**** is complicated, ergo I get to boss you around. Saying that isn't right just means you're a wacko fringe extremist.

Nice argument.

right, because two things share a single characteristic - e.g., coercion - means they (banning of smoking and poker) cannot be distinguished. come on, you're smarter than that.

Yeah, we can distinguish them, you like one and you don't like the other.

Don't you see pvn, that you require a license to have a bar. This means you're tacitly agreeing that it's a public place, and open to be regulated in any way.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/

When you prove to me health and safety at its core is immoral you get to keep your point on smoking.

The market had 30 years to solve the problem of subjecting its employees to second hand smoke. How much longer did we have to wait?

i feel so naked when you expose me like this

this is not even a close comparison and you know it. An entire town of country cannot avoid a factory in the same way one can avoid a bar. Not to mention they dont own the air or the area affected by their pollution.

Other idiotic ridiculous laws do not justify more of the same. Your justification house of cards doesn't stand.

the point has been proven you have been embarrassed in every ******ed post you make... I thought you had tucked your tail an left long ago, but feel free to keep regaling us with your "thoughts".

again as usual the "problem" is and will continue to be solved better and faster without your awesome government solutions.

No one is forcing individuals to work at any given place of employment. They are certainly free to apply to some job that keeps them outdoors all day.

Should we outlaw risks attached with all other professions, as well?

The answer to your last question, imo, is as long as it takes. If the bars/restauraunts with no-smoking-allowed don't spring up, what does that say about the necessity/desirability of them?

What if I as an individual consumer want to outlaw drinking in bars because people get rowdy and occasionally someone bumps into me, is rude, etc.? Should I start a campaign? Why isn't the market providing me with an alcohol free bar?

We already do genius. That is the whole point.

Love it. Classic Max.

Read the Lib hand book to see the side he should take. No need for thought.

Start post with an insult then move on to nothing.

LOL, Keep it up Maxie. A laugh a day.

You are doing an excellent job at picking/choosing what you respond to.

Perhaps that was poorly phrased -- should we ban all sorts of professions that have risks associated with them? But I'm confident you knew what I meant

Upon reconsideration even my poorly worded statement is correct. In the case of 2nd hand smoke from bar employees what you actually do is outlaw the original activity. This is FAR FAR FAR from what we do with other activities, where we make employers provide compensation for workplace accidents.

And suggesting that we do this would of course be devastating for society, but whatever.

LOL at those saying smoking bans are morally wrong because they involve coercion of the bar owner.

Bar "ownership" (as opposed to possession) is by definition a much more coercive state of affairs. Consider how a absentee owner exercises his "ownership rights" in the face of a worker or community occupation? They either call in the Pinkertons and physically reoccupy their "property" directly or they take advantage of one of the many extremely valuable services they get by paying taxes to their "big brother" and let the police their deirty work for them.

That's right, "ownership" is a government service, and without the "tax/spent/police" cycle it would cease to exist, just like cell phone service if god took all the cell towers to heaven.

Just like fire service, the other police services, trash pickup, the joys of vector control, and water, sewer, electricity, landline communications (either directly from the local government unit, or indirectly from their usually monopoly franchise holder).

It doesn't seem so unreasonable that the "owners" should give up something in this deal, in addition to the taxes they pay? Like agreeing to allow a limited role for democracy in a limited part of their private businesses for things like workplace safety?

And hasn't the all mighty market already spoken? Well over 90% of bars in California voluntarily have voted with their dollars and bought their licenses and agree follow the laws because they feel the perks offered by the government units are so valuable that, even though they might not agree with every regulation, it is still a bargain. The other less than 10% have also voted with their dollars also and are simply operating outside the law.

LOL at this...

Customers: Must shop elsewhere, private property "love it or leave it"
Workers: Must find work elsewhere, "love it or leave it"
Owner: Can buy anywhere, locals must respect his force-proped "rights" or he will call his "big brother" to make them "love it or leave it"

Hmm, bartenders and bargoers alike are still exposed to extremely loud music that is very damaging over time and are unable to protect themselves against it by wearing earplugs, but I don't hear anyone calling for a maximum decibel level inside bars.

I'd like to think there's a good reason for this, but I can't help but conjecture that it might be because that there's no special-interest propaganda machine fighting for that particular issue.

What justification? I'm only talking about the language. Berating people for using a different definition of "public" is pretty lame. And especially so when the definition they use is universally accepted.

Examples:

And this is the next step, of course. Just claim that the arguments for regulation are mere assertions and have no limit. EZ game.

Government has monopolized a whole bunch of industries, and in 'return' we should allow them to control even more?

This begs the question if it should monopolize those things in the first place and if it's actually a good thing instead of a bad thing.

I'm not sure what's so "LOL" about coercion.

update:
the supporters of the ban won with 61 to 39%

I feel no need to repeatedly argue with people who say "let the free market choose" that there is no free market and if it was it had already failed.

I get it, you guys worship the free market like it were a god moving in mysterious ways and even when it is wrong it has some mystical reasons for being wrong (or you just blame it on a state).

We dont live in your imaginary AC land. We live in democracy and democracy has repeatedly spoken, as it has just now in Germany. If people want to smoke they are free to do so. If people want to open a smoking bar they are free to do so in various EU countries. Luckily the government has made it easy for these guys to feel free to leave our country for lands more accommodating to their minority views.

I agree, let's start by getting the government to stop providing the "ownership" service! They would be pretty much done after that I think.

Well it's funny because a bar "owner" (not in possession) is a hypocrite: on one hand he will whine about the petty coercion of the big bad government "forcing" him to provide a safe workplace, but... on the other hand he'll happily call the same big bad government to use deadly force, if necessary, to protect his property "rights". See what's funny about this philosophy now?

Guys keep it civil ITT.

Tommy is drunk and you all know what that means.

What do you mean here?

Of course they did. What % of people smoke?