Comments on: Amending the Constitution: protection from the tyranny of democracy and republicanism

By: Flood Damage Mission Viejo

Flood Damage Mission Viejo — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 02:37:37 +0000

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By: Samuel Tadros

Samuel Tadros — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:18:27 +0000

Excellent Article. Hope people in the West listen. The struggle to spread democracy in the Middle East has to be based on spreading liberal democracy and not just an elections that would ensure an Islamists victory.

An Egyptian Neocon

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:43:44 +0000

This is like loud noise in an apartment. Complain to the damn landlord. That’s his responsbility.

By: Sally

Sally — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:23:23 +0000

Mark: Because you are releasing the noxious substances into the air we must share. That’s the key point: we do all have to share the air.

That’s a point, Mark, granted. But you’re missing or dodging my and Lee’s point. Nobody is forcing you to “share the air” of a particular restaurant or bar — you’ve chosen to place your nose just where others want to swing their arms. Furthermore, you’re imposing your particular definition of “noxious” on everybody else — what if I find your aftershave, perfume, deodorant, or just your body odor noxious? What if, as I said, your very appearance I find visually polluting? Or, taking it in the other direction, if second hand smoke is now to be defined as noxious, why isn’t car exhaust, as Lee indicated? Shouldn’t we ban cars as well?

Actually, there are people and movements afoot recommending regulations and/or bans on all those aspects of life, so these aren’t mere argumentative hypotheticals. Going down this path leads not just to the Nanny State, but to the Control-freak or Busybody State, and at the end of it we’ll find ourselves in that utopia where anything not forbidden is compulsory.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:19:18 +0000

So, When I affect everyone around me, it matters. But when you affect everyone around you, it’s okay. Because your “smoke” isn’t as “harmful” as my “smoke”. Right?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:13:43 +0000

Because you are releasing the noxious substances into the air we must share. That’s the key point: we do all have to share the air. If you grant me the right to a natural life, you must grant me the right to breathe. That’s not communism, it’s a fact of nature. The atmosphere is a commons.

If allergies to smoke were rare, if only a small fraction of the population were susceptible to nicotine addiction, if most people could smoke without resisting lung damage, it would be different. You’d be accidentally infringing upon the rights of a rare few. But you are instead affecting everyone around you.

You do realize that this principle does not cover chewing tobacco, don’t you (so long as you spit in appropriate receptacles)?

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:11:51 +0000

Carbon “monoxide”, too.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:08:18 +0000

I won’t argue the “principle” to Mark, Sally. Let’s get real.
My proverbial “fist” had to find your nose. Mark’s “nose” comes up to me and says “You’re not doing anything I don’t approve of, are you?”
See, Mark could have chosen a non-smoking environment to go to dinner in, go dancing, etc., but conciously chose to come and hang around me, where it “stinks”.
In most cases, Mark would never choose to come where I frequent, but the possibility he “might, someday” means it must have “clean air” for him to breathe “just in case”.
They seem to think that a place of “public accomodation” is the same as “public property”, which also tells us the typical “social leanings” of activist non-smokers. So I ask: “Would you ever go to a gay bar?” When the answer is “no”(since most smoking nazis aren’t gay), I’ll ask: “Then, why do you care if they smoke in there? ‘Your’ air isn’t in the gay bar.” Then, of course, you get some “rationalization” about the poor employee, who “has no choice” but to work there, and “we” as a “society” need to take care of the “slaves” out there(waiters, waitresses, cooks, rock stars, stand-up comics, etc.)
If they really cared about the “public’s health”, they would pass laws to regulate “their smoke”, too. I’m sure Mark here drives a car, which puts out more carcinogens and carbon dioxide driving two blocks to pick up a gallon of milk than I could blow in his face chain-smoking for a month. He probably heats and lights his house by “smoking coal”, or maybe just “fissions nuclear material”. I’m willing to bet he can “smell” my cigarette smoke from a block away when I’m in my back yard with a smoke, but when he BBQ’s and his smoke comes into my house, he says “What’s the big deal? It’s just a barbecue. It’s not like I’m ‘killing you’. ‘My’ smoke is different from ‘your’ smoke.”
Anyone notice outdoor “European style” seating is becoming more popular? Many are only five feet from the curb, with hundreds of cars smoking in their face, throwing dust from the street on them and their food, but they don’t seem to care about that. Catch a whiff of one “puff” off the end of my cigarette, and suddenly, they’re “dying”.
So it’s not about “making the world safe from tobacco”, it’s about “restricting behavior(still “legal” behavior, by the way) we don’t approve of”, because it’s “my air”. Selfish hypocricy, nothing more.
That is why I have become ‘Taliban Tobacconist’. And I hereby issue my fatwa: “To blow smoke in the face of the smoking nazi infidel is pious and good.”
I also fart(as loudly as possible) more in public, now.
Keep your nose away from me, Mark, or it might just find itself in the way of a “swinging fist”.

By: Sally

Sally — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:55:20 +0000

Mark: Enough [smoke] to trigger allergies, enough to ruin the taste of the dinner or the wine I have paid for,…?

And where does your freedom to regulate my conduct stop? Before you’ve ruined my enjoyment of the meal and wine I’ve paid for, with an after-dinner smoke? Why should your allergies, tastes, habits, etc., be other people’s problem? Or, if they are, then why should your bad taste in clothing, hair styles, etc., be allowed to visually pollute my environment? Freedom goes hand-in-hand with responsibility, after all.

(By the way, I’ve never actually smoked — I am arguing the principle.)

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:47:59 +0000

If your right to swing your fist ends just short of my nose, doesn’t your right to smoke end when a significant amount of it enters my nostrils? What is significant? Enough to trigger allergies, enough to ruin the taste of the dinner or the wine I have paid for, enough to give me nicotine cravings in the morning, enough to raise my risk of illness by something greater than one-in-a-million–we can argue about which rules apply when.

But we shouldn’t be arguing the principle.

And don’t tell me that non-smokers don’t get cravings. Smoke-filled rooms are a great way to get hooked on the stuff.

Freedom goes hand-in-hand with responsibility. If you give over your responsibility to another and trust that he will guard your freedoms at the cost of his interest over the years or generations, you will find too late that you made a grievious mistake. If you convince him that his job is to make society run better, he may take you at your word, with consequences you don’t like. Or he may just use the job to enrich himself. Either way, you’re in trouble.