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First came California. The Left Coast statists succeeded in outlawing smoking in "public" places, not only in restaurants but in those traditional havens for hazy atmospheres, bars. Then came small time, East Coast statists who attempted to ban smoking even on sidewalks. (A law subsequently shot down.) Now comes the Big Apple. Not content merely to prohibit smoking in outdoor "public" areas such as sports stadiums, the New York City council now seeks to emulate their peers out West and keep those darn, dirty smokers from indulging in their nasty habits in "public" restaurants.
Aside from the falsehoods-masquerading-as-truth promulgated by the same folks who wholeheartedly supported (and continue to support) the full-frontal assault on the tobacco industry, this sickeningly familiar debate hides a far more serious problem plaguing our society. The subtle corruption of the bankrupt ideas fueling the tobacco lawsuits infects an ever-widening panorama of American culture and life. It represents the triumph of "feelings" over facts and logic, a sell-out to a bald-faced subjectivism that is as outrageous as it is dangerous.
What kinds of "arguments" do those pushing for the outlawing of "public" smoking advance? These people complain because they cannot "enjoy" a meal if someone is smoking near them in a restaurant. They object to the "inconvenience" of having to specifically seek out eateries that do not allow smoking. Beyond that is the horrible problem of clothing that smells of cigarette smoke. The waiters and cooks who work in restaurants that permit smoking claim they should not have to inhale second-hand smoke while performing their duties. Other smokers applaud the total restriction on smoking aboard airplanes since they have "no choice" but to inhale such fumes in the enclosed volume of a plane.
Some anti-smoking fanatics further say that since smokers receive government financed health care for smoking-related problems, then they -- the taxpayers -- should be able to dictate various aspects of the smoker's life.
What do these claims boil down to? Apparently, these zealots believe there is:
A right to impose one's personal preferences on other people.
What these notions actually reveal, of course, is the degenerate understanding that holds sway among too many people of what the concept "public" means, the abysmal ignorance rampant among us of the true meaning of property rights, and, indeed, an astounding arrogance regarding the nature of rights of any kind.
Imagine the breathtaking implications of consistently and fully implementing these "principles."
If convenience outweighed all other considerations, you could demand that another person drop whatever he was doing and attend to your desires immediately and unconditionally. School inconvenient? Make the instructor come to you. Commuting a drag? Make your employer set up a manufacturing plant in your back yard. Work itself an inconvenient imposition upon your desire to watch TV? Why, make them pay you for simply existing. (But then we have this last already in the form of, for example, welfare and farm payments.)
If you had a right not to smell certain odors, you could prevent others from wearing perfume and cologne (hmm...this is already a seriously contemplated proposal); you could force someone to bathe if he sweated too much and had b.o.; you could stop your neighbor from planting flowers whose aroma overpowered your delicate nasal passages.
If you had a right to impose your personal preferences on others, you could, for example, tell them what color they could paint their houses, what they could build on their property, what words were permissible and which offensive, what television shows they could watch, what goods they could buy, what... Well, I guess we have all that already...
What about the evils of second-hand smoke? Unfortunately, some who try to oppose these busybody, condescending nannies don't properly understand property rights, either. They say, "Oh, I don't oppose banning smoking on planes," or "We should either have all-smoking or no-smoking restaurants. There should not be restaurants that have both smoking and non-smoking sections."
No credible evidence exists for any long-term negative effects of casual contact with second-hand smoke. Yes, the smell can be unpleasant or worse. Yes, a small number of people have allergic reactions to such smoke. Yes, if you live day-in and day-out with a smoker, you might be more prone to develop infections. But passive smoke never killed anyone. After all, active smoking requires decades and decades to "kill" the smoker...and sometimes not even then. None of these problems justifies the draconian measures advocated by the smoking fascists.
As for tax-funded health care, we seem forever saddled with the lies regarding the relationship between taxes and paying for the health costs of smokers. These rabid souls seeking to punish all of us for the alleged excesses of smokers say, "My taxes pay for their care, so I get to decide where they should be able to smoke." The truth, of course, is that smokers pay far more in cigarette taxes and in tax-funded services lost via early deaths than they consume in smoking associated illnesses.
Rather than advocating the abolition of tax-funded (i.e., stolen) health care for everyone, the opponents of all things tobacco would prefer to compound the problems we already face and enact even more restrictions on our freedom, smoker and non-smoker alike. They do have a point regarding the fact that he who pays the piper should pick the tune, but situations such as Medicaid services for smokers, public funding for the arts, or tax-supported abortions merely indicate the impossibility of consistently applying rights once the State interferes in peaceful behavior.
If we accepted the belief that behavior subsidized by the State entitled us to micro-manage that behavior, there would be no stopping down that slippery slope. Such a position would justify mandating:
As I said, there is no logical stopping point once we abandon our respect for property and other rights. However, once we recognize that a "public" space (excluding government "owned" places) is nothing more than private property that the owner allows others to enter given certain conditions, we can resolve all the controversies.
Don't like to smell or inhale smoke while you eat, fly, work, or relax? Then don't go where the property owner says smoking is permitted. You have zero "right" to tell anyone what to do with his property as long as he does not coercively make you associate with him. Forcing a property owner to avoid a peaceful usage of his property that he decides is best for himself is the essence of fascism.
These increasingly strident anti-tobacco activists represent nothing less than a "tyranny of the minority." And nothing smokes out these closet fascists faster than to oppose their dictatorial tendencies in the name of property rights.
Of course, none of this brouhaha is fundamentally about smoking, at all. It never has been, any more than any of the plethora of crusades that do-gooders have and continue to inflict upon the rest of us. This perennial battle is one waged between the arbitrary exercise of coercive power and the assertion of personal rights, between indignant, self-righteous tin-Napoleons and self-responsible citizens, between insidiously imposed control and explicitly acknowledged freedom.
As a non-smoker, I vote fully and completely for liberty. All else is nothing more than a smoke screen for gradual slavery.
