It is difficult to imagine a more authoritarian statement than this one. I see this argument quite often on boards such as this - always in justification for some bullying, authoritarian policy which the speaker is attempting to defend. "America - Love It Or Leave It" shouted the Right Wing bumper stickers of the 60's and 70's. Translation? We're gonna do it OUR way, friend - and if you don't like it, TOO BAD.
Why should I have to go from restaurant to restaurant until I find one where people aren't smoking? What if people are smoking in the ONE restaurant I really want to go to? "Too bad"? I don't think so.
The real issue here is: is smoking an obnoxious and dangerous enough activity for society to step in and enact a law banning it in public places? THAT is the only issue. Once it has been decided that it is, game over. You don't resolve an issue such as that by saying, "Hey, if you don't like it, just go somewhere else." There is a logical fallacy in such a response: begging the question, i.e., providing an answer that does not address the real issue.
The best illustration I know of this fallacy concerns the resident of a German town in 1943, who wandered out into the countryside and chanced upon a concentration camp. Horrified by what he saw, he hurried back to his town to inform the local SS office of the situation. An SS officer listened to what the man had to say and then responded: "If you do not like what you saw, I would suggest that, in the future, you not go out into the countryside."
Now, before some deflection-minded moron jumps on my analogy here and starts deriding my intelligence for comparing Nazi concentration camps to smoking, be aware that I am not attempting to liken smoking to concentration camps, OK? This is merely an example - an ANALOGY, OK?
The point is, that the SS officer's response begged the question as to the morality of concentration camps. Your suggestion that if I don't like smoking, I should stay away from places where people smoke, also begs the question of whether or not smoking should be banned in public places.
Both positions are classic authoritarian positions.
I am talking about their private property George. If they own property they should be able to decide if they can smoke their, even if it is a business. Since I don't like to be around people who smoke, I avoid their property. "Liberals," on the other hand, prefer to force their values on everyone, and force businesses to cater to them by force of law.
You complain about being forced to go from restaurant to restaurant looking for a place that caters to non smokers. The truth of the matter is that it works the other way, even in communities that do not prohibit smoking in restaurants. Social pressure has changed the dynamics because education has taught us the dangers of smoking, for the smoker and those around them.
There are efforts underway to prevent people from smoking in apartments and hotel rooms. "Experts" have created a new danger out of thin air, and we now have to worry about, third hand smoke. This will be the wedge they use to ban smoking in private homes, which I am pretty sure would amount to an illegal seizure.
Wait a minute, isn't that what this thread is all about, the erosion of our 4th amendment rights?
I do everything I can to keep smokers away from me, and even fantasize about banning smoking in public so I do not have to walk down the street and smell it. Then I realize that if I do this it just makes it easier for people who do not like what I do to come after my habits. In other words, my common sense kicks in and I realize that I really do need to accept their right to be obnoxious, filthy, and disgusting, so that others who do not like the fact that I like salt and sugar do not get to come after the stuff I like because they think it is all of the things I think smoking is.
I am not telling you to love it or leave it George, I am telling you that to protect your own freedoms you must be willing to accept the fact that others have theirs. You do not have the right to interfere with those freedoms, no matter how disgusting you think they are. If you love America, help keep it the country you love, and do not try to turn it into the country you want it to be. That never works out, just ask the people that fought alongside Castro.
Think about it, seriously consider all the implications of your support of a law that curbs legal behavior in the name of good intentions, and protecting others from that habit. Look at what happened when we did that with alcohol, or even take a good look at the drug war. All those schedule 1 drugs used to be legal, and doctors could hand out just about anything they thought a patient needed, now we have a war going on in Mexico as a direct result of the well intentioned laws that were intended to protect people from themselves, and protect us from the dangers of apathy caused by drug use.
How is that working out again? Other than keeping you loaded down in a massive case load.
