Lobowolf

I did not compare the plight of smoking trucks to the plight of slaves, any more than you compared smokers to pedophiles when you wrote: Or perhaps that actually was a comparison that passes for legal "reasoning" north of the border. The slavery example, as I suspect you know, was not a comparison of the two situations, but an exploration of the principle that seemed (to me) to underlie your previous post - that given sufficient notice, someone sanctioned for breaking a law has no business complaining about the law. Your follow-up does actually make your point more clear to me; I didn't pick up on your distinction between criticizing the law and complaining about one's own arrest. Probably just my hurried misreading; thanks for the further explanation. In retrospect, I do think that my original "ridiculous" was an overbid; I was thinking of the trucker as a self-employed independent driver, and not part of a company in which the truck would be a shared workspace.

It turns out that I, too, am a lawyer (though not in Canada; although conceived in Montreal, I was born in California). I particularly disagree with this paragraph: So, the underlying principle, apparently, is that if I know what the law is and break it, I'm a whining, selfish sniveller if I protest about the unfairness of the legal sanctions. REALLY? So, for instance, if consensual adult sexual activity is illegal in jurisdiction X of a Democracy, and you're unsuccessful in changing the law because, for instance, you're subject to the tyranny of a moralistic majority, then you have no business complaining about the moral unfairness of being fined or imprisoned for breaking such a law? That's a bit astounding. The issue isn't whether or not the trucker (or any given homosexual in jurisdiction X) was on notice; the issue is whether the law itself is a reasonable one. Reminiscent of those whining, selfish snivelling slaves who got caught heading north to evade their owners. If they didn't like the law, they should have just changed it.

Ridiculous. Zero tolerance run amok. Even if the cop was stupid enough to give him a ticket for this, how could the judge be stupid enough not to throw it out? Some very intelligent people out there who really think they should be protecting you from yourself. Sort of reminds of the chorus in "Hot Fuzz" who keep repeating "The Greater Good" in that monotonous tone. Agree with "ridiculous."

No, they don't. Everyone has exactly the same rights. Legally, this is certainly not true. Many rights are defined by relationships. "Rights" generally correspond to "duties," and the duties we owe differ depending on our relationships. As a non-legal example that I suspect most people would agree with, children have a right to be housed by their parents; however, the children's neighbors do not have the same right to be housed by the children's parents.

Are smoking ban opponents claiming that zero non-consenting individuals are harmed? Or that, in the aggregate, more harm comes from curtailing freedom and lost business than from harming some number of individuals? It seems obvious they are claiming the latter. If so, what is the evidence for this claim? I suppose I would dispute the litmus test, or at least construe "reasonably direct" to mean "reasonably unavoidable by the victim." Or, alternatively, I guess I would contend that "zero non-consenting individuals are harmed," as every adult who chose to dine in a restaurant that permitted smoking was, by definition, not "non-consenting."

Mustid.

I agree with most of your post, but I wanted to carve out this connection between standard of life and productivity, as it's the one part I disagree with. People who are unproductive, particularly people who are voluntarily unproductive (i.e. "smart people who later learn that they should have paid more attention in school") are, in my opinion, most likely to become productive when there are strong incentives, such as not having the safety net you mention. Imagine "Dear Abby" were sick for a week, and we had to take a BBO poll to replace her advice with a BBO consensus. Open the first envelope: "Dear Abby: My son is 30 years old and lives at home. He's intelligent and able-bodied, but doesn't seem to be doing much. He's unemployed, other than a part-time job at Wendy's for spending money. He sleeps in his old room, and I cook for him, and he's on my health insurance, and if he wants to go back to school, I will pay for it. But all he does is watch TV. What should I do? Signed, Desperate in Denver." I strongly suspect the overwhelming reaction from our little BBO poll would be, "Throw his ass out! There's no reason he shouldn't be working and providing for himself," and we'd further probably mostly think that the way to get him to do so is to put his back up against the wall. We'd be joking in posts about what the heck she was thinking letting him stay there for the last 10 years. But she's providing the safety net you're talking about - food, shelter, education, and health care. He's 30? So what - "at any time of life." And if she SHOULDN'T be providing those things for him, then why on earth should the taxpayers? I think there's an plausible reason why - Because, for mostly moral reasons, we (many people) think that everyone (certainly everyone living in a country as well off as the USA) should have all of those things. And I don't think it's a bad reason. And maybe in many (or most) cases, providing those things will make some people more productive. There are many "Desperate in Denvers" out there with their 30 year old sons, and it's surely a sign of their parents' caring that many of them are being taken care of while working at the food court or attending community college, but I don't think that level of care is making them any more productive.

I suspect that most people in this thread would agree that person X has the right to smoke in his house (to make it even easier, we'll say he lives alone). I suspect that most people in this thread would also agree that person X does not have the right to smoke in a public park. Getting back to a restaurant, then, the* question is whether a restaurant is more like a home, in that it is private property, or more like a park, in that it is a place of "public" association. ("the" question is an overbid; as has been pointed out, another question involves workplace safety, which I think is a better rationale for a smoking prohibition in restaurants. Employees have more rights than patrons).

+1. Can't stand littering.

I'd be quite happy to live in a society where you set quite a few of them, though.

Is it so clear, though, that smoking gives Ken +1,000 units and not +3,000? It's not obvious to me that without government action, society "can't" work for its own benefit, especially given that non-smokers far outnumber smokers. The fact that despite having a solid majority, nonsmokers didn't voluntarily create a slew of nonsmoking restaurants suggests to me that the utility measure might be skewed the other way - the downside to nonsmokers, on balance, was relatively small, so they continued to patronize restaurants that permitted smokers; on the other hand, the downside of not smoking, to smokers, was sufficiently high that when given the choice, restaurateurs preferred to permit smoking in their restaurants, and cater to the minority.

It's unfortunate that loss of autonomy can't be translated to a dollar figure. Perhaps the gist of the argument boils down in large part to what that figure would be.

No; just those who choose to go to restaurants where smoking is permitted. No; just on private property, which includes commercial property. As you may (or may not) have noticed from my earlier posts, I do not extend the reasoning to public rights-of-way. No; just during business hours or with permission of the property or business owner. Smoking shouldn't exempt one from trespassing laws. Well, yours and that of the business owner. How cavalierly you dismiss your freedom! "Just," indeed! No; the risk creation in this point affects the public right of way. No; children are not legally capable of giving informed consent, unlike adults who are free to choose not to eat in any restaurant for any reason. In other words, if you want to be exclusively around non-smokers, that is fine. But do it in such a way that you don't dictate others' behavior on private property you don't own. That means dining in restaurants that permit smoking, for you, is obviously out of the question. Thanks for making my point about "mental gymnastics" better than I could. It's amazing how little resemblance your summary bore to my advocated framework. You don't have the right to dictate the environment at someone else's place of business; you have the right to choose whether or not to patronize that business.

Edit: If you argue that parents shouldn't be allowed to smoke in their homes, please explain why you believe they should be permitted to have table salt and kitchen knives in houses with children. I don't actually think that in principle, restrictions on smoking around children would be bad. I think they'd constitute a practical nightmare, though.

I don't think that's a problem, per se - The rational argument, at least, for smoking in restaurants isn't that secondhand smoke is not harmful; it's that there are countervailing considerations to the safety issue.

3♦. Share the gospel!

FWIW, I am, and always have been, a non-smoker. And I think there are more than enough mental gymnastics on both sides; most of the no-smoking-in-restaurants arguments* are, in my view, rationalizations for, "I want to be able to go to the restaurants I like without experiencing any second-hand smoke. If the restaurateurs won't provide that experience for me, the government should force them to." * In general; not in this thread.

So, no smoking in homes with children?

I disagree. Btw I think you tell other people they don't get it too often simply because they disagree with you. While it may not be universal, I think Ken's point is largely true. There's a reason that the market didn't create a bunch of completely non-smoking restaurants. Maybe things would be different now, if the ban were lifted, but I don't know that the social climate has changed all that much (in CA, where the ban is just over 15 years old, as I recall). When MikeH writes that none of the restaurant and bar owners he knows want smoking back, there are two possibilities - they don't want it back at their restaurants, or they don't want it back in general (i.e., in contrast to option one, at other restaurants). But they don't need a law to not have smoking at their own restaurants, and they didn't need a law to get rid of it at their restaurants in the first place, so that's a bit of a non-starter. What they really mean is they don't want OTHER restaurants to have smoking while there's does not. Which, maybe, is a good argument for the ban. You had a bit of a prisoner's dilemma. Owners would, perhaps, want no smoking as long as they don't have to compete against smoking, but as long as some restaurants permit smoking, they want to have it, also. But the free market already pitted smoking restaurants against (voluntary) non-smoking restaurants, and the non-smoking ones were the big losers; that's why the legislature stepped in. BTW, Mike's post notwithstanding, many restaurants and bars took a big hit in southern CA when the ban was enacted.

Opponents' walking out probably has some positive correlation to "good action." Now, when partner walks out...

No, I'm not. And I realize that black and white lines have to be drawn in relatively gray areas. My previous post was aimed more at the consumer, as I think there's an important distinction to be made between a restaurant that is open to the public, and an actual public right of way. From the employee's side, I'm fine with workplace safety regulation; I just think that a 100% ban on smoking in restaurants falls on other side of the line.

Or prescient. I strongly suspect that the suggestions aren't far off, particularly as health care costs become more and more public.

I reject the analogy between second-hand smoke at a bar/restaurant and car emissions. While bars and restaurants are, in one sense, "public," they are in another sense fundamentally private and distinct (as an obvious for instance, there's no public easement property right to a restaurant the way there is to streets and sidewalks). IMO, it should work like this: If I own a restaurant, it should be at my discretion whether to permit smoking. If you don't like secondhand smoke strongly enough, don't eat or work at my restaurant. If enough people stay away from restaurants that permit smoking, then non-smoking restaurants will open voluntarily to cater to all of the people who are clamoring for restaurants to be smoke free. Then we'll have restaurants for smokers and people who are willing to tolerate secondhand smoke, and restaurants for non-smokers and people who aren't. Mixed groups will have to make a choice. As a non-smoker (and someone who doesn't particularly like secondhand smoke, and someone who used to work in the restaurant industry (bartender) at a place that permitting smoking), I'm not a fan of the current framework. I was/am perfectly capable of making the decision to not dine/work at places that allowed smoking. It's a little bizarre to push for a law to keep smoking out of my eating environment when I control my eating environment. Kind of like putting my own cookies up high where I can't reach them. Yeah, it's a better working environment for the food servers; but they (I, at one time) chose their working environment. It didn't help them too much when numerous restaurants went out of business shortly after the CA ban, either. On the other hand, I'm strongly in favor of bans in truly public places (parks, sidewalks, etc.)

This hand proves exactly nothing. If partner with a 15-17 NT invites you via 2 NT you simply accept. What part of "which contract would be at risk opposite a minimum end of the wide range 1N response" did you miss? I did not miss anything, thank you, but maybe your translating computer failed? Or what did you like to tell us with "The hand to my mind demonstrates the value of opening 1NT...."? Please enlighten me and show me why an opener with a 5332 and 15-17 has any problem in reaching 3 NT opposite this hand after any sensible opening. The problem isn't reaching 3NT when you're 16 opposite 10. The problem is avoiding playing 2NT when you're 15 opposite 6.

Well, yeah, but bear in mind, he was dead 30 seconds latter.