We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
An honest statement of arrogance found in a comment thread This comment was left by a person calling herself Jasmine, responding to Sam Leith’s fine piece bemoaning the attitude of mind that led to the UK smoking ban in privately-owned places:
Has it occured to you that this is a nanny state because we need nannying? I don’t think anyone can dispute that smoking is not good for you. I read somewhere that having a smoking “section” is like having a peeing “section” in a swimming pool. It’s just not enough to have a partial ban and wait for the natural goodness of people who simply don’t know any better, to stop. They need to be forced to stop.
A question I would put to this woman, and quite a few of the other control-freaks out there is this: what gives you the right to tell an adult that he or she should adjust their habits for “their own good”? Does Jasmine think of herself as being some sort of god? Has it never occurred to these people that their obsessive desire to regulate all aspects of existence is in fact a sign of a deep psychological problem, which needs to be fixed?
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
It is all part of socialism, as in “we (the self-appointed) know better than you”.
People like that, we need to adjust their habits. For their own good, you understand. And ours.
I bet she is a baby boomer. They seem, because of their lack of sense when they were young, that no one else has an ability to look after themselves.
Cartman had it right about hippies…especially when they get older.
Have you ever noticed that if you tell such people that they should not be allowed to meddle in other peoples’ business, they often respond with “how dare you force your views upon me!”?
I concur with Jasmine that in many circumstances “smoking” and “non-smoking” sections are unworkable.
But that isn’t the point. Within easy walking distance of me there are about 6 boozers. Why not just allow them to decide their own policy? Some might go non-smoking and pull in that particular crowd and… Well, you know the rest.
But you see this wasn’t allowed on the spurious grounds off “protecting all bar staff”. Including smokers, presumably from themselves.
And, note that while this legislation applies to all “workplaces”* the debate has focussed on pubs because they were one of the few places you could still light-up. The anti-smoking crusade was won. They just had to go the extra mile didn’t they?
And I suspect that had nothing to do with tobacco, really.
Anyway, I shall now sit at home with the telly and booze-cruised Stella and smuggled Polish ciggies and count that a poke in the eye for HMG.
I really object to what this does to civil society. To our (now) segregated social lives, to making a sizeable chunk of the population outright pariahs. No smokey Jazz clubs, no pint-and-a-fag a fag after work and I just can’t imagine nightclubs… It just feels like the heavy dead-hand of the puritans.
Fuck ’em. Let’s start a “Smoke Easy”!
Unfortunately the words ‘proper air conditioning’ and ‘England’ do not sit too well together, otherwise people might well be aware that it is indeed possible for smokers and non-smokers to co-exist quite peacefully alongside each other. I can not help but think that the French (certainly no shirking violets when it comes to consuming vast quantities of tobacco) must be viewing the English hysteria about banning smoking in bemusment.
Julian,
The French did it before us.
Nick said: The French did it before us.
Not so, I was a smoking in a restaurant and a bar only last night (not at the same time obviously as I have them average length arms). Next Feb. is D day for the French, the objection posters have been up for almost a year now (et ma libertié? they scream from every wall).
A couple of things to note for my English chums with regards to the smoking ban:
1 – You will suddenly become aware that:
a) People stink, the smell of smoke once covered this up.
b) People fart, the smell of smoke once covered this up.
2 – After a few months of not smoking in pubs the opportunity to do so (when on holidays in countries where Jasmine would shriek 24/7) will seem odd and you may find yourself wanting to go outside to smoke.
3 – Smoking outside the pub provides a great opportunity to met people you would never have gotten to talk to whilst inside the pub.
Fuck ’em. Let’s start a “Smoke Easy”!
I know a few of those round my way already.
They’re called Blues. Indeed it was raiding one of these that led to the Bristol Riots of 1980.
There are, according to the Evening Post, 23 of these little Hitlers roaming the streets of Bristol.
I wonder what might happen if one of these vermin tries to enter Ajaxes place, and has to call for Police backup. Because he will certainly have to!
In Italy, where the ban has been in for a couple of years, everybody seems to smoke and the ban courses no problem. Everyone is out side and no one is inside a bar. Fine in Italy where a combination of weather and piazzas make it easy.
I was in Wales a while back. The ban has been in there for months already.
Most of the punters are outside, but without the weather and the space.
The only people inside the pubs are the type of people who dont like pubs!!
All this is bad enough, but their itchy controlling fingers wont keep still. They want to extend the ban to public parks and beaches now.
The thing that burns me up the most is there is no evidence for secondary smoke being harmful.It is pure self righteous spite on the part of the Holy.
Should dictatorial control freaks like Jasmine be allowed to have children? It’s a given that bullying has a severely detrimental effect on the emotional well-being of children, so I think there’s a strong case for psychological screening of all would-be parents.
The smoking ban is actually a good thing. It allows UK senior police officials to pursue ever more detections. After all, it’s the stats that will really make society safer. Sir Robert Peel said so his own self!
I can’t stand smoke. I quit a few years ago, and the smell brings back my withdrawl symptoms in a big way. You ever have the kind of headache that causes nausea? And makes you really irritable? And it was REALLY REALLY difficult to find smoke-free places to eat or drink. I tell you, I’m 30-some-odd years old, and I can’t freaking feed myself! I NEED Big Mommy!
Big Mommy is watching you. Do you love Big Mommy?
Jeezus, I’ve already got a mother. I call ever every week or so. I really don’t need another one.
Background on that link for US readers:
Police in the UK are assigned targets by the Home Office (we don’t have anything analogous here) for how many “detections” they need to get. A detection is where a crime is recorded and the suspect is arrested or “cautioned.” The only difference between that and a ticket quota is that there is no major difference.
I use the term “arrest” advisedly. In most states over here, for misdemeanors I typically will issue the suspect a summons and have him sign a promise to appear, and release him at the scene with just that promise. In other words, we’ll normally trust them to show up. Custodial arrests are rare for misdemeanors, and normally involve either reasonable belief that the suspect will fail to appear or reasonable belief that the suspect will be a danger to himself or others if not taken into custody. The arrestee can post a bond to secure his appearance, and leave. In most cases, anyway. And the bond, or a decision to keep him in without allowing bond, is made by an actual judge.
In the UK, suspects will often be subjected to a custodial arrest for even those minor offenses where there is no danger and no flight risk. They’re taken to a police station, photographed, fingerprinted, and have a DNA sample taken. They may or may not be able to post a bond and walk out, but that decision is made by a police supervisor rather than a judge.
Pretty much everything that we know about policing in the context of a free and open society as first invented in the 1800’s by an Englishman, Sir Robert Peel, who created some rules for policing that IMHO are pure wisdom.
For me, this situation is like having a friend with a great life and a beautiful wife and an amazing family life, who screws it up with a drinking problem. You don’t want to say anything, for fear of sticking your snout into other peoples’ lives and alienating your friend, but at the same time he’s got something really cool and he’s trashing it.
True. My smoking chums and I recently took a trip across the Severn crossing into Bristol, a sort of farewell to pub smoking in the U.K.
As it was a very pleasant evening we enjoyed our first early evening beers on the patio area of a bar. Whilst spraying passing children with bullets, sorry, smoking a cigarette I was called inside to assist with carrying some drinks – as I set off through the front door of the pub with my cigarette I felt myself recoil and my arm shoot back towards the door, the sort of reflexive reaction one might make if you forget to hold the door for somebody who is just about to pass through it. What made me react this way, well I can only conclude that it was two and a half months of conditioning in non-smoking Wales. I felt ashamed for being so quickly broken by the anti lobby and reminded of how quickly and insidiously the state can act to define the limits of moral (or social) behaviour.
Jazz clubs just won’t be the same without smoke; if anyone is interested in developing a machine which emits faux tobacco-smoke and a suitable accompanying ready-rubbed fragrance in order to recreate that authentic 4AM fug, feel free to [I hereby place the original idea in the public domain in the hope that someone will make a healthy profit from it].
One already exists Tanuki.
It’s called Kenneth Clarke.
Lovely idea though 🙂
Some stats-
9.50 Billion in tax from Tobacco to the Govt
2.60 Billion estimated cost of smoking related diseases to the NHS
One must believe the stats on “smoking related diseases” mustn’t one.
How are they arrived at , I wonder, all those hundreds of thousands of deaths?
Cut to scene in Mortuary-
John Doe 6. Full rigour to the limbs and neck.
Are you getting this Simpkins?
Yes sir.
Oh look at his right hand Simpkins!
Filthy tobacco stains!!!
Tick the box for smoking related Simpkins
But sir!! He died of gunshot wounds!!!
Shut up and do as your told!
I hope the likes of Jasmine will be happy to make up the 6 Billion the Govt will be looking for when the rest of us are forced to quit smoking.
RAB,
She won’t have the six large, and she’ll have to try and take it from us. Well, from you anyway, because if she comes here she’ll be told, in a thick French accent, to go away lest she be taunted a second time.
Nick M. is correct. People should be allowed to run pubs where smoking is allowed and pubs where it is not allowed – as they see fit.
The root of this problem (which covers a lot of things as well as smoking) is calling private property (such as shops or pubs) “public places” – they are not public, they are private.
If you do not like a shop (because of smoke or some other reason) do not buy things there.
And if you do not like working in a pub (because of the smoke) then go work somewhere else.
Wages and conditions of work are a matter of agreement between employer and employee. If you think you are being treated “unfairly” – then find an employer who values your services more highly (or work for yourself).
Back in the days when it was legal for me to work as a security guard (before licensing) I guarded (for example) the removal of asbestos – everyone around me were dressed up in moon suits, but I was just in my normal uniform.
Ditto when we used to guard people with dangerious forms of T.B. “keep people away from him” (as non people we were imune).
My favourate was the (once common) practice when guarding places where there were mainframe computers. “Make sure all people have left the site before activating the hallogen [spelling alert] gas system” (the function of the system being to automatically put out any fires that might occur during the night).
We would carefully make sure that all people had left the site and then activate the fire system – and sit with it for 12 hours. Any spark might have set off the system – and terminated the person guarding the site (still at least it meant that guards were detered from smoking).
This is what voluntary agreement is about.
And I would certainly sit with a gas system for 12 hours than book a load of trucks on and off site.
You know a society is in trouble when children harrass an adult smoking where it is definitely allowed, such as in the open air. Do you reckon these children are concerned with the adult’s health? Nope. It’s licensed bullying.
“Has it occured to you that this is a nanny state because we need nannying? “
Gaaaaah!!!!
The correct retort to that is:
“Has it occured to YOU that we need nannying because this is a nanny-state?”
The problem lies with licensing. Because X amount are issued everyone feels they own a part of the private property to which the licenses are issued.
Oh I left a “*” hanging.
I can’t wait ’till the Smoke Police turn-up to advise the troops at Bagram Airbase about smoking-cessation.
“Hear that sarge? That’s the noise a bureaucrat makes when expelled from the muzzle of a 155mm gun.”
The really sad thing, Jonathan, is that this view is widespread amongst the educated middle classes.
I was at a party on Saturday and expressed reservations about the anti-smoking laws. People looked at mas though i had just proposed legalising baby-killing.
Nanny-statism is deeply entrenched in people’s psyche.
How do you break this?
So let’s get rid of Licencing!
How Hogarthian could it get?
than it is already.
No, Cleanthes, the correct retort to that is, “No,” plain and simple. We are free adults. We don’t need nannying.
I would also point out to this nutcase, irrelevant though it is to the argument over personal liberty, that while it is true that nobody “can dispute that smoking is not good for you,” we can certainly dispute the idea that smoking is not good for those around you. Rather like anthropogenic global warming, the enemies of liberty have taken an unproven theory, and through years of repetition, had it accepted as fact in spite of the lack of supporting evidence beyond the anecdotal (“What about that Roy Castle, eh?”).
pommygranate: I was at a party on Saturday and expressed reservations about the anti-smoking laws. People looked at mas though i had just proposed legalising baby-killing.
Nanny-statism is deeply entrenched in people’s psyche.
How do you break this?
Two pronged attack – utilitarian arguments against the current ban/prohibition and proposing to outlaw their particular habit on the same twisted logic. The actually justified natural law arguments are always trumped by collectivist utilitarianism in public debate, which, as another commentor has pointed out, leads people to suppose the public has some implicit ownership over private property which is ostensibly indiscriminately open for their access. Which they don’t.
It’s ironic that the analogy for being against a smoking ban is baby-killing, given that the ban actually forces people to smoke in their own homes… in the proximity of their children and elderly relatives – the most vulnerable. The tv adverts showing smokers infecting their children inadvertently through passive smoking seem prescient, rather than convincing.
I should have typed “I would certainly rather sit with a gas system for 12 hours than book trucks on and off a site”.
If one is baby sitting a site one can do things (read, write, exercise). Whereas if one is messing about with trucks (or other such) one can do none of these things.
I would rather be in danger of losing my life than be irritated. It is called freedom of choice.
Whenever I start to think I’m falling for the idea that we are crusading the in the Middle East to protect our liberties, stuff like the smoking ban reminds me that its all so much buncombe. The terrorists are wicked, but the government bureaucrats seem to be more proficient at turning Britain into a police state than any Islamist.
‘I read somewhere that having a smoking “section” is like having a peeing “section” in a swimming pool.’
As long as it is my swimming pool it is no one’s business what I do in it; if you do not like it, have your own!
Some people claim (including at least one poster here) that because it’s not proven that it causes health problems for non-smokers, it’s alright.
Or that the government is doing it for the health of the smokers.
Let’s assume it doesn’t cause early death in second-hand smokers (although there likely is at least a tiny effect, as some studies show).
So what ?
What it does do to non-smokers is smell bloody horrible, cause breathing difficulties, make all your clothes stink and your food less tasty.
Why do 75% of people favour the ban ? Because some of them are useless smokers that need Mummy’s help to stop, and because the rest know just how obnoxious and foul it is.
If anyone wants to disagree with the ban due to freedom issues, then fine. I agree.
But claiming that it doesn’t adversely affect non-smokers, and isn’t a foul thing to be doing isn’t even fooling yourself.
Yes of course the smoke masks farts and body odour. Because it’s so much more foul and overpowering than those.
I favour a ban in actual public or state operated places, same as I assume that it’s illegal to open little canisters of tear gas around the place. I don’t agree with the ban in private places (such as homes, pubs, restaurants), although I find it hard to reconcile that 75% of people are in favour of a government ban, but the market has seen fit to have so few non-smoking pubs….
RAB, there’s lots of evidence. Here’s some that took me about 15 seconds to find:
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/2/156
It’s not conclusive proof, but its certainly evidence, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Secondary smoke is harmful, just like eating loads of butter and cream is harmful, and working in the fishing industry is harmful. Something being harmful isn’t a reason to stop doing it, and certainly isn’t a reason to force people to stop doing. But facts are facts, and there’s plenty of evidence that second hand smoke is harmful in various ways.
Just a thought:
If passive smoking has a similar harmful effect as actually smoking, as is often claimed, why don’t “passive smokers” develop the same craving for nicotine that smokers experience?
Do I gather that you find smoking FOUL Gib?
You must, considering the amount of times you used the word in one post. A subjective judgement, I think you’ll agree. Sweaty armpit or Cigar? Hmm close call.
Like most people on this site, whether they smoke or not, the basic principle is of choice.
There were smokeless pubs before the ban, You had a choice to enter a smoke filled environment or not.
Now I am, under Criminal Law forbidden to light up in the same space my forebears have for 400 years.
If you dont want to smell of smoke etc it’s your choice.
Now where’s mine for a pint and a fag in convivial circumstances amongst fellow “Filth” (those that foul) ?
J It’s like the Global Warming stuff, the we should all be dead from CJD, AIDS, Asian Bird flu by now, but for some reason that they cant quite explain, we’re not.
I do not trust the voodoo science. You obviously do.
The problem with the smoking ban is that they banned an activity rather than mandating an outcome.
The issue, right, is interior air quality. Now we have no real issue, in general, with mandating safety: you don’t allow clouds of benzene in super markets, and the evidence these bans is based on is generally of the kind used for other health issues.
The problem is that rather than enforcing air quality, and allowing bars to figure it out by either stopping people smoking, or installing smoke fighting technology (ventilation, ionization, filtration, magic wombles etc.) they mandated the behavior.
Same issue with, say, seat belts: if somebody invents something that works *better* than a seat belt, but it isn’t a seat belt, what do you want to bet that stupid laws will prevent it ever making it to the market?
Don’t they?
I smoked for about fifteen years before I quit. Now, a few years later, I get withdrawl symptoms from being around smoke. I don’t know whether it’s the nicotine or the smell, but I tend to get a headache and become irritable and REALLY REALLY WANT ONE whenever someone smokes in front of me.
On my own time it’s easy to find smoke-free places to be. Except, for some reason, at the gas pumps. It amazes me how many people will pump gasoline while having one lit. That’s the rare occasion where I will lecture someone about smoking: when it does unequivocally endanger me.
On the clock, though, I would sometimes have reason to go into bars. And while I was in there, it was not over quickly and I did not enjoy it because between the smell and the drug I REALLY WANTED A CIGARETTE. That’s okay, I didn’t come back and spend any money on my own time and the First Principle of American Policing is that “Sometimes, it just sucks to be you.”
The free market could have settled this issue just fine. Hell, the free market DID settle this issue just fine!
I have just been told by a workmate that despite the ban,smoking is still allowed in the bars of the houses of parliament,why does that not surprise me?shameless snout in the trough hypocrites,God i despise politicians.
Vinay Gupta,
if somebody invents something that works *better* than a seat belt, but it isn’t a seat belt, what do you want to bet that stupid laws will prevent it ever making it to the market?
Already happened. Ford (amongst others) had the lean-burn engine pretty much ready to go to market but then it got nixed by the knee-jerk blanket imposition of catalytic convertors.
Yes RAB, well spotted, I find smoking foul. The choice of armpit or cigar isn’t the point. The actual choice is armpit or both armpit and cigar…
I wasn’t arguing with you on the freedom issue regarding private property, so no need for you to complain to me about that.
Your comment that you don’t trust the voodoo science is interesting… Health issues weren’t my original point. I do many worse things for my health than inhaling second hand smoke, that’s for sure. But it’s not rational to claim that that you know second hand smoke isn’t harmful at all. I’m sure (well, hope) you agree that smoking is bad for the smoker. Why does the smoke coming through the filter hurt you, but you claim the smoke coming out the other end doesn’t harm anyone ? That’s not even considering the studies that do show it’s harmful. Even if you don’t trust those studies, there’s no rationale to believe it causes no harm at all.
Tsk Tsk Gib. I didn’t claim to know anything.
All I said was that there is no evidence to prove that secondary smoke is harmful in any meaningful sense of the word.
The irritation factor to non smokers is another matter entirely. I certainly feel for the likes of Sunfish who gets that kind of reaction and go out of my way not to inconvienience people with my smoke. I never have smoked in restaurants for instance.
There could, and should have been a compromise on this , but then the health of the public was never the real issue. Government control freakery is the main issue. A one size fits all blanket ban because nanny Govt doesn’t trust us to do anything for ourselves.
Similar to its advice to pregnant mothers to drink no alcohol at all. Any evidence of any harm Gov?
None whatsoever, but we think you’re all thick. So we will lie to you to get you to do what we want!
There could, and should have been a compromise on this , but then the health of the public was never the real issue. Government control freakery is the main issue.
Exactly. That’s why it might be better not to bring up the health issue at all, as it undermines the freedom of choice argument.
I find myself cheering on the actions of Mr Dave West. Not just an avowed libertarian but the man has, rather cheekily, also retained Tony Blair’s wife to prosecute the government in breaching Mr West’s human rights in its attempt to ban smoking at his lapdancing club.
Taking up smoking as a protest against the smoking ban might be seen as going a bit too far though.
RAB,
You channelling me?
That is precisely what I wanted to say.
The whole lot of it.
How do the fuckers get away with claiming to be God-Emporers over us all? Over fine Nottingham educated minds like ours? I wish to make an open invitation to our Lords & Masters to get out of the ministerial Jag and walk a mile in my Nikes. Just Do It!
They would be amazed at what they have wrought.
Gib says
Being bitten on the neck by vampires is quite harmful. Everybody knows that.
That’s why I wear this garlic around my neck. Even if you don’t believe in the existence of vampires, there’s no rationale to believe that the garlic offers no protection at all.
RAB, apologies for reading a little too much into your comment.
As for “Government control freakery is the main issue.” What do you make of the statistics that 75% of people are in favour of the ban ? It’s not like the government is going against popular opinion here. I think the government thinks they’re doing the right thing here, and in some regards they are.
Unfortunately the regard in which they are doing the wrong thing are biggies. Liberty, freedom and private property rights.
It’s not just the government that wants a nanny state with no regard to liberty, it’s the people too.
Gib this is a forum for lively debate!
No apology needed.
The trouble with opinion polls is that they are media led. Even us smokers over many years have been led to believe that we are somehow guilty.
The true picture though, for us Libertarians is the market.
Someone, perhaps yourself, started developing a theme, that how come there were so few smoke free pubs before the ban?
The stats show that for Ireland, Scotland and Wales the sale of beer in pubs has dropped 15%.
To be fair, sale of tobacco has also dropped, by 5%
Now as you know, i’m not a great believer in stats, but the evidence of my eyes is that there are a lot of people drinking and smoking in car parks while the juke box inside plays to an empty building.
This is not sane government!!!
Sunfish, to make your analogy more analogous, you’d have to assume that it’s been proven that a large amount of garlic does have effect at keeping vampires from biting you. The unknown then being whether the small amount around your neck helps…….
If you’re selling any of those rocks that keep away tigers though, I’ll take one.
Having met people like this, who suffer from what superficially can be diagnosed as a severe mental illness, I’ve found that 5-10 minutes spent in their company asking them why they think like that more often than not has them, (if not turning to the good side of the force immediately) reflecting on the reasonableness of preferring persuasion over diktat.
I’ve never smoked. Not once. (Tried as a lad, but couldn’t, because my throat closed up.)
Now, if people smoke around me, I don’t care. Yeah, it makes my clothes smell. BFD.
If I’m stuck in a lift with a woman wearing too much perfume, I wrinkle my nose. BFD.
Whenever I’ve walked down London’s Cromwell Road, the smell of diesel exhaust is quite strong. Whoop-di-doo.
All this control shit comes from a “me-me-me” attitude, where one person’s dislike of something leads to a desire to coerce everyone else to acquiesce to their whims.
And before anyone asks me about people with severe allergies to perfume, smoke, peanuts, whatever, let me say just this: I don’t give a rat’s ass about them.
Sometimes, life is just unfair, and what’s left is to make the best of it.
Smelly clothes vs. the State persecuting individuals for what is essentially harmless “unsociable” behavior?
I’ll take the smelly clothes for $100, Alex.
Now why am I not surprised the Samizdata sycophants are smokers to a man?
Smokers; too gutless to man the barricades, and too risk averse to emigrate. So suck it up you chain smoking chumps. The boot’s on the other foot now. Medical considerations have compelled me to avoid smoky atmospheres, which as a consequence stunted my social development. You can tell. So naturally I concentrated on wealth acquisition.
Now why does everyone take an instant dislike to me?
“I’ve never smoked. Not once.” Kim du Toit
“Yes RAB, well spotted, I find smoking foul.” Gib
“Taking up smoking as a protest against the smoking ban might be seen as going a bit too far though.” Julian Taylor
“I smoked for about fifteen years before I quit.” Sunfish
I take it English is not your first language.
Because you are an arse?
It saves time….
You’ve got to admit it – the swimming pool “peeing section” analogy is a good one.
I’m an occasional smoker (as well as good club distance runner) but your arguments are desperately weak. There are lots of unpleasant antisocial things you aren’t allowed to do in pubs; this is nothing to do with “deep psychological problems” and everything to do with civilised living.
I don’t smoke, although I enjoy the odd cigar on the official UK non-smoking day, as a sort of poke in the eye to the nannies out there.
Have you never heard of FOREST (“Freedom Organisation for The Right To Enjoy Smoking Tobacco)? A libertarian-leaning organisation, it and many smokers have protested what has happened, but the wall of public indifference is thick. As for emigration, what is the point? Many other nations seem determined to head down the same nannying route, although I guess much of Asia, Africa and Latin America is exempt. But it is as tradeoff – there are plenty of other reasons why I might want to avoid those places.
About 70% or so of the UK adult population do not smoke. Are you seriously so socially inept that you find it hard to interact with such a large body of non-smokers?
As the late J.Enoch Powell used to say, to ask the question is to know the answer.
Smokers, risk-averse? Has nobody told you smoking’s dangerous?
That’s why I don’t do it either.
I do not smoke either. And I think that the people responsible for the ban should be tossed into the nearest lake.
Why so edgy, boys? Missing that nicotine fix are we? Any civilised country would have banned use of tobacco products in enclosed spaces decades ago. Banning sales would be logical, but that would open the door to organised crime. So on the purely pragmatic level, wise not to do so, yet. All those, “Colonel Blimp” types are confusing a civil rights issue with a health and safety issue. I do grasp the “common cause” aspect, so when (make that if) the revolution comes, guess we’d better reserve you the downwind section.
So smokers are risk takers? Now that really is sad. Instead of bitching about the Labour government, just fly the coop, guys. Don’t you realise that the act of remaining in UK is passive support of a de-facto police state? Only slackness, laziness, incompetence and sheer bloody-mindedness on the part of those tasked with enforcing said police state prevent it becoming absolute.
Have you noticed how smokers have a different excuse for every day of the week? Now what was that colourful expression of the US Marine Corps on the topic of excuses?
See if you can get the punch line right this time. Maybe you’d better wait for PdH to tell you your opinion.
Authortarian claptrap. A “civilised society”, Terry, is one in which there is an acceptance of privacy, of private spaces in which the owners of said get to set the rules, not the state. If you, for example, set up a restaurant and decided to enforce a certain dress code, it would be no business of mine to tell you to stop. It is your private property. This is the essence of the matter.
One can readily accept all the negative things people say about smoking or other habits but that is besides the point. The point is the right of property owners to dispose of their property as they wish so long as they do not violate the rights of others to do the same. It is not really all that difficult an argument to understand, when you think about it. If I own a pub, and permit smoking, I don’t force you to enter it or work in it. You can go somewhere else. In a society in which 70% of the adult pop. do not smoke, this should hardly be a difficult choice to make. In a free market, many pubs and restaurants will outlaw smoking because doing so is good for business. So why the need for a blanket ban? Where does this mania for control come from, Terry?
Terry Wrist has a reading problem. Various people (inclding myself) state that we do not smoke (and never have) – and then Terry claims that our opposition to the smoking ban is based on missing the “nicotene fix”.
As for “health and safety” – very many violations of basic liberty (in many fields) are “justified” by this slogan.
Note to Management.
Could you check with the suppliers of trolls please.
We seem to have had a sub-standard batch lately.
As you know, the minimum requirement for brain cells set by the Annual General Meeting
Was two….
Heh.
BTW, RAB: did you get my reply to your e-mail?
Yes dear lady thankyou.
You obviously didn’t get my second one.I’ll send it again.
Off to glastonbury for dinner, where with a crisp chardonney to hand, we can watch the poor bloody tourists flogging up and down the Tor.
Those lucky bloody tourists:-)
I have never been to the West Country. And, most likely, never will (time has marched on).
It is sad. Perhaps if my family had never left London things would have been different – but the world is full of might-have-beens.
Paul the West Country isn’t Mars Mate!
My hospitality is famous.
I’m sure I can persuade Midwesterner, Nick M, Billy Beck, Sunfish ( he has promised not to arrest us all for whatever might happen later) Alisa and others to move down the couch to make room for you.
It could be a hell of a party!
Seriously, You are seriously welcome anytime.
And Nesses snaps would beat the socks off of the De Havillands. So there!
It’s Sunday night. I’m listening to some stomping Blues only to find out from my neighbour at the door that his wife has two days to live. No there’s no joke coming, that happened a few minutes ago.
My advise Paul , is to grab as much life as you can.
Cos it is all too soon gone.
In a free market, many pubs and restaurants will outlaw smoking because doing so is good for business.”
So why didn’t they do so in the days before the smoking ban came in? Either because almost all of the proprieters enjoyed having smoking on thier premises, or because they did not see any financial benefit in banning it. Smoking is a minority habit that impacts on the majority and has done for the entirety of its existence. For too long, smokers have imposed their will on others. They now have the nerve to claim that they are on the receiving end of such an imposition. Smoking has not been banned: you can still smoke, but not in public places where it affects others. Think of it in the same terms as the “ban” on driving cars. That’s the ban on driving cars on the pavement, by the way. The only way to ensure that the majority are not exposed, against their will, to the whims of a selfish minority, is to outlaw smoking in pubs. Bleat all you want, but it beats a “nanny smokers’ state”, which insists on all partaking in a habit that most think unpleasant.
Ugh, buggered up the formatting. Only the first paragraph was by the “Coachandhorses” character.
A privately owned pub (or shop, or whatever) is not a “public place” CoachandHorses, and if you do not like smoking in a pub (that you do not own) and the owner does not agree with you – you can sling your hook.
If it was my pub I would just ban you – so I did not have to listen to your statist bleating. This would also mean that you could not inform (as I am sure you would) against anyone who was smoking in the pub.
You should welcome such a ban – after all drinking is bad for one’s health and “the cost of the treating damage by the N.H.S. hurts everyone….”
RAB – I know that life is short. A lot of life (energy) has already left me. It was an effort just to walk into town on Saturday – and that was just my 42nd birthday.
As for going from Kettering to the West Country for a visit. Not practical – too much money and takes too much time (it would take most of a day just to get there).
In my position and at my age it is not going to happen.
Oh you poor poor old man!! (spoken in the voice of Harry H Corbett)
I am putting together a care package of Sanatogen and Glucosamine Sulphate as we speak and winging it “Care of” Kettering Council.
Look lad ! I’m 55. How about I hitch up there and see you debate in the Chamber. 🙂
Happy birthday by the way, and as you know by now the invitation is sincere… And Open.
RAB, if I manage to come in Aug, I promise to pick up Old Paul along the way.
Well, not really along the way, now that I checked the map, but I’ll still pick you up, Old Man. Happy Birthday, BTW (I just had my 47th a couple of weeks ago). Life she is a female dog (or rather a cat, being a dog person myself). Still, beats the alternative most of the times, as RAB’s neighbor can readily attest, I am sure.
Jonathan Pearce – Well I’m glad that at least you don’t agree with your buddy that a free market would inevitably lead to a plethora of non-smoking outlets. That is precisely why the Government need to intervene. Most social groups will include both smokers and non-smokers. Hitherto, that has meant that, generally, those groups will go to places where smoking is permitted. Yes, you might argue that the non-smokers should have stood their ground and gone their own way (no doubt you would be most understanding of such a stance), but is it not less socially divisive, and more reasonable, to ask smokers to step outside if they want a cigarette, rather than having smoking and non-smoking outlets? If it came to a choice between socialising with my smoking friends while they smoked or not socialising with them at all, I would choose the former, as would most people. Under this law, I don’t have to make that choice, however. Non-smokers have been compromising on their preferences for years. Is it too much to ask smokers now to do the same? If it is, we can always fall back on the argument so beloved of many on this blog: If you want to smoke, no-one’s forcing you to go to the pub…
Paul Marks – Your public places argument is baloney. Have you considered what would happen if, for instance, you were to walk into a pub and expose yourself (even if the landlord said it was OK)? You would, of course, face criminal proceedings. The term public places refers not to ownership but to usage. it is a well established legal principle for public law to apply to privately owned outlets. Until now, that law has not applied to smoking, but to take issue with the principle is to take issue with centuries of legal precedent.
CoachandHearses
They have places like that. They’re called ‘strip joints’ or ‘gentleman’s clubs’ over here. And during deer hunting season they feature male dancers since the majority of women don’t hunt.
“Public” refers not to ownership or usage, but to the intentions of officialdom to control it. If an owner of an establishment attempted to selectively reduce access in a way that meddlers like you don’t like, he will be prosecuted. People like you confiscate property from people by first compelling open access, then second by claiming to protect the people you forced the owner to admit. To do this you must first destroy the far longer legal precedents of property and contract.
Where I live, all of the restaurants I frequented either chose to ban smoking or had excellent ventilation systems so that I never even smelled tobacco. As a former smoker, I would have. Into this environment that was very satisfactory for all concerned (except control freaks like you) came control freaks like you banning smoking in all ‘public’ buildings.
Like all politicians, you arrived to late, ‘did something’, and claimed credit for ‘fixing’ what free choice had all ready solved. Your next step (in case you don’t know) is to demand more power to smother any malcontents and, given enough absolute power, you will make the world perfect. If it weren’t for this problem of private property and contract, there is nothing you couldn’t solve. Right?
I don’t know where you live, Midwesterner, so I cannot comment on those specifics, but I do know that, prior to the smoking ban, non-smoking places (especially pubs) were few and far between in London. I ask again: why is it so unreasonable to expect smokers to make that small compromise in the indulgence of their habit? I have not yet mentioned the employees. No doubt you will tell me that they all work in smoke-filled environments on the minimum wage because that is what they want to do. Not so, surprisingly. If we gave employment rights only to those who were in jobs that they really wanted to do, we would still be sending 12-year-olds down mines. It is always those in menial jobs who have least clout with employers. As for my next step, I desire no power to smother the malcontents. You can bleat on all you want, just as you did when they banned smoking in offices, on the tube, on aeroplanes, and in cinemas (I would be interested to know whether you support any of those bans). You got over it then and you’ll get over it this time, because it’s simple, really: if you want to smoke, no-one’s forcing you to go to the pub.
Being completely banned by force of law is hardly a ‘small compromise’.
So were these unwilling employees kidnapped? Conscripted? Press Ganged? If they do not like the working conditions, are they prohibited from quitting? Yet the true lie in all this is that the ban even applies to private clubs and to employees who themselves smoke. Even if you expressly hired a person to work in a smokers club and warned them there will be smoke in the air (i.e. no possible surprise being sprung on the worker when he turns up for work at the private members club), even that is banned.
This is just authoritarian crap, control for control’s sake and it is disingenuous to say the least to pretend otherwise.
“Completely banned by force of law”. Not quite true is it? Unless, all of a sudden, you’re talking about crack cocaine rather than smoking. I refer you to the analogy with driving a car that I made previously. It’s banned on pavements, but that is some way short of a complete ban. The compromise to which I refer involves stepping outside to have a fag. And yes, that is small compromise, one made daily by smokers who work in offices.
On the employment issue, you do not seem to realise that there are degrees of coercion. No, no-one is forced to work at gunpoint anywhere, but employment law has long recognised that economic imperatives will induce people to work in unsatisfactory conditions. If employers are given carte blanche to negotiate all working conditions with employees, exploitation will inevitably result and the exploitees will be those with the least power to choose where they work.
Finally, a point that I have made (to deafening silence) twice already.If you are so attached to this simplistic and socially ignorant “no-one forced you” line of argument, why are you so unwilling to apply it to smokers? Who’s kidnapping them and forcing them to go to the pub?
Banned on the private property that the owner satys they can smoke on… your analogue is false and a better one is banning people from driving on a private piece of land.
Why? I happen to be a great supporter of the idea of trade unions. But of course why bother with negotiations when you can use The Boys in Blue, eh?
No one, but they are there with the owners consent doing what the owner says they can do (unless he bans smoking of course), so why should they be the ones who have to go outside because some third party is on a power trip? It is rather like using the force of law to make a restraint owner serve chips but not beans because that is what you want.
I was only saying to a contributor to this site the other day- by their handles shall ye know them.
Yours suggests a person who thinks he spots a gap in the logic of an arguement and trys to drive the proverbial through it.
Well what is it about grown up choice that you appear not to understand?
People power works both ways if allowed.
I worked in the advertising industry years ago. I was what is called a “Creative”. Part of a small team of about ten, who sweated the blood to get the tasks done.
We all smoked. Our CEO, like most with too much time on his hands, decided to dabble in our lives and drunk on the milk of human prodnosedness, to make the office smoke free.
We offered him a choice. Either we smoke or we resign.
The economics of having no company left sobered him up no end.
That workers choice is now no longer available because Criminal law has taken the grown up bit out of being a grown up!!!
Are you just terminally dense, CoachandHorses? Pubs are private property. Repeat: they are private property. A commercial cinema is private property. A restaurant, ditto. No one is forced to enter these places, or work in them. If the owners of said permit smoking in all or part of their premises, that may be unpleasant for you and for me, but we do not have a right to enter these places. What you want, as is bloody obvious, is to tell owners of private property as to how they run their property.
With the Tube, it is partly funded by the state and so voters, who pay for it, are entitled to ban it or restrict it (although the Tube emits fumes and pollution that equals smoking in its hazard).
With aircraft, it is commercial decision. You do not have a right to fly on a particular airline, although I’d point out that in this day and age, pro-smoking airlines would struggle to make a living. In fact, I’d like to see more choices, such as airlines that put noisy kids at the back of the plane, etc. In a truly deregulated airline industry, this sort of choice would be a lot more common.
You are twisting the point. The point is that a pub is private property, and people who enter such places have no right to be there on any conditions; what counts is that the owner of this property sets the rules. So, if the owner permits smoking, or bans it, or sets a dress code, or whatever, then the customers have no cause for complaint if they do not like the rules. They can go somewhere else. An employee who does not want to work in a smoky pub can work in a different place. It is called choice. Why is this concept so hard to grasp?
Your points about airlines, the Tube, etc, betray a similar lack of clarity of thought. An airline is a private commercial business (I will leave aside the state-owned ones for this argument). A private airline can do what it wants and people who do not like smoky planes can choose to fly with a different one. In a deregulated market, that is how it should be. I do not like flying sitting next to screaming kids and I would, for example, cheer any airline business that provides creches or whatever for the nippers to leave the rest of us in peace.
Remember, no one has a right to enter private property. That applies to the examples I have mentioned. It is a simple argument, and you are frankly being disengenuous and quite clearly just want to enforce your preferences on the rest of us. I may, selfishly, approve of smoking bans, but as a point of principle, I loathe what these bans represent.
” I happen to be a great supporter of the idea of trade unions. But of course why bother with negotiations when you can use The Boys in Blue, eh?”
First, the power of unions is decidedly limited in situations where they protest against standard, legal working conditions, which, until now, included smoke-filled pubs. The only way to give unions a leg to stand on against a practice is to make it illegal, hence the boys in blue. Otherwise, the landlord is able to find another bar man who is slightly more desperate for work and continue as before.
Secondly, when I referred to those with the least power to choose where they work, I had in mind precisely the type of people who work in largely non-unionised industries, such as pubs. The point of health and safety at work legislation is to ensure that people are not forced to weigh up whether their health is of more importance than their wages, a choice that they should not have to make.
As for this tiresome private property argument: it might be owned privately, but it is open to the public. The owner therefore has responsibility for ensuring the well-being of the public who enter it. Smoking has been rightly recognised as a factor affecting that well-being.
Finally, RAB: I understand perfectly grown-up choice. I also understand that smokers leave non-smokers with the choice of putting up with their smoke or leaving, which strikes me as more of an adolescent attitude to choice. Would be interested to know what your collective stance would have been if there had been a couple of non-smokers among your number?
Just smoke outside guys, it won’t kill you! Er…
Coachandhorses writes:
So? If a person is “desperate” for a job, he is still making a choice, however difficult. It is one thing to say that a person is keen to find work, another to say he or she is forced. It is not a nice situation to be in, but even so, it is not coercion (a basic mistake that collectivists make is assuming that difficult or unpleasant choices are somehow forced).
See my comment above. You are confusing power with liberty. Freedom to choose is not the same saying that I have the power to do what I want. I have to wear a shirt and tie and put up with other restrictions in order to do my job; it would be nice if some of that could be changed, but is how the world works. Clearly some work conditions are unpleasant, but competition is still the best way to level up the standards, and that applies to boozers as much as City offices. Consider: if pubs did not require the expensive costs of licences, etc, it would be much easier to create pubs, including non-smoking ones to cater for the 70% of the adult population who do not smoke. Problem solved.
No: if the pub tolerates smoking, the persons who enter this “tiresome” private property do so understanding what they let themselves in for; the owner is not my mother. So long as the customers know the rules of the house, they are implicitly consenting to say, a dress code or allowance of smoking, or whatever.
The idea that a shop owner etc has a “duty” to his customers beyond any voluntarily entered contract, either written or implied, is pure bollocks. It is statism by another name.
I am quite enjoying this joust but I have to leave it.,
I do love the ingenuity of my fellow humans, dont you?
A new word has just been coined for you Coach !
Bansturbator !
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2062061.ece
Jonathan Pearce: Your bracketing together of a dress code and smoking is instructive. What someone wears has no effect on the health of those around him, in stark contrast to what someone smokes, which clearly does ( regardless of what tobacco firms would have us believe). What you have failed to grasp is the uniquely damaging nature of smoking on non-paticipants. I repeat: the private property argument is bollocks. (And no, I’m not terminally dense, although presumably we are all terminally something). Pub landlords can’t allow masonry to fall in on the premises, or bare knuckle bouncers to box the ears of patrons on a whim, even if the landlord says they can and advertises the fact. If you think they should be allowed to do so, I suggest that you really are wasting your time in this country.
“some conditions are unpleasant”, is a perfectly acceptable line of argument. Until, of course, those unpleasant conditions (ie please smoke outside) affect the smokers.
“Uniquely damaging”? What, you mean unlike the pollution one ihales on the Tube caused by the amount of rat poison and burned metal?
Even if one assumes that the effect of inhaling smoking is as bad as you and some others claim, so what? You dismiss my private property argument because, being an authortarian, you dislike any barrier to your enforcing your views on other people. How hard is it to grasp that one is not forced to enter privately owned places, either as a consumer of goods and services, or as an employee or trader? Seriously, there seems to be some sort of mental block here. A privately owned place does not suddenly, mysteriously, transform into the property of the collective mass as soon as it opens its doors for business. That is why I made my rather rude remark about your denseness. (I take it back; I think you are worse than that, a statist to the core who wants to get his way and bugger any “tiresome” principles about private property.)
It is certainly true that the rights of property owners have been steadily eroded in this country; take the proprietors of gay bars, for example – they are not allowed to restrict membership to gay men and women and must admit heteros, for example. However, if I am “wasting my time”, it is probably because the likes of you have the tempoary – I hope – upper hand in the political world. God help us.
The smoking ban isn’t really about protecting people for their own good. Not really.
In fact it is like Jasmine points out, similar to the peeing-in-pools ban. While it might be pleasant for the person doing it, it’s unpleasant for everyone else. So the continent use our collective muscle to oppress the incontinent. Just as we use our collective muscle to free our environment of unpleasant smoke.
This is tricky one for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. Is it justifiable? How about the urine in the pool? Just how unpleasant does something have to be for people not to be expected to tolerate it?