I hear you Radley
I had a similar conversation to this one, but without the moderator. I said that I was displeased about the Seattle smoking ban which demands that smokers stay 25 feet away from the entrance of an eating or drinking establishment. A friend of a friend (who seemed inordinately upset about the topic) exclaimed that he liked the ban because he didn’t have to breathe smoke while getting plastered at the Pacific Inn. I tried to explain that that wasn’t my point, but alas, it was to no avail. He assumed I was a smoker demanding an indoor puff and we got all derailed from there. I am not a smoker.
The moral is that the electorate votes on what they like, not theoretical understandings of personal liberties. You need tyrannical regimes and revolutions to make them think like that. But even after our own revolution, we founded a republic in the hope that representatives could think more abstractly than the majoritarian will. I still hope about that.
Here is a prime example of that. The woman insists that secondhand smoke and transfats are bad, but skips to the conclusion that they should be outlawed. She makes no argument to that effect (though, to be fair, she didn’t have much time). For her, it just simply follows.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Socialism always sounds good on the surface. Second hand smoke is sooo dangerous (like global warming) but you couldn’t just put in a little ceiling ventilation? How about the “Community Re-investment Act” ? There was some feel-good legislation. How’s that working out for everyone these days?