The Right to Smoke

[European]

O.K. first things first. I'm a smoker. I can do about 20a day. you are right I think that it is one of the WORST things that I have ever started. I would love to give up and hopefully I will this year.

I live in Ireland. Smoking was banned in in public buildings over 10 years ago. it was banned in all work places (including pubs and restarants) last year.

I was and am happy that the Government have done this. And any polls that have been done on this issue, the ban has 65 to 75% support so i'm not alone.

It plesent going out now, even though it means that I have to gut up and go outside to smoke and do you know what? The ban has just been accepted and people now just adapt to it. the only thing that people complain about is the weather.. In fact all pubs are putting in drinking gardens for smokers to sit and have a smoke.

That said, I continue to be astonished with the subject of smoking bans. I understand that hospitals would ban smoking on their premises. And I don't even mind when it's been banned in government buildings. But a statewide or country-wide ban on a perfectly legal activity doesn't make a lick of sense to me - none whatsoever.

But what about the people who work in bars and don't smoke? They don't have a choice about going somewhere else. what about there right to a clean and safe work place?

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And you still do. All that you have to do is get up and go outside when you want a smoke.

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there was a small drop but that was more to the fact that it is cheeper to stay in and drink instead of going out, but that has always been a tradition in Ireland, going out in Ireland can cost up to $200 in a night with drinks, nightclubs and taxies.

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or the smoker can go outside for a smoke. easer solution.

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socitys right to live in an enviroment that's safe and clean. In the fact that smoking related problems cost the tax payer in the amount of taxes he has to pay. (we have universal heath care)

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see above.

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So none smokers have to be smart and the smoker can be dumb coz he can't controll a habit or just get up and go outside for the sake of those around them?

the free markey is not the solution to everything.

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No there would never be something like that. The laws that ban smoking in Ireland and the Italy are based on European Union Law relating to safty in the workplace. America I don't think so. But you could you the same argument that gay men use that it is none of the governments busness what you get up to in your home as a consenting adult.

... but cigarrettes only cause harm to those smoking them, and perhaps those in the immediate vicinity.

wrong....if one person slighs up in a bar, And it's happend but it's mostly tourists, you can smell it all over the bar or club.

I don't think that you can place the health of others over your personal desires to engage in a potentialy high risk activity.

[European]

(banging head softly on wall)

Yes, thank you for proving what a slippery slope universal health care is.

I'm sorry that you missunderstood what I was aming at. I forgot that you don't care about the general heath of socity, but I don't mind paying for a health care that works for all the ctizens. the reason that I said....

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was I was trying to do was reducing the human point to pure economics it the hope that I could draw a picture that you might understand. I'm sorry that I wasn't clear enought.

And as for universal helthcare......that's another story, let's move on.

1. Workers in bars - if they indeed have a problem with it, why are they working at the bar in the first place? And who ever said you had a right to a clean, safe workplace? You don't - hell, coal miners have a dirty job, and it ain't that safe. Of course they usually get more in pay due to the hazards. And speaking of rights, what about property rights?

1. The right of Property is greater than the right of the Individual to be safe? What, as a side bar, if a strip club wanted to open 100m from a school? I'd this that the right's of those children would outway the right to use privet property as you see fit? would that not crupt the school children and turn them all to....drugs? And if you say that it would depend on the community and the community has a right to determin where and what busnesses set up, well then there is a curbe on the rights of property owners wouldn't it?

2. The origional post was about Italy introducing a ban on smoking and as you probable know Italy is a member state of the European Union and in the European Union you do have the legal right to work in a clean and safe enviroment. So let's keep the conversation in context.

3. Coal miners have the protection of health and safty regulations, that is that the are provided whith the equitment and procedures to make sure that there job dosen't cause them to have heath problems in later life, i.e. miners lung, coal dust breathed into the lungs, being the major cause of death among coal miners in the 19th centuary.  it dosen't stop the job being still dangerous, but it reduces the possibility of the job killing you.

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Throwing away freedom for the sake of convenience? O.k. My defination of freedom and yours are completly different. I hold freedom to be the ability to make your own decisions and is not narrowly defined what i can do as a consumer. and it is non-chalant my attude, because I am not being told that I can never smoke again and that it's banned forever. it's just that if I want to smoke I would be required to walk outside and have one.

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I know what it is to live in a free socity. but i know that living in a free socity mean not just what I want all the time that sometime, and you should try this, you could think about others. That I'm not some two year old child running around demanding that everyone else let's me do what I want and to hell with the consequence to others and if they don't like it they can go somewhere else.

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I enjoy smoking and it was banned from pubs, i'm not bitching about it. i'm defending the rights of goverment to regulate certin behavour for the greater good, (i bet you just hate that sentance).  My rights are spelt out in our constitution, and not as an adendum and an amendment to the constitution, and it is only through a vote by the people that it can be changed. the same with the treaty establishing a constitution for eurpoe, the charter of fundemental rights.

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See above. i have more fate in our system of government that you seem to have in your. and yes there have been things that governments in the past have done and i have disagreed with, but i know that i have my chance to change things....when the elections happen. and let me give you an example. in 1982 the government wanted to place V.A.T. (Valued Added Tax) on shoes and there for childrens shoes, and the government fell and an election was held and the government parites got a pasting on election day and it didn't happen.

[European]

because you don't own the heath of others.

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well that may be the case in north america, but in ireland (and a good porten of western europe) smoking advertising is banned. that's really going to get up you nose it's it?

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But it is the duty of socity, which is expressed in the form of the government, to make sure that children are not going to be influnced into smoking by slick advertising. and don't tell me that advsetising dosen't work or they wouldn't spend so much money on it. Now i'm not saying, and i will never support, government replacing the parents of the child but it can provide help to parents through things like banning advertising on tv and billbords.

another thing that I think should be brought into this debate:

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o.k.? cool.

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Why is it so hard to fatham that you could have laws which pretect the health of workers and why would they be so wrong? Where you work is there law to make sure that you are same and free from danger. if that's so why stop others from having the same right to a safe working enviroment?

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because volentary bans almost never work. self regulation can always be given a try but when it involves peoples health, its the rold and duity of government to protect the collictive rights of everyone to be safe.

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see my answer above.

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please see my prevous answer. the bans in ireland and Italy are based on safty in the work place. the ban in Norway is tied to that (coz they'll be joining in another few years [say 2020]) principle of law.

o.k...there are two other posts and it's too late to answer them now so i'll answer them tomorrow.

i'm off to bed so that i can go to work in my smoke free office, eat lunch in my smoke free café and meet a friend for a pint in my local smoke free pub :> talk to ye tomorrow.

[European]

Finally run out of common sense in Ireland, eh?
(not that they had too much to begin with)

hemmmm..........let's move on.

1. who do you think makes up a government? it seems to me that you think that once elected a government takes on a life of it's own outside socity? it dosen't, otherwise can't function otherwise. now this is different from the quality of people that are elected to office and that is down to the stupitity of the people voting, which is a personal choice. You attude seems to be one of something ailen and removed from  socity which only dose harm and not good.

2 "for the common good" yes you have heard it from dictators and it's called propaganda. but that dosen't make it less valid.

3. I quoted the figures to show the affect of smoking and not as a deminstration of how well a ban on advertising works.

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well it started over italy banning smoking and i was trying to give you a legal context in which to judge the law. sorry of you not intrested.

yes being a law dosen't make it right. very ture. laws are social constructs they are location and time spacific and they change and as attudes of socity change. but must suprising is that laws shape the attudes of socity. there is a give and take (interaction) between socity and government, as it's most important institution. it can't be anything else as government is made up and guided by people who are members of socity.

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never heard of this.

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yes, absolutly.

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yes they are. you have right and by placing them into the governing document of a country you set the minimul, in a legal sence, defining what government and anyone else can do and in an actuall sence, where you have the right to defence and restratution if they are infringed. it is true that you have rights which are none legally defined in law but they would be defined as common law rights and not open to infrigment. i.e. the right to bare children, the right to father children, the right to stand and look at the sky.

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but you are more likely to be free under a democratic government.

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that social darwinism, only those who have a strong self intrest will be free and all others will not be. returning to smoking, do you obay the speed limits? it's another form of the law (i.e. regulation) in a different situation.

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so if you smoke where you want to you are free and if you can't then your nor. is that it?

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i have faith in the people, i have faith in my fellow citizens, i have faith in the fact that I believe that people are essentially good and nothing in all my years have changed that fact.

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I think that advertising should be banned. yes i do.

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true, and it's then, as has been said before, for perents to explain to there children.

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then how dose socity express itself? how dose socity do something?

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I never said that advertising was the only reason people start smoking but it is a significant one.

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see above.

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yes that is true and i am a firm beliver of personal responsibility. what about the responsibility you have for the damage you cause to others health by smoking. should everyone around you just go away because you want to smoke and dame there rights to go where they want to and do what they want to do just because you want to smoke and dame anyone telling you different because you'll shout oppression and that people are taking you rights away.

it's been said that none smokers are in the majority. i think that you have you answer there. it is a democracy after all.

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well smoking is now illigal and i know it's a social construct and dependant on time and place and now at this time and in this place they have decided that this is something that they want. and that includs smokers like me.

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please don't talk about anything to which you have no idea of.......[/quote][/quote][/quote]

[European]

Did I make the mick mad?

Mad? no. Just disapointed that this is the level that you rise to.

[European]

Did I make the mick mad?

Mad? no. Just disappointed that this is the level that you rise to.

I was joking with you but you decided to get mad.

If it was meant to be a joke then that's how I'll take it.

The level that you rise to? Er, I think you mean...nevermind...

Think about it.

God that post is awful, European. The 'Preview' button exists so you can correct those quote mistakes. And does the word 'capitalization' mean anything to you? And let's not even begin on the spelling errors. If you want your argument taken seriously, make sure you bother presenting it in proper fasion. Sheesh. (please don't take this too seriously, but I seriously mean it, you wouldn't show up at a business meeting in your pajamas, people will listen and take you seriously when you present yourself as someone to be respected)

Point noted. Thank you for pointing it out.

Now down to business......

Wizard's Second Rule:...........

Wizard’s Ninth Rule:...........

Wizard's Sixth Rule:............

Wizards Rule? This is life, not warhammer.

My response is.....Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rachel Carson, Milton Friedman, John Rawls,  Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Crick. Read them, like what they say. Don't like what they say, but at least read them.

Wizards Rule, is this the bases of all your political thought? As I was reading your post I had to stop and look it up on google. No wonder you have no problem justifying doing what you want.

I have no problem in you pointing out spelling errors and so forth but then to go on and pepper your argument with this drivel has killed any argument you can ever make.

Please go here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_philosophy
read, think, then come back, argue with me.

[European]

I've read these rules.

They are not wisdom.
They are not Truth
THEY ARE A PLOT DEVISE.

It is not intended to be taken as literal. It is not a code of moral behaviour. It is in no way a code that will bring you happiness and understanding of yourself or anyone else. The only reason that they are in the books, and I have to tell you, is to further the journey of the main character and to FURTHER THE PLOT. The only thought that went into these rules are where are they going to place within the story and how they are going to advance the story.

I am in shock. I really am. I was sitting in my office today waiting to come home and see what you had published and you offer this as an argument? I wasn’t going to say anything to you but you reply  with a defence of it. I pray to God that you never get to political office.

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I read fantasy. Have since I was 5, Tolkien to Robert Jorden, Isaac Asimoz to Raymond Feist. so I know how good fantasy can be.

but......

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The most important word in this rule is CAN. Because "sometime the greatest good CAN result from the best intentions." Changing one word changes the intention of the sentence, completely. I know that you don't care about it, but the European Union was founded with the best intention and it has caused the greatest good, especally when you consider the alternative.

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Of course it dose. But reason rules passion, and it dose. It CAN.

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WHAT??? what a convoluted way of saying that forgiveness has a healing power. But looking back on the first rule  (people are stupid) and combining them together, why forgive them? It was probable there fault anyways. You now have the right to do anything that you want.

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How do deeds betray a lie? It is only through looking at the actions and the words of someone that you will understand that there is either truth or decide in there actions. What if someone believes a lie? There actions will conform to the lie that they hold to be true, and another thing. It is very hard to tell if someone is lying to you, just as it is to know if someone is telling you the truth. This is the essence of doubt.

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This is a lie. There is no other word for it, passion is the thing that drives history forward. Passion is the thing that Has made men great and have visited the worst of tragedies upon us. A great man once said "A man who has not know passion has not lived"

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Life is the past, because it is where we came from, it tells us who we are. The history we have of others actions is the life that we live today. Ignoring the past, as is implied in this "rule", and is to ignore it's lessons will only doom you to repeat them. It also ignores the fact the history is alive and well today. You told me that America isn't a democracy, you are right, it's a republic, based on the lessons of the Roman Empire. History alive and sort of well.

Of course, there's a conflict with Rule 3 and Rule 6: Rule 6 says that you can only allow reason to rule you, but Rule 3 says that passion rules reason. Not a good foundation for a political ideology.

These "rules" are cachphrases, sound bits, something that you would read on the side of a cerial box. Not a thought out and well reasoned pholisiphy which can stands up to rigious scrutney. and if you base is not secure then your argument never will be.