6-8 hours a day.
Let's not be ridiculous and pretend that a large part of smoking-bans isn't about "enforcing wise habits". Even the most cynical person would agree with the most idealistic person that these kind of laws are at least partly about stopping the evils of smoking.
If the state wanted to simply reduce smoking, there are lots of more effective things it could do than just ban it in open bars. Most states don't even ban it in all bars, just bars without specific smoking-oriented facilities.
States do a lot of things to reduce smoking, like levying prohibitive taxes and funding public advocacy campaigns. The ban on smoking in bars (and restaurants/etc) is pretty much exclusively about employee health; the national wave of legislation is more or less a direct response to the surgeon general's public findings on the subject.
Well, the home bans are about the fact that children are significantly more sensitive to smoke.
Am I allowed to point out that governments themselves are largely unregulated and subject to market forces, meaning that if libertarianism was correct, they would have already settled on libertarianism?
They're actually not, they're natural monopolies with all of the related consequences. But that just goes to show that there's no such thing as a free market.
This is exactly correct.
Fundamentally everything is an anarchist system. All we are arguing about is what we consider legitimate or not. In Canada, all our laws are empowered by the head of the Anglican church (yes, it's silly). In the U.S. all laws are powered by the electoral college and the American Constitution (less silly, but about the same).
But if people were to rise up against Canada, the U.S. or anyone else, what ends up winning is whoever has the most force behind them. This doesn't make it right. It just is what it is. Probably the Egyptian constitution has a process to challenge Ghadafi where you can work your way through the courts. Oh well....
Anyway, smoking bans are like any pollution controls: a way to deal with externalities of an individual's actions. Like coal is priced incorrectly and artificially low at the moment, because all of the costs of coal (like increased occurrence of lung disease) aren't reflected in that price.
enlightenedbum on
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Well you could sue the smoker. But you'd have to know who it was. And you'd have to prove damages, which are probably approaching zero. Also the government can not compel the defedant(s) to appear at trial. So the smoker probably wouldn't bother going to a trial that was so clearly unreasonable trolling.
So yes, if you can convince a judge to hear the case, and argue your point (against someone who doesn't bother to show up at trial) AND you're the victor on the balance of probability THEN you could move onto damages which might be fractions of cents.
Personally I don't think the judge would hear the case and even if they did, I don't think you'd win. And if you won I don't think you'd get a full cent.
Anything else?
If you want to sell your interpretation of libertarianism, "I acknowledge that you can be harmed, but the system will prevent you from pursuing any justice or compensation and I'm totally okay with that" is, I daresay, not going to be an appealing description.
What legal damages do you think are appropriate for taking a whiff of tobacco smoke? I said less than a penny for one whiff. What is your answer?
I worked in a smokey restaurant for years before the law changed, I'm pretty sure my health wasn't affected. Even if it was, it was tiny amount. And if you walked up and opened the door (doors of an unmarked bar) you would only smell tobacco smoke once before you were aware that there was smoking in the building.
Sniffing smoke once... I cant imagine that being a big deal. A whiff of smoke; one whiff... and a hard-ass judge. What would be the damages? I would guess 5 cents on the extreme. But since you took issue, I'd be interested in your opinion.
Mind you government property is still regulated by the government. So if the "smoke" from the bar reaches the sidewalk then the bar has to negotiate with the town for an agreement. But tobacco smoke rises, and you can't normally smell it unless you are very close to the bar.
So you open a bar's doors and unexpectedly get 2 breaths of tobacco. What are the damages? (I am interested in your response, because I often have to smell strong perfume, and sometimes overweight people sit next to me on the subway. Both are assaults. I would like to tailor your damages of whiffing tobacco smoke in Libertopia to me being forced to touch overweight people (or smell their perfume) in our modern democracy.
Again, if the ban is to protect the health of the employees of the bar (which it is), it is obviously not one whiff of smoke, but rather the accumulation of smoke during their 8 hour shift every day for however long they are employed there.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Again, if the ban is to protect the health of the employees of the bar (which it is), it is obviously not one whiff of smoke, but rather the accumulation of smoke during their 8 hour shift every day for however long they are employed there.
Yes, but that's not what the information contained in the report suggests:
Scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Breathing even a little secondhand smoke can be harmful to your health.
The report also goes on to suggest that compromise is unattainable:
Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate secondhand smoke exposure.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the preeminent U.S. standard-setting body on ventilation issues, has concluded that ventilation technology cannot be relied on to completely control health risks from secondhand smoke exposure.
Conventional air cleaning systems can remove large particles, but not the smaller particles or the gases found in secondhand smoke.
Operation of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system can distribute secondhand smoke throughout a building.
I suppose all the scientific research into carbon and HEPA filters was just pseudo-scientific free-market drivel.
Reminds me of the DEA's Drug Scheduling that insists Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug that is highly addictive; possessing no medical benefits or accepted medical uses.
Chaos Punk on
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So you open a bar's doors and unexpectedly get 2 breaths of tobacco. What are the damages? (I am interested in your response, because I often have to smell strong perfume, and sometimes overweight people sit next to me on the subway. Both are assaults. I would like to tailor your damages of whiffing tobacco smoke in Libertopia to me being forced to touch overweight people (or smell their perfume) in our modern democracy.
I'm a big fan of property rights, but I'm also a fan of the right to knowledge. I'm not talking about "smoking will kill you if you breathe it in" kind of knowledge, but rather knowledge to alert the consumer what is contained on said private property. "Caution: Alcohol, Smoke, Loud Music, and Annoying Drunk Girls... enter at your own peril".
Bars and workplaces may be accessible to the public, but if it is privately owned and managed, then the rights belong to the owner. If she/he wants to afford smokers the luxury to smoke (vise versa), then he/she should make that call. As I've stated in previous posts, I think it is extremely illegitimate to utilize the greatest physical power in the country to settle these kinds of scores. I agree with you about publically funded buildings: if the lawmakers want to make libraries and the smithsonian non-smoking, then by all means, be uncool
Chaos Punk on
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You (yes, YOU) chose to smoke. It is a habit you chose of your own volition. So I don't see how you have any space to argue that you should have some right to inflict your habit on the rest of us who have elected not to smoke. Smoking really shows the intellectual bankruptcy of libertarianism succinctly - libertarians love to rail about people taking responsibility, but when they are asked to do so, there's always some justification about why they shouldn't. In short, YOU chose to smoke, and thus the repercussions of that choice are upon you.
As for the argument that "it's a private establishment!", either business owners should have absolute control over their operations (which means you are advocating tossing out laws regarding discrimination, harassment, etc.), or the state does, in fact, have a right to limit what a private business may do. Your choice.
You (yes, YOU) chose to smoke. It is a habit you chose of your own volition. So I don't see how you have any space to argue that you should have some right to inflict your habit on the rest of us who have elected not to smoke. Smoking really shows the intellectual bankruptcy of libertarianism succinctly - libertarians love to rail about people taking responsibility, but when they are asked to do so, there's always some justification about why they shouldn't. In short, YOU chose to smoke, and thus the repercussions of that choice are upon you.
I didn't miss this point. I've heard it repeatedly, even incessantly. I understand the point of view. However, you're devolving the debate back to just having some quibble about smokers. We're bad, irresponsible people, I get it. I'm not advocating smokers rights, which would entail the state to step in and say that Scotts (for example) HAS to employee smokers. http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php, If you want to stretch the argument to personal rights there can obviously be a case made that smokers are discriminated against. I support corporations right to terminate people because they violated the no-smoking policies, just as I support private owners when they allow smoking on their premises. The debate is about whether the state should have this measure of control over property rights and individual choice. The individual in question being that of the business owners who allow public access to their property, provide a service, and are compensated with monetary value. I've stated my points about where I think the law should draw its line in the sand. You disagree with me, that's fine. I support your right to disagree with other people. To me, the nanny state politics do not cooperate with the culture of American liberty. What's next, the abolition of sexual intercourse to prevent the spread of disease?
Btw, What's with the personal attacks? I think your hate-filled, emotionally charged reply warrants some reconsideration. You should exhibit a little respect when you debate with someone...I know it's hard when you just know you're right, but give it a try sometime
Chaos Punk on
We are all the man behind the curtain.... pay no attention to any of us
You (yes, YOU) chose to smoke. It is a habit you chose of your own volition. So I don't see how you have any space to argue that you should have some right to inflict your habit on the rest of us who have elected not to smoke. Smoking really shows the intellectual bankruptcy of libertarianism succinctly - libertarians love to rail about people taking responsibility, but when they are asked to do so, there's always some justification about why they shouldn't. In short, YOU chose to smoke, and thus the repercussions of that choice are upon you.
I didn't miss this point. I've heard it repeatedly, even incessantly. I understand the point of view. However, you're devolving the debate back to just having some quibble about smokers. We're bad, irresponsible people, I get it. I'm not advocating smokers rights, which would entail the state to step in and say that Scotts (for example) HAS to employee smokers. http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php, If you want to stretch the argument to personal rights there can obviously be a case made that smokers are discriminated against. I support corporations right to terminate people because they violated the no-smoking policies, just as I support private owners when they allow smoking on their premises. The debate is about whether the state should have this measure of control over property rights and individual choice. The individual in question being that of the business owners who allow public access to their property, provide a service, and are compensated with monetary value. I've stated my points about where I think the law should draw its line in the sand. You disagree with me, that's fine. I support your right to disagree with other people. To me, the nanny state politics do not cooperate with the culture of American liberty. What's next, the abolition of sexual intercourse to prevent the spread of disease?
Btw, What's with the personal attacks? I think your hate-filled, emotionally charged reply warrants some reconsideration. You should exhibit a little respect when you debate with someone...I know it's hard when you just know you're right, but give it a try sometime
And, of course, you ignored the question that I stated at the end of my post, which strikes at the heart of your argument. So, how about you kindly answer this:
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
Mind you, if you want to argue that businesses shouldn't be regulated, then you're arguing that regulations about discrimination, harassment, etc. should be thrown out the window. Conversely, if you say that those regulations are okay, then you are acknowledging that the state does in fact have the right to regulate businesses. So, which is it?
And frankly, I find little to respect about your position. As I stated, you chose to smoke. Yet when it is pointed out that your choice impacts not only you, but other people around you as well, you try to dodge this simple fact, and place the burden on others to deal with the impact of your choice. How is that taking responsibility for your actions (which is supposedly a core belief of your philosophy)? Considering you seem to have no problem in asking other people like myself to have to adapt around your choice, I do think I'm a bit justified in being offended by your selfish behavior.
And, of course, you ignored the question that I stated at the end of my post, which strikes at the heart of your argument. So, how about you kindly answer this:
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
Mind you, if you want to argue that businesses shouldn't be regulated, then you're arguing that regulations about discrimination, harassment, etc. should be thrown out the window. Conversely, if you say that those regulations are okay, then you are acknowledging that the state does in fact have the right to regulate businesses. So, which is it?
And frankly, I find little to respect about your position. As I stated, you chose to smoke. Yet when it is pointed out that your choice impacts not only you, but other people around you as well, you try to dodge this simple fact, and place the burden on others to deal with the impact of your choice. How is that taking responsibility for your actions (which is supposedly a core belief of your philosophy)? Considering you seem to have no problem in asking other people like myself to have to adapt around your choice, I do think I'm a bit justified in being offended by your selfish behavior.
The smoking in businesses ban is a very interesting animal. There are definitely health hazards and workplace coercion problems here where I can see employees being required to work in unhealthy conditions.
I'm just going to chime in and ask you more of a question regarding this rather than respond directly to the arguments you're having here. Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal? Do you think it's infeasible that we require any business that wants to allow smoking be regulated in a way where it has to have safe smoking and non-smoking sections, that no employee may be required to work in a smoking section nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
A lot of bars where I'm at now actually just took the roof off of their smoking areas so that they could consider them "outdoors" so I'm really starting to wonder if this is at all the best approach to the idea.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Forget harassment and discrimination, what about basic work safety like blood-born pathogen handling or chemical protection?
Should I have to risk getting HIV or my eyes burned out because my employer just doesn't want to spend money on protective gear?
It is his business shouldn't he be able to run it how he wants to? People that are forced to take the job someone like that offers deserves to be disabled or infected because they were not discriminating enough in who they work for?
How the hell much leverage do you think people have in where they work? Someone is going to have to do those jobs and the worse the conditions the more desperate and exploited people you will have in them.
Edit: Sure, how about mandatory hazmat suits for anyone working in a smoking area? Gotta be everyone or else people will just be pressured into not wearing/using the really expensive thing.
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
Forget harassment and discrimination, what about basic work safety like blood-born pathogen handling or chemical protection?
Should I have to risk getting HIV or my eyes burned out because my employer just doesn't want to spend money on protective gear?
It is his business shouldn't he be able to run it how he wants to? People that are forced to take the job someone like that offers deserves to be disabled or infected because they were not discriminating enough in who they work for?
How the hell much leverage do you think people have in where they work? Someone is going to have to do those jobs and the worse the conditions the more desperate and exploited people you will have in them.
Just because one employer doesn't buy his employees gloves to handle bleach does not mean we should make it entirely illegal for any workplace to use bleach in its cleaners. The real question is whether or not there's a way other than banning bleach to make sure people work in a safe, clean environment.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Forget harassment and discrimination, what about basic work safety like blood-born pathogen handling or chemical protection?
Should I have to risk getting HIV or my eyes burned out because my employer just doesn't want to spend money on protective gear?
It is his business shouldn't he be able to run it how he wants to? People that are forced to take the job someone like that offers deserves to be disabled or infected because they were not discriminating enough in who they work for?
How the hell much leverage do you think people have in where they work? Someone is going to have to do those jobs and the worse the conditions the more desperate and exploited people you will have in them.
Just because one employer doesn't buy his employees gloves to handle bleach does not mean we should make it entirely illegal for any workplace to use bleach in its cleaners. The real question is whether or not there's a way other than banning bleach to make sure people work in a safe, clean environment.
yeah but we can make the gloves mandatory, so, gasmasks?
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
yeah but we can make the gloves mandatory, so, gasmasks?
Read my earlier post for an idea on how to do just that. ;p
Bars in SD took the roofs off of their smoking sections. I'm sure somewhere much colder this would have much more of an effect but as of right now I'm really wondering if it wouldn't be infinitely smarter to try and regulate business further to see if we can get sane smoking/non-smoking areas and employee regulations to prevent sufficiently harmful coercion or intimidation into working in harmful conditions.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
I'm just going to chime in and ask you more of a question regarding this rather than respond directly to the arguments you're having here. Do you believe that a blanket ban on dangerous exposure to radiation in nuclear power plants is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal? Do you think it's infeasible that we require any nuclear power plant that wants to allow dangerous exposure to radiation be regulated in a way where it has to have safe radiation exposure areas and un-safe radiation exposure areas, that no employee may be required to work in a un-safe radiation exposure area nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
You (yes, YOU) chose to smoke. It is a habit you chose of your own volition. So I don't see how you have any space to argue that you should have some right to inflict your habit on the rest of us who have elected not to smoke. Smoking really shows the intellectual bankruptcy of libertarianism succinctly - libertarians love to rail about people taking responsibility, but when they are asked to do so, there's always some justification about why they shouldn't. In short, YOU chose to smoke, and thus the repercussions of that choice are upon you.
I didn't miss this point. I've heard it repeatedly, even incessantly. I understand the point of view. However, you're devolving the debate back to just having some quibble about smokers. We're bad, irresponsible people, I get it. I'm not advocating smokers rights, which would entail the state to step in and say that Scotts (for example) HAS to employee smokers. http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php, If you want to stretch the argument to personal rights there can obviously be a case made that smokers are discriminated against. I support corporations right to terminate people because they violated the no-smoking policies, just as I support private owners when they allow smoking on their premises. The debate is about whether the state should have this measure of control over property rights and individual choice. The individual in question being that of the business owners who allow public access to their property, provide a service, and are compensated with monetary value. I've stated my points about where I think the law should draw its line in the sand. You disagree with me, that's fine. I support your right to disagree with other people. To me, the nanny state politics do not cooperate with the culture of American liberty. What's next, the abolition of sexual intercourse to prevent the spread of disease?
Btw, What's with the personal attacks? I think your hate-filled, emotionally charged reply warrants some reconsideration. You should exhibit a little respect when you debate with someone...I know it's hard when you just know you're right, but give it a try sometime
And, of course, you ignored the question that I stated at the end of my post, which strikes at the heart of your argument. So, how about you kindly answer this:
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
Mind you, if you want to argue that businesses shouldn't be regulated, then you're arguing that regulations about discrimination, harassment, etc. should be thrown out the window. Conversely, if you say that those regulations are okay, then you are acknowledging that the state does in fact have the right to regulate businesses. So, which is it?
And frankly, I find little to respect about your position. As I stated, you chose to smoke. Yet when it is pointed out that your choice impacts not only you, but other people around you as well, you try to dodge this simple fact, and place the burden on others to deal with the impact of your choice. How is that taking responsibility for your actions (which is supposedly a core belief of your philosophy)? Considering you seem to have no problem in asking other people like myself to have to adapt around your choice, I do think I'm a bit justified in being offended by your selfish behavior.
So you want to make smug, self-righteous remarks and simultaneously receive a civilized debate? That's very humble. I guess since I do that sometimes when I'm drunk, I'll let it slide.
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
As I've explained in previous posts, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, so these transparent debate tactics are dreary and useless to me. The logical geometric counter-example to refute arguments only applies if someone actually makes an assertion that merits it. IE, If I claimed "all homeless people were drug addicts", then it would only take one homeless person who wasn't a drug addict to disprove the entire argument.
Unfortunately for you, I do believe in the law, and I support the law when it makes sense to do so, namely, against fraud, coercion, and violent force. Discrimination and harassment can be subjective, often emotional interpretations that require professional investigation. I suppose the question is, If somebody feels they are working in a hostile environment, would I agree that the state should interfere? Say if I'm a business owner and I tell one of my workers to perform oral sex on me, or they'll lose their job. Textbook Sexual harassment. This scenario would only be acceptable to me if it was made vitally clear that oral sex was part of the job description (and that the person was mentally capable of understanding and not coerced to do so), otherwise it would constitute fraud since there was no previous agreement, and would constitute a breach of social contract, thus the state would have means to intercede.
As far as discrimination goes, I completely agree that a company has the right to contract any worker they want if the job is voluntary. You're attempting, I suppose, to say that affirmative action laws make good sense and should be legally defended. I disagree on the grounds that the state has to acknowledge race and enact special treatment, which is just another side to the racism coin. If I don't like somebody's face, or the resume they wrote, or if I think they wont do the job properly, why shouldn't I have the right not to hire that person?
If one of my employees feels harassed, violated, tormented, etc.. then they would be permitted to file a complaint with HR, and if they wanted to, take me or that person to court. Court is for interpretation of the law and resolving disputes among citizens that can't be resolved without intervention.
When we get into enforcing law that doesn't address fraud, coercion or violent force then we've disrupted the balance of state, business, and private citizen. Imposing laws on private property owners because of health concerns can lead to a plethora of logical fallacies, and inevitably get too distracted by semantics to understand the role of the state. Say that scientists find that stress causes heart attacks, and being offended causes stress... so should the law then have to intervene to remove stressful situations and things that could possibly offend? Crying babies, people praying, loud music, animal based foods, lighting situations, etc, etc? Smoking does not qualify as violent force. There are hundreds of parallels you can bring up to demonstrate the choices of some to jeopardize the health & mental health of others, but it would be absurd to attempt abolition of them all, therefore the state should not interfere to grapple with a few demonized issues.
Chaos Punk on
We are all the man behind the curtain.... pay no attention to any of us
I'm just going to chime in and ask you more of a question regarding this rather than respond directly to the arguments you're having here. Do you believe that a blanket ban on dangerous exposure to radiation in nuclear power plants is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal? Do you think it's infeasible that we require any nuclear power plant that wants to allow dangerous exposure to radiation be regulated in a way where it has to have safe radiation exposure areas and un-safe radiation exposure areas, that no employee may be required to work in a un-safe radiation exposure area nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
So you're saying we should just ban alcohol, tobacco, trans-fats and anything unhealthy because personal happiness is entirely irrelevant in a human being's quality of life when it comes from anything even slightly biologically harmful?
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
When we get into enforcing law that doesn't address fraud, coercion or violent force then we've disrupted the balance of state, business, and private citizen. Imposing laws on private property owners because of health concerns can lead to a plethora of logical fallacies, and inevitably get too distracted by semantics to understand the role of the state. Say that scientists find that stress causes heart attacks, and being offended causes stress... so should the law then have to intervene to remove stressful situations and things that could possibly offend? Crying babies, people praying, loud music, animal based foods, lighting situations, etc, etc? Smoking does not qualify as violent force. There are hundreds of parallels you can bring up to demonstrate the choices of some to jeopardize the health & mental health of others, but it would be absurd to attempt abolition of them all, therefore the state should not interfere to grapple with a few demonized issues.
It's about degrees of damage, and/or what the democratic majority believs to be a degree of damage. I'm not really sure you're going to get anything out of this, because either the democratically elected government is perfectly capable of identifying the issues of sufficiently large health impact for sufficiently small gains to be worth regulating, or they're not capable of doing this identification in which case we've got a textbook example of information asymmetry - and rarely have I seen anything about information asymetry that supports the position that Adam Smith's invisible hand isn't busy giving Mademoisalle Anarchy a handjob.
And where do you fit in environmental regulations?
Turning a river toxic is going to jeapordize the health of a shit-ton of people. Is telling the owner of a factory to step up his filtering processes an undue interference?
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
Unfortunately for you, I do believe in the law, and I support the law when it makes sense to do so, namely, against fraud, coercion, and violent force....as far as discrimination goes, I completely agree that a company has the right to contract any worker they want if the job is voluntary.
The bolded is where the argument blows up. You are, on the other hand, completely fine with coercion if it's the employer doing it. With little to no regulation, the business owners will hire in the cheapest and most desperate people they can find. You're not willing to work in an unsafe environment for a buck an hour? Well, no problem, this illegal immigrant sure will (I can also threaten to report him or her to the state, bonus!). And don't even give me that crap argument about choice in this situation; if you want to eat, you are forced to lower your standards if there are no regulations ensuring business won't screw everyone over.
This is also ignoring how hard it is to form a union even with regulations in place: Look at Wal-Mart for crying out loud. If there's little to no regulation and no union, your oral sex scenario would easily come true because if the woman won't do it she'll lose her job.
If one of my employees feels harassed, violated, tormented, etc.. then they would be permitted to file a complaint with HR, and if they wanted to, take me or that person to court. Court is for interpretation of the law and resolving disputes among citizens that can't be resolved without intervention.
Except it wouldn't even come to that: There's nothing to protect her job, and so she would never report anything if she wants to eat and live.
When we get into enforcing law that doesn't address fraud, coercion or violent force then we've disrupted the balance of state, business, and private citizen. Imposing laws on private property owners because of health concerns can lead to a plethora of logical fallacies, and inevitably get too distracted by semantics to understand the role of the state.
No, there's nothing illogical with how this works. Banning smoking was and is a good decision; no one should be forced to work under those conditions. Yes, I said forced. I'm pointing it out again: In shitty places, poor people have these two options: Work or die. There's no false dichotomy here, that's all there is to it, and the amount of abuse that's happened throughout history because of this coercion by business-owners is enough to vaporize any libertarian argument.
Say that scientists find that stress causes heart attacks, and being offended causes stress... so should the law then have to intervene to remove stressful situations and things that could possibly offend? Crying babies, people praying, loud music, animal based foods, lighting situations, etc, etc? Smoking does not qualify as violent force. There are hundreds of parallels you can bring up to demonstrate the choices of some to jeopardize the health & mental health of others, but it would be absurd to attempt abolition of them all, therefore the state should not interfere to grapple with a few demonized issues.
These situations are nowhere near as pervasive and damaging to your health as it is to work in a smoking bar for years. As for your "what if?", people try to limit those situations as it is (excepting stuff like animal-based foods, of course); unlike smoking, there's no law required to ban those. If these situations were shown to be more harmful than we thought, they'd work that much harder to limit them. The bottom line is, encountering crying babies in a restaurant is an inevitable but very small part of working there—smoking doesn't have to be.
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Say that scientists find that stress causes heart attacks, and being offended causes stress... so should the law then have to intervene to remove stressful situations and things that could possibly offend? Crying babies, people praying, loud music, animal based foods, lighting situations, etc, etc?
Uh...depending on the context, all of those things could be public nuisances.
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
Mind you, if you want to argue that businesses shouldn't be regulated, then you're arguing that regulations about discrimination, harassment, etc. should be thrown out the window. Conversely, if you say that those regulations are okay, then you are acknowledging that the state does in fact have the right to regulate businesses. So, which is it?
And frankly, I find little to respect about your position. As I stated, you chose to smoke. Yet when it is pointed out that your choice impacts not only you, but other people around you as well, you try to dodge this simple fact, and place the burden on others to deal with the impact of your choice. How is that taking responsibility for your actions (which is supposedly a core belief of your philosophy)? Considering you seem to have no problem in asking other people like myself to have to adapt around your choice, I do think I'm a bit justified in being offended by your selfish behavior.
So you want to make smug, self-righteous remarks and simultaneously receive a civilized debate? That's very humble. I guess since I do that sometimes when I'm drunk, I'll let it slide.
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
As I've explained in previous posts, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, so these transparent debate tactics are dreary and useless to me. The logical geometric counter-example to refute arguments only applies if someone actually makes an assertion that merits it. IE, If I claimed "all homeless people were drug addicts", then it would only take one homeless person who wasn't a drug addict to disprove the entire argument.
Unfortunately for you, I do believe in the law, and I support the law when it makes sense to do so, namely, against fraud, coercion, and violent force. Discrimination and harassment can be subjective, often emotional interpretations that require professional investigation. I suppose the question is, If somebody feels they are working in a hostile environment, would I agree that the state should interfere? Say if I'm a business owner and I tell one of my workers to perform oral sex on me, or they'll lose their job. Textbook Sexual harassment. This scenario would only be acceptable to me if it was made vitally clear that oral sex was part of the job description (and that the person was mentally capable of understanding and not coerced to do so), otherwise it would constitute fraud since there was no previous agreement, and would constitute a breach of social contract, thus the state would have means to intercede.
As far as discrimination goes, I completely agree that a company has the right to contract any worker they want if the job is voluntary. You're attempting, I suppose, to say that affirmative action laws make good sense and should be legally defended. I disagree on the grounds that the state has to acknowledge race and enact special treatment, which is just another side to the racism coin. If I don't like somebody's face, or the resume they wrote, or if I think they wont do the job properly, why shouldn't I have the right not to hire that person?
If one of my employees feels harassed, violated, tormented, etc.. then they would be permitted to file a complaint with HR, and if they wanted to, take me or that person to court. Court is for interpretation of the law and resolving disputes among citizens that can't be resolved without intervention.
When we get into enforcing law that doesn't address fraud, coercion or violent force then we've disrupted the balance of state, business, and private citizen. Imposing laws on private property owners because of health concerns can lead to a plethora of logical fallacies, and inevitably get too distracted by semantics to understand the role of the state. Say that scientists find that stress causes heart attacks, and being offended causes stress... so should the law then have to intervene to remove stressful situations and things that could possibly offend? Crying babies, people praying, loud music, animal based foods, lighting situations, etc, etc? Smoking does not qualify as violent force. There are hundreds of parallels you can bring up to demonstrate the choices of some to jeopardize the health & mental health of others, but it would be absurd to attempt abolition of them all, therefore the state should not interfere to grapple with a few demonized issues.
First bold: affirmative action is justified by existing prejudices; it is exactly the "other side to the racism coin." It is a corrective measure, with the end of maximizing liberty for minorities. The end is economic equality.
Second bold: this is a statement with no support. How is that disrupting the balance of state, business and the private citizen? Why should state be limited to addressing fraud, coercion or violent force? To what end?
You go on to suggest that making laws based on social health leads to logical fallacies- which ones? And you seem to imply there is no way to reasonably discern between health risk and nuisance. I don't follow.
Last bold: if I'm reading you correctly, you're arguing that there are a lot of problems, therefore it isn't worth attempting to address them. Am I misinterpreting this? Can you elaborate?
That all said, you're getting at something important, and that is that there are limits to what the government can legitimately undertake. Just as there are limits to what the free market can achieve. Julius nailed it, I think:
Sometimes the market is the best way, sometimes the government. Sometimes even the government works best via market-forces or vice-versa. The important thing is that even if you are only concerned about the maximization of liberty there is no reason to think that such a thing can only be achieved through one way.
The thing I can't wrap my head around is the notion that those limits are fraud, coercion and violent force. Why? Where does liberty and security of person fall? How about free speech?
Reminds me of the DEA's Drug Scheduling that insists Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug that is highly addictive; possessing no medical benefits or accepted medical uses.
Yeah. Almost every nation on the planet, including the US, signed three UN treaties on drug control that specifically stipulate that access to narcotics for medical purposes must be guaranteed. Narcotics policy is among the most misguided, unethical, wasteful and publicly neglected policy ventures ever.
Again, if the ban is to protect the health of the employees of the bar (which it is), it is obviously not one whiff of smoke, but rather the accumulation of smoke during their 8 hour shift every day for however long they are employed there.
Yes, but that's not what the information contained in the report suggests:
Scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Breathing even a little secondhand smoke can be harmful to your health.
The report also goes on to suggest that compromise is unattainable:
Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot eliminate secondhand smoke exposure.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the preeminent U.S. standard-setting body on ventilation issues, has concluded that ventilation technology cannot be relied on to completely control health risks from secondhand smoke exposure.
Conventional air cleaning systems can remove large particles, but not the smaller particles or the gases found in secondhand smoke.
Operation of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system can distribute secondhand smoke throughout a building.
I suppose all the scientific research into carbon and HEPA filters was just pseudo-scientific free-market drivel.
Reminds me of the DEA's Drug Scheduling that insists Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug that is highly addictive; possessing no medical benefits or accepted medical uses.
You seem to think you've proven some kind of point with this, but you haven't.
All second hand smoke is harmful. Various practices can mitigate that harm. That doesn't mean it still isn't harmful.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal? Do you think it's infeasible that we require any business that wants to allow smoking be regulated in a way where it has to have safe smoking and non-smoking sections, that no employee may be required to work in a smoking section nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
A lot of bars where I'm at now actually just took the roof off of their smoking areas so that they could consider them "outdoors" so I'm really starting to wonder if this is at all the best approach to the idea.
Irrelevant, really. Who cares if it's the ONLY reasonable way? The question whether it is A reasonable way, and whether or not there are any other reasonable ways that are comparably effective but have greater benefits.
Taking the roof off smoking areas is, as you note, not really about dispersing smoke into the air; it's about trying to get around a bothersome regulation by pretending an area is now "outdoors".
Anyone sympathetic to Loklar's nonsense about a whiff of smoke might wish to Google "eight hour time weighted average".
mythago on
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Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal? Do you think it's infeasible that we require any business that wants to allow smoking be regulated in a way where it has to have safe smoking and non-smoking sections, that no employee may be required to work in a smoking section nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
A lot of bars where I'm at now actually just took the roof off of their smoking areas so that they could consider them "outdoors" so I'm really starting to wonder if this is at all the best approach to the idea.
I can't outright deny it, but I find the feasibility of that proposal highly doubtful. How do you propose that would be achieved? Do you think the employee stipulation could be reliably followed or enforced, and if so, how?
Irrelevant, really. Who cares if it's the ONLY reasonable way? The question whether it is A reasonable way, and whether or not there are any other reasonable ways that are comparably effective but have greater benefits.
So you're saying we should banish guns, knives and most sharp or heavy blunted objects? Because that would totally be A reasonable way to lower the rate of violent crime. It's certainly not the most effective, but hey, that's irrelivant!
Taking the roof off smoking areas is, as you note, not really about dispersing smoke into the air; it's about trying to get around a bothersome regulation by pretending an area is now "outdoors".
Anyone sympathetic to Loklar's nonsense about a whiff of smoke might wish to Google "eight hour time weighted average".
I personally disagree with a lot of how bars/restaurants pay their employees. It's why I try to leave a 20% tip whenever I go somewhere nice. The point behind it is, if the reason for the ban is to protect employees and employers are able to find creative ways around it then maybe we ought to re-evaluate how we can better accomplish that goal?
It's like abstinence only sex education. Sure trying to ban teenagers from sex sounds like A reasonable way to prevent teen pregnancy and STD transmission. But is it really effective at accomplishing the stated goals versus other methods?
I can't outright deny it, but I find the feasibility of that proposal highly doubtful. How do you propose that would be achieved? Do you think the employee stipulation could be reliably followed or enforced, and if so, how?
I'd imagine it'd be enforced in the same way as any other workplace safety regulations or overtime regulations would. I mean that's what I'd imagine, just some new rules regarding separate ventilation systems, strong filters and working time laws to hopefully prevent coercion. I've never worked at a restaurant or a bar though, (my stint in the service industry was spent at Gas Stations and Grocery stores) so I wouldn't say for sure. Kind of why I was saying "If I'm wrong, then please educate me" in my first post.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
This thread is probably already lost to the libertarian drivel countered by well worn counterarguments but I'll respond to ronya's OP conclusion, as I feel it is fatally flawed in a central concept. Its a pretty big book of a post (which I am guilt of myself at times) so I'll try to cut to the core three indications of this central flaw.
The statements "the state may legitimately do X" and "the state should do X" are quite different creatures unless one subscribes to a wholly utilitarian approach to state legitimacy, which I think nobody here does.
I think this is only correct if one disregards liberty as a portion of welfare/utility. A legitimate government serves two purposes and actions inconsistent with those goals. As Locke said:"The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their [lives, liberty and property]. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting."
1 - To create regulations that benefit the society as a whole. The Preamble of the US Constitution phrased this as "promote the general Welfare/insure domestic Tranquility"
2 - To safeguard the liberties of individuals from the encroachment of others - "establish Justice/secure the Blessings of Liberty."
Actions that promote the first goal, but are in direct contravention of the second are on their face illegitimate The foundation of the of government is the will of the majority of people directed towards the common welfare, but legitimacy of the political power to direct that will requires rational consent
Again Locke from the Second Treatise on Civil Government:
Sect. 131. But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one's [life, liberty and material possessions], by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.
As no rational creature would enter into a pact that would reduce their own welfare, the pact that is civil government must respect individual liberties. The right to individual conscious, to ones own belief system is a fundamental liberty. While not all actions prompted by a belief system are protected, the targeting of a belief system (or as you phrase it, an "institution) itself can not make individuals more secure in their individual liberties.
Some heretofore unstated context here: the intellectual framework I am arguing from is that of institutional economics, where we have reason to believe that some sets of social institutions are compatible with improvements in material welfare and/or modern liberal democratic politics and some are not.
If this entails prohibiting the free practice of religious traditions along the way, then so be it; funeral ceremonies that absorb a fifth of an average laborer's lifetime income are a real thing, reinforced by a sense of social shame if a family member's funeral is insufficiently gaudy.
Do you not see your own cultural biases here? By your own judgment you feel that their religious ceremonies are harmful. You do not have a objective metric for happiness or welfare regarding the spiritual needs or desires of an individual or family. The purely rational response regarding the death of an individual might be to break up his corpse into components for use as food, fertilizer and dog chews. Mandating that every individual conform to this standard of funereal behavior, plus or minus some mandated acceptable variance would perhaps maximize "utility" and break down institutions that you feel are harmful but that doesn't make the action legitimate or beneficial.
Your positions seems to be that, say, being a Muslim is objectively bad. Or if you feel that is too prejudicial to your argument, let's say a redneck. Or a hippie. Or a Mormon. Or an economist.
You seem to argue that these "institutions" are inherently bad in their current form for "society." However, the fundamental purpose of "society" and the government that regulates it is to secure the life, liberty and property of the individual members of society. In targeting those "institutions" you are directly attacking the liberties of members of your society, with only the loin cloth of "societal improvement" to justify it. These laws are therefore inherently illegitimate.
And if they were not, they lack a rational legitimacy in promoting the common good. You may feel that Indians must come into the modern era for their own good whether they want to or not. Your good intentions are insufficient justification. And from where does the decision come that these individuals must be brought up from their backwards culture? Is the majority will well suited to determine what is culturally and spiritually beneficial, or merely to reinforce the majority paradigm whether for good or ill?
Finally and most fundamentally your own argument disproves itself.
To pick an easy example - consider India. It is a deeply embedded cultural practice for families to favor sons; in a background where sons no longer die rapidly to conflict and disease, this is a problem. Infanticide is easy to ban but ultrasounds and sex-selective abortions are harder technologies to seal away. Obviously this doesn't weigh in favor of any imaginable intrusive intervention, but if the democratic government of an Indian state decided to punish sex-selective abortions, subsidize having daughters, or bombard new couples with progressive propaganda, I daresay it has every legitimate authority in doing so. We have some knowledge of what the institutions of a modern liberal state should look like. Why wait?
I would argue that fundamentally a "modern liberal state" can exist if and only if it has protections and respect for the beliefs (which you euphemize as "institutions") of minorities or unpopular members. Attempts to "reeducate" the population or make "backwards" cultures or belief systems illegitimate is itself inherently incompatible with a "modern liberal state" in a way that almost no other paradigm is. And this is a paradigm that is not isolated or unfounded but rather well integrated in Western thought. Can a government's own actions create an institution incompatible with liberal government so as to eliminate Undesirable institutions?
Even if you disagree with that argument, its very existence itself demonstrates that we don't have "some knowledge" of what society should look like. We have "some opinions." Again from John Locke, A letter on Toleration (regarding religion, but no less applicable in central concepts to belief systems that are not theistic)
It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial execution of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in general and to every one of his subjects in particular the just possession of these things belonging to this life. If anyone presume to violate the laws of public justice and equity, established for the preservation of those things, his presumption is to be checked by the fear of punishment, consisting of the deprivation or diminution of those civil interests, or goods, which otherwise he might and ought to enjoy. But seeing no man does willingly suffer himself to be punished by the deprivation of any part of his goods, and much less of his liberty or life, therefore, is the magistrate armed with the force and strength of all his subjects, in order to the punishment of those that violate any other man's rights.
...
In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgement that they have framed of things.
...
It may indeed be alleged that the magistrate may make use of arguments, and, thereby; draw the heterodox into the way of truth, and procure their salvation. I grant it; but this is common to him with other men. In teaching, instructing, and redressing the erroneous by reason, he may certainly do what becomes any good man to do. Magistracy does not oblige him to put off either humanity or Christianity; but it is one thing to persuade, another to command; one thing to press with arguments, another with penalties. This civil power alone has a right to do; to the other, goodwill is authority enough. Every man has commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error, and, by reasoning, to draw him into truth; but to give laws, receive obedience, and compel with the sword, belongs to none but the magistrate. And, upon this ground, I affirm that the magistrate's power extends not to the establishing of any articles of faith, or forms of worship, by the force of his laws. For laws are of no force at all without penalties, and penalties in this case are absolutely impertinent, because they are not proper to convince the mind. Neither the profession of any articles of faith, nor the conformity to any outward form of worship (as has been already said), can be available to the salvation of souls, unless the truth of the one and the acceptableness of the other unto God be thoroughly believed by those that so profess and practise. But penalties are no way capable to produce such belief. It is only light and evidence that can work a change in men's opinions; which light can in no manner proceed from corporal sufferings, or any other outward penalties.
It is not the job of the government to proselytize spiritually or politically. If the current government used all its power to make Republicans look like shit bags, this would be illegitimate. I might feel that we'd all be better off if the GOP dropped off the face of the earth, but that doesn't mean I can justify this incursion by citing "common good." The general welfare and a "modern liberal society" can't be promoted through the erosion of liberty and tyrannical "reeducation."
So you're saying we should banish guns, knives and most sharp or heavy blunted objects? Because that would totally be A reasonable way to lower the rate of violent crime. It's certainly not the most effective, but hey, that's irrelivant!
That would be an unreasonable way to try to lower the rate of violent crime. But you knew that.
And you should quit moving those goalposts before you throw out your back. Your argument was, and I quote, "Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal?" You weren't arguing that the ban was ineffective, or less effective than other measures, or that other measures would achieve the same result (protecting employees from smoke) in a way that burdens businesses less.
As for 'educate me' - why don't you educate us? You're the one arguing that the smoking bad is unfortunate and that there should be some other means of achieving the same end, so prove your point, instead of demanding that every one else run around determining whether or not you have one.
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Chaos Punk where are you getting any of this. I think we've been trying to tell you this again and again but the ban was done to ensure workplace safety, not limit personal freedoms. Are you also opposed to enforcing safety regulations in mines and factories, or requiring that airline crews don't work more than X hours in a row?
That would be an unreasonable way to try to lower the rate of violent crime. But you knew that.
What makes it unreasonable if not for the fact that it's both extremely difficult to enforce and does little to actually reduce the rate of the crime it was meant to prevent?
And you should quit moving those goalposts before you throw out your back. Your argument was, and I quote, "Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal?"
And you should try reading/responding to the entirety of my post instead of one cherry picked sentence which supports a narrower interpretation of what I meant versus the entire statement which paints a clearer picture about what I meant.
You weren't arguing that the ban was ineffective, or less effective than other measures, or that other measures would achieve the same result (protecting employees from smoke) in a way that burdens businesses less.
Do you think it's infeasible that we require any business that wants to allow smoking be regulated in a way where it has to have safe smoking and non-smoking sections, that no employee may be required to work in a smoking section nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
As for 'educate me' - why don't you educate us? You're the one arguing that the smoking bad is unfortunate and that there should be some other means of achieving the same end, so prove your point, instead of demanding that every one else run around determining whether or not you have one.
So if I gather what you're saying then is that you believe that we currently are incapable at enforcing proper business safety or working hours protections with the current tools and regulatory agencies we have? Because otherwise I would fail to see why any large leap of faith would be required to think that maybe we couldn't just expand scope to include some additional protections to protect workers like we already have in place to prevent things like people being forced to work with toxic chemicals without proper certification or protective gear.
Obviously these regulations must not be working at all; I'll get right to work on that research sir!
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Do you not see your own cultural biases here? By your own judgment you feel that their religious ceremonies are harmful. You do not have a objective metric for happiness or welfare regarding the spiritual needs or desires of an individual or family... I would argue that fundamentally a "modern liberal state" can exist if and only if it has protections and respect for the beliefs (which you euphemize as "institutions") of minorities or unpopular members. Attempts to "reeducate" the population or make "backwards" cultures or belief systems illegitimate is itself inherently incompatible with a "modern liberal state" in a way that almost no other paradigm is.
This seems unreasonably absolutist to me. There are lots of spectacularly harmful beliefs (and following actions, which is probably what the meaning of "institutions" is in this context) that various states have quite rightly legislated against.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
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Why take the laws off the books? As you say, the marketplace is convinced. Therefore, there is no face for the fist to swing at. The laws are, at their very worst, archaic. Since everybody will happily comply, nobody will ever violate them and no police, courts or judges will ever get involved.
Also, you sure do need to upgrade your understanding of how courts actually work. For example, I really wouldn't recommend that if you are ever sued, you take the position "ha ha, I can just not show up in court and you can't hurt me".
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The first article that appears in a search for “second-hand smoke” on The Lancet is a meta-analysis finding “603 000 deaths were attributable to second-hand smoke in 2004, which was about 1.0% of worldwide mortality…. DALYs [Disability-adjusted life-years] lost because of exposure to second-hand smoke amounted to 10.9 million, which was about 0.7% of total worldwide burden of diseases in DALYs in 2004” (Oberg, Jaakkola, Woodward, Peruga, Pruss-Ustun). Experiments, observational studies and meta-analyses are a dime a dozen. If we want to question the science- which I’m in no position to do- that’s kind of another thing. But it is fair to say there is strong evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful.
Now, outdoor smoking bans? I think that’s largely bullshit, unless similar levels of harm can be attributed to it (which AFAIK is doubtful). I would agree with you that outdoor smoking rules should be the territory of the property owner; it’s little more than a nuisance. The point to take home is that these are not the same issue; one has an empirical basis and is a matter of health, the other is the result of poorly-justified, pandering, majoritarian policy.
Absolutely, there is a market. It’s the distribution and behaviour of the market that matters. If that market coalesced in certain bars, and employees so inclined were able to find work at these non-smoking bars, then would this legislation have ever come to be? If the market behaved as you describe, there would have been no demand for this legislation. You’re characterizing the policy as having been instituted a priori, to prevent the market from acting on its own; but rather, it was instituted as a result of the market’s failure.
You’re right- it’s up to business owners to assess their own utilities and determine how to operate. And most or all concluded that instituting a smoke-free rule would be detrimental to their business, unless everyone else also did it. If every owner realizes this, none act. It’s the problem of collective action.
I’m arguing a normative liberal position, not saying that’s how the legislation was made. Demonization of smokers is absolutely a factor in the legislation. I’m an avid proponent of drug liberalization, so I’m familiar with this idea, and I agree that it’s not a proper way to legislate.
The burden of proof is on the proponent of “smoking ventilation systems.” I can’t find anything quickly through my school, but this showed up on Google. Far from definitive, but discouraging. I’d certainly be open to it as being a viable alternative.
In bold: again, we don’t know what proportion of customers were complaining to businesses, or if they were being listened to. What we know is that bars predominantly had no smoking rules, and market forces hadn’t changed it. Again, an issue of chronology: the government didn’t create these laws before bars or the free market existed; the government created the laws as a response to protect the rights of non-smokers.
If smokers constituted a majority of people who frequented bars, then yes, bartenders alienating that demographic would be doing considerable harm to their business. Again, problem of collective action. If smokers did not constitute a significant portion of the demographic, then it would clearly have been in bar owners' interests to gear policies to non-smokers.
“Eventually” is bad because some things should not be left alone. The free market works for many things, even most things. But some problems have to be addressed on a reasonable timeline. If indoor smoking is killing over half a million people a year, is it seriously acceptable in a modern society to just let that go on? It’s like watching a dog chew on your toddler while you stand aside and say, well, he’ll let go eventually. Well, the economy will pull itself out of the recession, eventually. People will learn not to drink and drive, eventually. Bankers will learn not to give loans to people who won’t be able to pay, eventually. Polluters will learn to limit greenhouse gas emissions, eventually.
“In the long run, we’re all dead.”
Not a trivial quotation.
Empirical data are not spin. I think you're confusing it with anecdotal evidence.
And no, it’s not going to be universally beneficial or detrimental to business. And the hole argument is that the health of patrons is worth the potential cost; I was speculating that there might be a benefit to business purely as an externality. Smoking didn’t hinder business that we know of; that’s not what the law is for.
But here’s the essential problem: we’re both basing our arguments people’s liberty and right to choose. Libertarianism is a simplistic, reductionist position: the bartender has the right to allow smoking, patrons have the right to choose to go elsewhere if it bothers them, workers have the right to work elsewhere if they believe their health is threatened. If there are non-smokers who want to go to a bar, a bar owner will adapt their business to accommodate that demand. Makes sense, as long as the world is simple and people are perfectly rational.
The problem lies in your assumption that the market necessarily maximizes liberty; that’s kind of a huge leap. I’m not arguing that government always does either, but rather that normatively speaking, there are things the government has an obligation to do because the market isn’t capable of doing them reliably or expediently.
Libertarianism makes a lot more sense if you substitute 'karma' for references to 'the market'.
That is, the belief that the market will preserve all liberties and right all wrongs is about as realistic and fact-based as a belief in karma. (And by that I mean the 'what goes around comes around' definition of the term, not the strict religious definition.) Where a believer in karma says that bad behavior is punished because it upsets the karmic balance, a Libertarian says it is punished because it does not lead to optimate results according to The Market. And short-term injustices should be ignored in the secure knowledge that, sooner or later, Karma/The Market will get the bad guys.
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And none of that even means that a smoking-ban is the best choice, the government could be wrong and could be wrong on any number of issues but the essential part is that you acknowledge that the government could also be right.
Sometimes the market is the best way, sometimes the government. Sometimes even the government works best via market-forces or vice-versa. The important thing is that even if you are only concerned about the maximization of liberty there is no reason to think that such a thing can only be achieved through one way.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol83/mono83-7B.pdf
The ban in my mind was an issue of ensuring workplace safety, not impugning personal freedoms. The government has repeatedly demonstrated its intention to promote workplace safety since the gilded age. Obviously it fails in some areas but regulations that improve the health of generally lower income and uninsured people is a positive good.
It's because the tobacco industry colluded to make it appear as if there was questions about the health risk of secondhand smoke. Something they wound up getting tried and convicted over.
If the state wanted to simply reduce smoking, there are lots of more effective things it could do than just ban it in open bars. Most states don't even ban it in all bars, just bars without specific smoking-oriented facilities.
States do a lot of things to reduce smoking, like levying prohibitive taxes and funding public advocacy campaigns. The ban on smoking in bars (and restaurants/etc) is pretty much exclusively about employee health; the national wave of legislation is more or less a direct response to the surgeon general's public findings on the subject.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Well, the home bans are about the fact that children are significantly more sensitive to smoke.
This is exactly correct.
Fundamentally everything is an anarchist system. All we are arguing about is what we consider legitimate or not. In Canada, all our laws are empowered by the head of the Anglican church (yes, it's silly). In the U.S. all laws are powered by the electoral college and the American Constitution (less silly, but about the same).
But if people were to rise up against Canada, the U.S. or anyone else, what ends up winning is whoever has the most force behind them. This doesn't make it right. It just is what it is. Probably the Egyptian constitution has a process to challenge Ghadafi where you can work your way through the courts. Oh well....
Anyway, smoking bans are like any pollution controls: a way to deal with externalities of an individual's actions. Like coal is priced incorrectly and artificially low at the moment, because all of the costs of coal (like increased occurrence of lung disease) aren't reflected in that price.
What legal damages do you think are appropriate for taking a whiff of tobacco smoke? I said less than a penny for one whiff. What is your answer?
I worked in a smokey restaurant for years before the law changed, I'm pretty sure my health wasn't affected. Even if it was, it was tiny amount. And if you walked up and opened the door (doors of an unmarked bar) you would only smell tobacco smoke once before you were aware that there was smoking in the building.
Sniffing smoke once... I cant imagine that being a big deal. A whiff of smoke; one whiff... and a hard-ass judge. What would be the damages? I would guess 5 cents on the extreme. But since you took issue, I'd be interested in your opinion.
Mind you government property is still regulated by the government. So if the "smoke" from the bar reaches the sidewalk then the bar has to negotiate with the town for an agreement. But tobacco smoke rises, and you can't normally smell it unless you are very close to the bar.
So you open a bar's doors and unexpectedly get 2 breaths of tobacco. What are the damages? (I am interested in your response, because I often have to smell strong perfume, and sometimes overweight people sit next to me on the subway. Both are assaults. I would like to tailor your damages of whiffing tobacco smoke in Libertopia to me being forced to touch overweight people (or smell their perfume) in our modern democracy.
This thread is awesome.
Yes, but that's not what the information contained in the report suggests:
The report also goes on to suggest that compromise is unattainable:
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the preeminent U.S. standard-setting body on ventilation issues, has concluded that ventilation technology cannot be relied on to completely control health risks from secondhand smoke exposure.
Conventional air cleaning systems can remove large particles, but not the smaller particles or the gases found in secondhand smoke.
Operation of a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system can distribute secondhand smoke throughout a building.
I suppose all the scientific research into carbon and HEPA filters was just pseudo-scientific free-market drivel.
Reminds me of the DEA's Drug Scheduling that insists Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug that is highly addictive; possessing no medical benefits or accepted medical uses.
You (yes, YOU) chose to smoke. It is a habit you chose of your own volition. So I don't see how you have any space to argue that you should have some right to inflict your habit on the rest of us who have elected not to smoke. Smoking really shows the intellectual bankruptcy of libertarianism succinctly - libertarians love to rail about people taking responsibility, but when they are asked to do so, there's always some justification about why they shouldn't. In short, YOU chose to smoke, and thus the repercussions of that choice are upon you.
As for the argument that "it's a private establishment!", either business owners should have absolute control over their operations (which means you are advocating tossing out laws regarding discrimination, harassment, etc.), or the state does, in fact, have a right to limit what a private business may do. Your choice.
And, of course, you ignored the question that I stated at the end of my post, which strikes at the heart of your argument. So, how about you kindly answer this:
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
Mind you, if you want to argue that businesses shouldn't be regulated, then you're arguing that regulations about discrimination, harassment, etc. should be thrown out the window. Conversely, if you say that those regulations are okay, then you are acknowledging that the state does in fact have the right to regulate businesses. So, which is it?
And frankly, I find little to respect about your position. As I stated, you chose to smoke. Yet when it is pointed out that your choice impacts not only you, but other people around you as well, you try to dodge this simple fact, and place the burden on others to deal with the impact of your choice. How is that taking responsibility for your actions (which is supposedly a core belief of your philosophy)? Considering you seem to have no problem in asking other people like myself to have to adapt around your choice, I do think I'm a bit justified in being offended by your selfish behavior.
The smoking in businesses ban is a very interesting animal. There are definitely health hazards and workplace coercion problems here where I can see employees being required to work in unhealthy conditions.
I'm just going to chime in and ask you more of a question regarding this rather than respond directly to the arguments you're having here. Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal? Do you think it's infeasible that we require any business that wants to allow smoking be regulated in a way where it has to have safe smoking and non-smoking sections, that no employee may be required to work in a smoking section nor disciplined in any way for that? Or do you think that it'd just be too difficult in practice to make sure businesses kept themselves to the regulations?
A lot of bars where I'm at now actually just took the roof off of their smoking areas so that they could consider them "outdoors" so I'm really starting to wonder if this is at all the best approach to the idea.
Should I have to risk getting HIV or my eyes burned out because my employer just doesn't want to spend money on protective gear?
It is his business shouldn't he be able to run it how he wants to? People that are forced to take the job someone like that offers deserves to be disabled or infected because they were not discriminating enough in who they work for?
How the hell much leverage do you think people have in where they work? Someone is going to have to do those jobs and the worse the conditions the more desperate and exploited people you will have in them.
Edit: Sure, how about mandatory hazmat suits for anyone working in a smoking area? Gotta be everyone or else people will just be pressured into not wearing/using the really expensive thing.
Just because one employer doesn't buy his employees gloves to handle bleach does not mean we should make it entirely illegal for any workplace to use bleach in its cleaners.
yeah but we can make the gloves mandatory, so, gasmasks?
Read my earlier post for an idea on how to do just that. ;p
Bars in SD took the roofs off of their smoking sections. I'm sure somewhere much colder this would have much more of an effect but as of right now I'm really wondering if it wouldn't be infinitely smarter to try and regulate business further to see if we can get sane smoking/non-smoking areas and employee regulations to prevent sufficiently harmful coercion or intimidation into working in harmful conditions.
So you want to make smug, self-righteous remarks and simultaneously receive a civilized debate? That's very humble. I guess since I do that sometimes when I'm drunk, I'll let it slide.
Should businesses be allowed to operate as they see fit, or does the state have a right to regulate their operations?
As I've explained in previous posts, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, so these transparent debate tactics are dreary and useless to me. The logical geometric counter-example to refute arguments only applies if someone actually makes an assertion that merits it. IE, If I claimed "all homeless people were drug addicts", then it would only take one homeless person who wasn't a drug addict to disprove the entire argument.
Unfortunately for you, I do believe in the law, and I support the law when it makes sense to do so, namely, against fraud, coercion, and violent force. Discrimination and harassment can be subjective, often emotional interpretations that require professional investigation. I suppose the question is, If somebody feels they are working in a hostile environment, would I agree that the state should interfere? Say if I'm a business owner and I tell one of my workers to perform oral sex on me, or they'll lose their job. Textbook Sexual harassment. This scenario would only be acceptable to me if it was made vitally clear that oral sex was part of the job description (and that the person was mentally capable of understanding and not coerced to do so), otherwise it would constitute fraud since there was no previous agreement, and would constitute a breach of social contract, thus the state would have means to intercede.
As far as discrimination goes, I completely agree that a company has the right to contract any worker they want if the job is voluntary. You're attempting, I suppose, to say that affirmative action laws make good sense and should be legally defended. I disagree on the grounds that the state has to acknowledge race and enact special treatment, which is just another side to the racism coin. If I don't like somebody's face, or the resume they wrote, or if I think they wont do the job properly, why shouldn't I have the right not to hire that person?
If one of my employees feels harassed, violated, tormented, etc.. then they would be permitted to file a complaint with HR, and if they wanted to, take me or that person to court. Court is for interpretation of the law and resolving disputes among citizens that can't be resolved without intervention.
When we get into enforcing law that doesn't address fraud, coercion or violent force then we've disrupted the balance of state, business, and private citizen. Imposing laws on private property owners because of health concerns can lead to a plethora of logical fallacies, and inevitably get too distracted by semantics to understand the role of the state. Say that scientists find that stress causes heart attacks, and being offended causes stress... so should the law then have to intervene to remove stressful situations and things that could possibly offend? Crying babies, people praying, loud music, animal based foods, lighting situations, etc, etc? Smoking does not qualify as violent force. There are hundreds of parallels you can bring up to demonstrate the choices of some to jeopardize the health & mental health of others, but it would be absurd to attempt abolition of them all, therefore the state should not interfere to grapple with a few demonized issues.
So you're saying we should just ban alcohol, tobacco, trans-fats and anything unhealthy because personal happiness is entirely irrelevant in a human being's quality of life when it comes from anything even slightly biologically harmful?
And where do you fit in environmental regulations?
Turning a river toxic is going to jeapordize the health of a shit-ton of people. Is telling the owner of a factory to step up his filtering processes an undue interference?
The bolded is where the argument blows up. You are, on the other hand, completely fine with coercion if it's the employer doing it. With little to no regulation, the business owners will hire in the cheapest and most desperate people they can find. You're not willing to work in an unsafe environment for a buck an hour? Well, no problem, this illegal immigrant sure will (I can also threaten to report him or her to the state, bonus!). And don't even give me that crap argument about choice in this situation; if you want to eat, you are forced to lower your standards if there are no regulations ensuring business won't screw everyone over.
This is also ignoring how hard it is to form a union even with regulations in place: Look at Wal-Mart for crying out loud. If there's little to no regulation and no union, your oral sex scenario would easily come true because if the woman won't do it she'll lose her job.
Except it wouldn't even come to that: There's nothing to protect her job, and so she would never report anything if she wants to eat and live.
No, there's nothing illogical with how this works. Banning smoking was and is a good decision; no one should be forced to work under those conditions. Yes, I said forced. I'm pointing it out again: In shitty places, poor people have these two options: Work or die. There's no false dichotomy here, that's all there is to it, and the amount of abuse that's happened throughout history because of this coercion by business-owners is enough to vaporize any libertarian argument.
These situations are nowhere near as pervasive and damaging to your health as it is to work in a smoking bar for years. As for your "what if?", people try to limit those situations as it is (excepting stuff like animal-based foods, of course); unlike smoking, there's no law required to ban those. If these situations were shown to be more harmful than we thought, they'd work that much harder to limit them. The bottom line is, encountering crying babies in a restaurant is an inevitable but very small part of working there—smoking doesn't have to be.
Uh...depending on the context, all of those things could be public nuisances.
First bold: affirmative action is justified by existing prejudices; it is exactly the "other side to the racism coin." It is a corrective measure, with the end of maximizing liberty for minorities. The end is economic equality.
Second bold: this is a statement with no support. How is that disrupting the balance of state, business and the private citizen? Why should state be limited to addressing fraud, coercion or violent force? To what end?
You go on to suggest that making laws based on social health leads to logical fallacies- which ones? And you seem to imply there is no way to reasonably discern between health risk and nuisance. I don't follow.
Last bold: if I'm reading you correctly, you're arguing that there are a lot of problems, therefore it isn't worth attempting to address them. Am I misinterpreting this? Can you elaborate?
That all said, you're getting at something important, and that is that there are limits to what the government can legitimately undertake. Just as there are limits to what the free market can achieve. Julius nailed it, I think:
The thing I can't wrap my head around is the notion that those limits are fraud, coercion and violent force. Why? Where does liberty and security of person fall? How about free speech?
...I'm not really sure how to respond. What has led you to believe this?
Yeah. Almost every nation on the planet, including the US, signed three UN treaties on drug control that specifically stipulate that access to narcotics for medical purposes must be guaranteed. Narcotics policy is among the most misguided, unethical, wasteful and publicly neglected policy ventures ever.
You seem to think you've proven some kind of point with this, but you haven't.
All second hand smoke is harmful. Various practices can mitigate that harm. That doesn't mean it still isn't harmful.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Irrelevant, really. Who cares if it's the ONLY reasonable way? The question whether it is A reasonable way, and whether or not there are any other reasonable ways that are comparably effective but have greater benefits.
Taking the roof off smoking areas is, as you note, not really about dispersing smoke into the air; it's about trying to get around a bothersome regulation by pretending an area is now "outdoors".
Anyone sympathetic to Loklar's nonsense about a whiff of smoke might wish to Google "eight hour time weighted average".
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I can't outright deny it, but I find the feasibility of that proposal highly doubtful. How do you propose that would be achieved? Do you think the employee stipulation could be reliably followed or enforced, and if so, how?
So you're saying we should banish guns, knives and most sharp or heavy blunted objects? Because that would totally be A reasonable way to lower the rate of violent crime. It's certainly not the most effective, but hey, that's irrelivant!
I personally disagree with a lot of how bars/restaurants pay their employees. It's why I try to leave a 20% tip whenever I go somewhere nice. The point behind it is, if the reason for the ban is to protect employees and employers are able to find creative ways around it then maybe we ought to re-evaluate how we can better accomplish that goal?
It's like abstinence only sex education. Sure trying to ban teenagers from sex sounds like A reasonable way to prevent teen pregnancy and STD transmission. But is it really effective at accomplishing the stated goals versus other methods?
I'd imagine it'd be enforced in the same way as any other workplace safety regulations or overtime regulations would. I mean that's what I'd imagine, just some new rules regarding separate ventilation systems, strong filters and working time laws to hopefully prevent coercion. I've never worked at a restaurant or a bar though, (my stint in the service industry was spent at Gas Stations and Grocery stores) so I wouldn't say for sure. Kind of why I was saying "If I'm wrong, then please educate me" in my first post.
I think this is only correct if one disregards liberty as a portion of welfare/utility. A legitimate government serves two purposes and actions inconsistent with those goals. As Locke said:"The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their [lives, liberty and property]. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting."
1 - To create regulations that benefit the society as a whole. The Preamble of the US Constitution phrased this as "promote the general Welfare/insure domestic Tranquility"
2 - To safeguard the liberties of individuals from the encroachment of others - "establish Justice/secure the Blessings of Liberty."
Actions that promote the first goal, but are in direct contravention of the second are on their face illegitimate The foundation of the of government is the will of the majority of people directed towards the common welfare, but legitimacy of the political power to direct that will requires rational consent
As no rational creature would enter into a pact that would reduce their own welfare, the pact that is civil government must respect individual liberties. The right to individual conscious, to ones own belief system is a fundamental liberty. While not all actions prompted by a belief system are protected, the targeting of a belief system (or as you phrase it, an "institution) itself can not make individuals more secure in their individual liberties.
Do you not see your own cultural biases here? By your own judgment you feel that their religious ceremonies are harmful. You do not have a objective metric for happiness or welfare regarding the spiritual needs or desires of an individual or family. The purely rational response regarding the death of an individual might be to break up his corpse into components for use as food, fertilizer and dog chews. Mandating that every individual conform to this standard of funereal behavior, plus or minus some mandated acceptable variance would perhaps maximize "utility" and break down institutions that you feel are harmful but that doesn't make the action legitimate or beneficial.
Your positions seems to be that, say, being a Muslim is objectively bad. Or if you feel that is too prejudicial to your argument, let's say a redneck. Or a hippie. Or a Mormon. Or an economist.
You seem to argue that these "institutions" are inherently bad in their current form for "society." However, the fundamental purpose of "society" and the government that regulates it is to secure the life, liberty and property of the individual members of society. In targeting those "institutions" you are directly attacking the liberties of members of your society, with only the loin cloth of "societal improvement" to justify it. These laws are therefore inherently illegitimate.
And if they were not, they lack a rational legitimacy in promoting the common good. You may feel that Indians must come into the modern era for their own good whether they want to or not. Your good intentions are insufficient justification. And from where does the decision come that these individuals must be brought up from their backwards culture? Is the majority will well suited to determine what is culturally and spiritually beneficial, or merely to reinforce the majority paradigm whether for good or ill?
Finally and most fundamentally your own argument disproves itself.
I would argue that fundamentally a "modern liberal state" can exist if and only if it has protections and respect for the beliefs (which you euphemize as "institutions") of minorities or unpopular members. Attempts to "reeducate" the population or make "backwards" cultures or belief systems illegitimate is itself inherently incompatible with a "modern liberal state" in a way that almost no other paradigm is. And this is a paradigm that is not isolated or unfounded but rather well integrated in Western thought. Can a government's own actions create an institution incompatible with liberal government so as to eliminate Undesirable institutions?
Even if you disagree with that argument, its very existence itself demonstrates that we don't have "some knowledge" of what society should look like. We have "some opinions." Again from John Locke, A letter on Toleration (regarding religion, but no less applicable in central concepts to belief systems that are not theistic)
It is not the job of the government to proselytize spiritually or politically. If the current government used all its power to make Republicans look like shit bags, this would be illegitimate. I might feel that we'd all be better off if the GOP dropped off the face of the earth, but that doesn't mean I can justify this incursion by citing "common good." The general welfare and a "modern liberal society" can't be promoted through the erosion of liberty and tyrannical "reeducation."
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
That would be an unreasonable way to try to lower the rate of violent crime. But you knew that.
And you should quit moving those goalposts before you throw out your back. Your argument was, and I quote, "Do you believe that a blanket ban on smoking indoor businesses is the only reasonable way to achieve this goal?" You weren't arguing that the ban was ineffective, or less effective than other measures, or that other measures would achieve the same result (protecting employees from smoke) in a way that burdens businesses less.
As for 'educate me' - why don't you educate us? You're the one arguing that the smoking bad is unfortunate and that there should be some other means of achieving the same end, so prove your point, instead of demanding that every one else run around determining whether or not you have one.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
What makes it unreasonable if not for the fact that it's both extremely difficult to enforce and does little to actually reduce the rate of the crime it was meant to prevent?
And you should try reading/responding to the entirety of my post instead of one cherry picked sentence which supports a narrower interpretation of what I meant versus the entire statement which paints a clearer picture about what I meant.
I wasn't what now?
So if I gather what you're saying then is that you believe that we currently are incapable at enforcing proper business safety or working hours protections with the current tools and regulatory agencies we have? Because otherwise I would fail to see why any large leap of faith would be required to think that maybe we couldn't just expand scope to include some additional protections to protect workers like we already have in place to prevent things like people being forced to work with toxic chemicals without proper certification or protective gear.
Obviously these regulations must not be working at all; I'll get right to work on that research sir!
This seems unreasonably absolutist to me. There are lots of spectacularly harmful beliefs (and following actions, which is probably what the meaning of "institutions" is in this context) that various states have quite rightly legislated against.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget