I can only conclude that your progressive bent means you only wish to outlaw things that offend you and everyone else be damned.
I am constantly amused by all the loopy logic some smokers will come up with to try and justify imposing their drug on everyone around them. All this nonsense about how cigarette smoke never hurt anyone and
freedoms are being taken away and it's all bad for the economy and anti-American to boot.
Wait a minute if people are being restricted on what they can and can't do isn't that by definition taking away freedom?
Smokers are imposing their smoke on you? Oh please, by forcing bars to not let people smoke, YOU are imposing your anti-smoking bend onto the bars. Now if we made it illegal for bars to ban smoking that would be imposing smoking onto them. I haven't seen anyone suggest that.
Ang doesn't care about freedom in this matter, other than the right of her to not see or smell smoke wherever she happens to be. Actually it goes further than that. Even if you can't see it or smell it, it may still be there, so let's just ban it outright in every place that the hapless nonsmoker may potentially wander into.
Nobody would ever suggest making it illegal for bars to ban smoking, and the vast majority of smokers understand and accept that their use of tobacco is offensive to many non smokers.
I, for example, support smoking bans in public (i.e. municipal) buildings, workplaces, airplanes, theatres, etc. In fact anywhere where smokers and non smokers have no choice but to sit side by side. I understand to a degree the smoking ban in restaurants, though I believe they should have the right to have separate, well-ventilated non smoking areas.
I do not and will not support a ban in all bars. Smoking while you have a drink in a bar has been a social activity for centuries and there is absolutely no reason why bar owners should not be allowed to decide whether they want to allow smoking in their own establishments.
Employees have been used to working in smoky bars for decades. If a bar owner wants to continue to allow smoking then employees have a right to decide whether they want to continue to work there. If not, there are plenty of nonsmoking bars they could get a job at. Let's face it, it's not like you leave college with a degree and an ambition to work in one particular bar because it's the best bar in the city, with the best reputation, the best training program, the best healthcare and benefits. These are bars we are talking about, not Morgan Stanley, Skadden Arps, or Leo Burnett.
That seems reasonable to me, but Ang will say that a person working at a bar should have a right to be able to work in a place where their health is not damaged and they do not have to put up with unpleasant tobacco smells. In saying this, she will assume that passive smoking is highly dangerous, and she will ignore the rights of 100 smokers to have one bar they can smoke in so that 1 non smoker can work anywhere he or she may of may not choose to work.
To me, that's intolerance in a nutshell, which is usually the point at which Ang will throw in a few red herrings to get herself out of the difficulty of defending a position that is clearly intolerant. Generally it's something along the lines of this...
So should we just leave it up to all employers in every place of business to decide the rules for employee safety? If the employees are worried about workplace injuries they can go see if some other employer is a little kinder?
Shall we just do away with all employee health and safety regulations?
Post #48.
Or this...
Bar employees are not second class citizens. They are entitled to all the same protections that other employees get. If bar owners want to enjoy the privilege of doing business in a community and of employing members of that community, they must respect the laws of that community. Owning private property doesn't mean you are a dictator of a small country who gets to make up laws to suit your own interests.
#62
Or this...
LOL! I suppose the opium farmers in Afghanistan can say the same thing.
#74
You will never even convince Ang that smokers have rights, let alone that their rights are being trampled on. The more you try and fence her in with rational and reasoned arguments, the more hysterical, hectoring and holier-than-thou her tone becomes.