[Mpls] On the smoking ban and Porter's

[Mark Snyder]

On 10/31/05 9:20 AM, "Michael Atherton" <athe0007 at umn.edu> wrote:

> Mark Snyder wrote:
> 
>> The fact that secondhand smoke may be harmful is completely relevant.
>> 
>> The reason it's so is because of what Atherton snipped out of
>> my comment, which was "my right to do something that has no
>> impact on you..."
>> 
>> If you don't believe your action of smoking impacts me, then
>> logic would follow that you don't believe secondhand smoke is
>> harmful.
> 
> I don't believe that people smoking in bars and restaurants
> impacts you AGAINST YOUR WILL.  You have to make an overt
> decision for secondhand smoke to affect you.  You have to
> explicitly perform a series of actions for it to have an impact
> on your health and you can as easily make a different set of
> decisions.
> 
> Your argument necessitates the assumption that you have a
> right to ban whatever MIGHT have an effect on your health
> in any public space if you happen to decide to go there.
> Has anyone here thought this through?  Doesn't anyone
> else see how far reaching this can be?

No, it doesn't necessitate the assumption that I have a right to ban
whatever might have an effect on my health.

What it does necessitate is that the burden for changing behavior should
fall on the person who is creating a problem, not the person who is affected
by it.

As most of us learned in high school civics, the saying is "your fist ends
where my face begins," not "your face ends where my fist begins"

This is why we have noise ordinances in response to loud parties, loud "boom
cars" and so on rather than tell those affected to simply get some ear plugs
or move if they don't like the noise.

This is why we have pollution control laws rather than just tell neighboring
residents to deal with it or move if they don't like what the manufacturing
plant next door is sending out the stacks or discharging into the river.

This is why we have traffic laws and now, red light cameras, rather than
just tell pedestrians and other drivers that they are on their own. Or is it
supposed to be my fault if I get hit by some crazy driver because I made the
"overt decision" to take a walk?

I could go on, but hopefully, reasonable folks get the picture at this
point. In virtually every case where personal freedoms run up against public
health, it's going to be public health that wins, and rightly so.

Why should it be any different with cigarette smokers or people that own
bars? And to turn Michael's question around, has anyone thought through what
would logically follow if we treated all of the examples I gave above like
the smokers want to be treated? I'd say yes, many people probably have, and
that's likely a big part of why the ban is so popular with the public.

Mark Snyder
Windom Park