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Originally Posted by StevePerry
Don't go out to eat then if you can't find a suitable place -- no one puts a gun to your head and forces you to eat out. You can't ignore the property rights of the business owner and disregard the Constitution just because you don't like smoke. You can hardly equate that to the taxation issue -- sure the US is overtaxed from the left and their welfare state and the right and their warfare state, but some level of tax no matter how you apply it is necessary to keep the government running at even a minimal capacity...
I will concede the children issue to you as a valid argument (the direct exposure for 18 years and 9 months, not necessarily the normalizing effect as that would negate the freedom of the child to choose when they become an adult). Smoking around children and while pregnant is very close to a form of child abuse as far as I'm concerned... you see those poor little kids on multiple inhalers b/c their parents are useless pieces of **** with no self control (and usually sucking the welfare nip too, big surprise there)... ****ing pisses me off.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Unchained
Steve how about those people working in those environments? Should they just go and find another place to work? I believe they have rights also. Hell let's just roll everything back to the 1930's where workers were exposed to all sorts of chemicals at work and died as a result of it. Let's allow smoking on airplanes because you don't have to fly you could've drove. Those $100 tickets you bought to that sporting event you can't enjoy because you can't breathe? Too bad you didn't have to go. The more education you have the less likely you are to smoke. Smoking is unintelligent. Obviously property rights are not as important or all of these laws wouldn't have been passed in multiple states. The Constitution is not being trampled as you suggest.
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Being a shut in for the sake of safety makes no sense. Laws are there to protect us. What if it was okay to shoot guns nonstop in public? If you don't want to get hit by stray bullets, just stay home! No, laws protect citizens and allow them to enjoy life while minimizing fear of ill effects.
The "owner's discretion" argument, as I previously stated, is a major disadvantage to the business. 20% of Americans smoke, so you immediately turn away 20% of your business. We all know how difficult it is to "make it" as a restaurant, so that 20% could be a big difference. Of course when it's mandated that you can't smoke, the smokers will eat there, but if they had a choice, they would go to somewhere that they could. The non-smoking establishment would certainly have hostile situations too, since the smokers assume they can smoke because "everywhere else lets me" and then you have employees confronting them and making them stop.