patrickg
Veteran Member
I am inclined to agree with you. Especially the part where smoking would be prohibited where people have to congregate. I would also include where people NEED to congregate and would take where people WANT to congregate under advisement.
Microwaves versus pacemakers. I could see a discrimination against pacemaker users suit in this somewhere, a handicap persons access issue. No one ever got by with signs that say dangerous curb, not safe for wheelchairs. Nope, they had to take out the curb and make the path safe for the handicapped or physically chalenged or whatever is currently PC. Jack has a pacemaker but can't eat at the lunch counter. If he were black you would have to let him eat at the lunch counter, now days post MLK Jr., and if he were in a wheel chair you would have to serve him, as well you should but not with the stigma of a pacemaker. A little RFI shielding and grounding could fix the problem cheaper than redoing a curb but NO, pacemaker wearers are second class physically challenged! Sure, sure I know it seems frivilous to you and I but if it places a social stigma on someone and deprives them of free association with those who don't have pacemakers then it might be actionable.
About Government buildings. Smoking was prohibited at Government facilities that didn't meet stringent "air separation" requirements (many didn't) leaving smokers no choice of a place to light up except outside, even in inclement weather. Couple this with human nature and you end up with a group of folks clustered around the door to a building (shortest distance to where they can get a "fix"). This formed quite a formidable "gauntlet" of smokers and smoke that anyone entering or leaving the building had to go through which neccessitated further controls that required rules like no smoking within 50 ft of the doorway or only in designated areas (set up away from building ingress/egress). I vas dere Charlie, vas you?
Many of us agree on the premise that folks should be able to do anything they want as long as they don't harm someone else. What few of us agree on is what is harmful to others. (See prev post RE if one member of society is harmed is not society harmed? Helmet laws, child seats, etc.) If there is a monetary impact on a group health plan because smoking members of the group require more $ to be spent then aren't the nonsmoking members of the group either financially harmed or short changed on services? Should I care if person X smokes and I am not harmed? Well, as a guy with strong humanitarian tendencies, I would hope that people would make personal choices that led to a heightend wellbeing and if they don't then to fail in a way that does NO harm to non consenting others. Again the hard part is drawing the line where harm to others is agreed to by the majority.
Cocaine is considered fairly harmful to users in specific and society in general yet it has not always been illegal in the USA. Should it be? Isn't it just a personal choice? Is legality, which is quite flluid (see prohibition and repeal) the best and only judge of right and wrong? Is it a good thing that smokeless tombacco is hyped to the kids as hip and cool? Tobacco interests are winning that battle in Oklahoma and Texas and I don't know where else as the per capita smokeless tobacco consumption is the highest in the country here in young adults. I never saw so much spitting from dipping snuff or discolored ground or floors from tobacco juice since attending the Grand Ole Opry (in their old building). At least the heavy concentration of alcohol in the air from the moonshine masked the tobacco spit smell at the GOO.
I would really hate to see tobacco made illegal, just essentially eradicated through education. Like someone said or alluded to, next we would have calorie police checking your grocery purchases to insure that no more than 30% of the calories were from fat and that you bought the minimum quantity of tofu.
Earlier someone brought up the topless protest. It was triggered by community regulation of the amount of cleavage that was legal. What a backlash. Most societies decided a long time ago that some things were not for public display. Where is it legal for consenting adults to have sex in plain view, say, on the courthouse lawn? Intercourse isn't illegal. Shouldn't everyone just mind their own business. What business is it of anyone else? How dare others try to suggest where or when a legal act can be performed between consenting adults. Of course, every parent wants to have their children surounded by as many bad examples of behaviour as possible, NOT! I wonder where the "FOR THE CHILDREN" forces are and why they aren't making it illegal to smoke where there is the expectation that a child might witness it.
Patrick
Microwaves versus pacemakers. I could see a discrimination against pacemaker users suit in this somewhere, a handicap persons access issue. No one ever got by with signs that say dangerous curb, not safe for wheelchairs. Nope, they had to take out the curb and make the path safe for the handicapped or physically chalenged or whatever is currently PC. Jack has a pacemaker but can't eat at the lunch counter. If he were black you would have to let him eat at the lunch counter, now days post MLK Jr., and if he were in a wheel chair you would have to serve him, as well you should but not with the stigma of a pacemaker. A little RFI shielding and grounding could fix the problem cheaper than redoing a curb but NO, pacemaker wearers are second class physically challenged! Sure, sure I know it seems frivilous to you and I but if it places a social stigma on someone and deprives them of free association with those who don't have pacemakers then it might be actionable.
About Government buildings. Smoking was prohibited at Government facilities that didn't meet stringent "air separation" requirements (many didn't) leaving smokers no choice of a place to light up except outside, even in inclement weather. Couple this with human nature and you end up with a group of folks clustered around the door to a building (shortest distance to where they can get a "fix"). This formed quite a formidable "gauntlet" of smokers and smoke that anyone entering or leaving the building had to go through which neccessitated further controls that required rules like no smoking within 50 ft of the doorway or only in designated areas (set up away from building ingress/egress). I vas dere Charlie, vas you?
Many of us agree on the premise that folks should be able to do anything they want as long as they don't harm someone else. What few of us agree on is what is harmful to others. (See prev post RE if one member of society is harmed is not society harmed? Helmet laws, child seats, etc.) If there is a monetary impact on a group health plan because smoking members of the group require more $ to be spent then aren't the nonsmoking members of the group either financially harmed or short changed on services? Should I care if person X smokes and I am not harmed? Well, as a guy with strong humanitarian tendencies, I would hope that people would make personal choices that led to a heightend wellbeing and if they don't then to fail in a way that does NO harm to non consenting others. Again the hard part is drawing the line where harm to others is agreed to by the majority.
Cocaine is considered fairly harmful to users in specific and society in general yet it has not always been illegal in the USA. Should it be? Isn't it just a personal choice? Is legality, which is quite flluid (see prohibition and repeal) the best and only judge of right and wrong? Is it a good thing that smokeless tombacco is hyped to the kids as hip and cool? Tobacco interests are winning that battle in Oklahoma and Texas and I don't know where else as the per capita smokeless tobacco consumption is the highest in the country here in young adults. I never saw so much spitting from dipping snuff or discolored ground or floors from tobacco juice since attending the Grand Ole Opry (in their old building). At least the heavy concentration of alcohol in the air from the moonshine masked the tobacco spit smell at the GOO.
I would really hate to see tobacco made illegal, just essentially eradicated through education. Like someone said or alluded to, next we would have calorie police checking your grocery purchases to insure that no more than 30% of the calories were from fat and that you bought the minimum quantity of tofu.
Earlier someone brought up the topless protest. It was triggered by community regulation of the amount of cleavage that was legal. What a backlash. Most societies decided a long time ago that some things were not for public display. Where is it legal for consenting adults to have sex in plain view, say, on the courthouse lawn? Intercourse isn't illegal. Shouldn't everyone just mind their own business. What business is it of anyone else? How dare others try to suggest where or when a legal act can be performed between consenting adults. Of course, every parent wants to have their children surounded by as many bad examples of behaviour as possible, NOT! I wonder where the "FOR THE CHILDREN" forces are and why they aren't making it illegal to smoke where there is the expectation that a child might witness it.
Patrick
