What well reasoned sounding horseshit. Second hand smoke is a known human carcinogen.There are multiple separate questions going on here like for instance:
(A) Should the government ban smoking in the workplace?
(B) Should the government have the option to choose to ban or not ban smoking in the workplace?
Personally I'd answer (A) no, (B) yes. Then activists come along and focus on question B, and try to use it to convince others of question A. Like what IronWing & eskimospy are trying to do.
Arguing semantics is pointless, have to break the argument down to the basic elements. And all I see is those who want smoking banned do so because they personally find it discomforting to be around. And that's the question I ask, is it morally right, is it socially right, to want to ban something you personally find discomforting?
You know that is untrue. And you also know you do not believe in it.
Hell, I'm watching the Bears/Jets game on TV right now, and football is so much more damaging to one's health than smoking is.
So why not do the world a favor and shut your damn pie hole, you ignoramus
Oh and just for effect, your absolute declaration has also banned all police officers, firemen, and doctors from being able to work in the U.S.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...ighter-dress-uniforms-chicago-fire-department
Seriously, guys, if you want to ban smoking, just say you don't like smoking then shut the fuck up - stop trying to rationalize it out because all of what you say is so full of holes, none of your absolutes work.
No argument from me on this one.The states talk out of both sides of their faces, on one hand they cry ban, ban, ban, and out of the other they cry when people don't buy enough cigarettes locally to meet their projected sin tax budget , hypocrites every last one of them.
Unless, you need to..you know like pay bills and feed you family. Welcome to the real world!
Your position was that segregation was largely a private decision. It was not, and were government to have stepped out and stopped perpetuating it, would have ended on it's own.
Employers do not have a right to subject their employees to unsafe working conditions. Secondhand smoke is a known carcinogen.
Correct, I do not agree with that interpretation. It lacks any and all respect for private property rights.
They get to help you decide who you can hire. Want to hire only a certain kind of person? Too bad, its your buis but you cant decide that. So why not tell you not to smoke.
The states talk out of both sides of their faces, on one hand they cry ban, ban, ban, and out of the other they cry when people don't buy enough cigarettes locally to meet their projected sin tax budget , hypocrites every last one of them.
One example.
New York cigarette tax leads to reduced consumption which leads to tax shortfall which leads to dumbfounded officials
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/new-york-cigarette-tax-leads-to-reduced-consumption
I think smoking should be banned everywhere, but that's just me.
No, it's not just you.
Grow up little boy. The Act passed and has been held Constitutional by the courts. Congress and the President recognized that the employer/employee relationship is not symmetrical. Employers wield power over employees and with this power should come responsibility. Employers were failing and Congress acted to correct it.
Segregation was perpetuated in large part through the systematic decision of private businesses to exclude black people. The government stepping in and infringing on their property rights in order to stop this was a good thing for America.
Yea yea yea, the "commerce clause" has been tested to pretty much bypass the entire rest of the constitution, and grant powers to the U.S. Congress to do whatever they want whenever they want.
What's your point?
Obviously folks in these states/localities determined it was in their best interests to ban workplace smoking. The free market did not work relative to smoking. It has taken decades of litigation and government intervention to get to the point where we are now, which is modest restriction on workplace smoking in a still limited number of states/locales.
Actually, no. Segregation was LAW (see Jim Crow). It was enforced by the very thing you advocate: Government regulation of private choices by private businesses.
Without Jim Crow laws, Segregation would have died for the most part just as it would today... This is why the laws were passed, to FORCE segregation.
Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and time again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.
In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of Black Americans. Most blacks still lived in the South, where they had been effectively disfranchised, so they could not vote at all. While poll taxes and literacy requirements banned many Americans from voting, these stipulations frequently had loopholes that exempted white Americans from meeting the requirements. In Oklahoma, for instance, anyone qualified to vote before 1866, or related to someone qualified to vote before 1866, was exempted from the literacy requirement; the only Americans who could vote before that year were white Americans, such that all white Americans were effectively excluded from the literacy testing, whereas all black Americans were effectively singled out by the law.
Yes, the free market has worked and continues to work on the issue of smoking. As I've said, numerous businesses decided to go smoke-free on their own and reaped the benefits. Patrons and employees vote with their
Anyone who has a problem with smoking or being around second-hand smoke yet patronizes or remains employed at a bar or any other private establishment has effectively said "I don't care if smoking is allowed".
I disagree with Craig on this. I do not think cigarettes should be banned. I think people have a right to smoke whatever they want to, just not where their action endangers others.
You know, this would work with sexual harassment, too.
The free market has worked and continues to work on the issue of sexual harassment. Numerous businesses have decided to go harassment-free and reap the benefits.
Patrons and employees vote with their wallets and their labor, respectively.
Anyone who has a problem with sexual harassment or being around it yet patronizes or remains employed at a bar or any other private establishment has effectively said "I don't care if sexual harassment is allowed".
And you know, the same would work with racism. And worker safety standards. You know, if they don't like it, they don't have to work at the place with low standards. That 'free market' on worker safety has worked great without any government involvement in the past.
There's a reason why we have an elected government, you don't understand that.
No, it doesn't except to absurd ideologues. Stop signs lack any and all respect for private driver rights!!!11!!233332!11! drool drool.
Except you quote the trash Murdoch NY Post as a source, which for the story you allege has officials upset at lower smoking rates, has no quotes from such officials.
Much less quotes the officials who say that reducing smoking is one benefit to the program, pleased rather than confused by the result.
Sales of taxed cigarettes have plummeted a staggering 27 percent statewide since the highest cigarette tax in the nation took hold in July, a Post analysis has found
Thats what we warned would happen, and obviously it has come to fruition, said James Calvin, of the New York Association of Convenience Stores.
Every tax increase drives more smokers to that dark, shadowy, unregulated, unlicensed, untaxed side of the street. The whole policy is self-defeating.
If the trend continues, the state could fall far short of the $260 million windfall Paterson expected from the 58 percent tax hike.
Since you missed what I was talking about I will explain it to you, it is Hypocritical for the government to profit off a product and use it for tax revenue while at the same time claim it is detrimental to society as well as the individual and should be banned.The Native American cigarette business has flourished as New York has increased its cigarette tax to $4.35 per pack the highest in the country. Native smokeshops charge about half of the $10 that non-Native convenience stores charge for name-brand cigarettes and even less for brands manufactured on reservations. Taxing non-Indian smokeshop customers will produce $200 million a year in new revenues for the state, officials estimate, at a time of multibillion-dollar budget deficits