eeewwww

[skeeter]

I'm not a smoker. husband is. Outside only, and never in the car.

I have to agree with Trinityroyal, however. If smoking is LEGAL, then it's legal. If you want smoking to be prohibited, then make it ILLEGAL. Of course, that means giving up the cash cow of taxes, which will never happen.

 

[trinityroyal]

The issue isn't really what personal choices (liberties) they choose to start with per se, it's that they're doing it at all and getting away with it. There was a reason our forefather's worked hard to set up our country the way it was. Because once this sort of thing starts.......it just doesn't stop. Govt in general is nortorious for this sort of thing.

Lisa, you've hit the nail squarely on the head.

Up here in Canada, we're much farther down the "nanny state" path than you seem to be in the U.S. And it's astonishing when you start to really think about all the things over which we no longer have the freedom to choose.

It's insidious, and once the government starts down this path it's very very hard to pull them back.

I'll stop right there, because I'm already dancing very close to the edge of the "political statements" line.

Thing is, you just can't legislate against idiocy, because someone's always going to build a better idiot.

Trinity

 

[eekysign]

No personal stake in this debate, but:

Some of you have been skirting around this issue, but yeah---there are private companies who absolutely make that rule. The main hospital system around here does not hire smokers. I live in Virginia, so I find it kinda funny. Although they just passed a no-public-smoking law, so all bars and restaurants without a dedicated, walled-off smoking room will go non-smoking as of next December.

In Virginia! The tobacco capital!

 

[Fran]

I absolutely believe the seat belt laws have decreased the number of injuries tremendously.
If you get run over by a freight train, it won't make any difference but if you are in a fender mender it will make the difference from post concussion syndrome and possible personality changes to maybe whiplash or even back pain. If you know head injury, you know that a slip disc or even whiplash is a better way to go.
We were legislated to be smarter. You have to be really out of touch to not think a seatbelt doesn't need to be worn.
I hardly ever see kids untethered in cars but I did see some children in both Miami and Dallas where a lot of the population is uneducated and ignorant of laws.

If we couldn't sue then maybe we should be free to be as stupid as we want with cigs and seatbelts but if insurances are going to pay the big bucks then they have every right to say that if you don't wear a seatbelt you don't get insured. We can't have it both ways. I'm not a fan of insurance, believe me but it is a scary world without it. There has to be some middle ground.

 

[trinityroyal]

I don't think there are easy answers, and I agree that there has to be a middle ground somewhere.

I think that legislating auto manufacturers to insist that they build seatbelts and airbags and other safety devices into cars makes sense. I also think that it's sheer idiocy not to wear a seatbelt.

And I guess there is that large group of people who will change their behaviour because they are compelled to do so by law. Seatbelt laws, drunk driving laws, smoking bans...whatever.

However, there is a small group of people who just won't comply with the law, regardless of what the law happens to be. And I think that making more and more stringent laws to try to address those people doesn't change their behaviour, but it makes things much harder on the rest of us.

Here's an example:
Last summer, a young man got into an accident in his sportscar, when driving on a country road nearby. He died horribly and his friends were badly injured. His father lobbied the government to change the laws making it illegal
for people between the ages of 16 and 20 to have any passengers in the car who were under 21. He claimed that if his son didn't have passengers, he would have been better able to concentrate on the road, and wouldn't have died.

Now, I don't think it's right that all 16 to 20 year olds should be penalized for the actions of one person. When I was 15, my brother (16 at the time) used to drive me to and from school, band practice, late night sports games, dance classes, etc. If not for that, I would have been left to my own devices to find my way home alone at night, since my difficult child-parents would not take the trouble. If that law were on the books when I was a school girl, I would have been out of luck, traipsing through the city on the transit.

It seems to me that there's a line somewhere that needs to be drawn.

 

[DDD]

I miss smoking more than I express....after years and years of being a non-smoker. When raising the children I honestly believed that so long as we didn't blow smoke on the children or at the children, it was ok. When easy child/difficult child was in elementary school I read an article written by a qualified expert. The article gave statistics that showed that ear infections and tubes were way way more common for children with smokers in the family.
The article gave statistics about asthma increases and allergy increases in the current generation and tied it to the more potent second hand smoke available now as compared to the 50's and before. It also provided info on the dangers to small babies from the residue of smoke on clothes adults wore when burping/walking, rocking them.

Government intervention is NOT my thing. In all honesty, however, I do now believe that 2nd hand smoke is truly injurious to "some" others. DDD

 

[donna723]

The thing that bothers me most is if they could legally refuse to hire anyone that they considered to be an 'insurance risk'! Where would it end? If they could legally refuse to hire someone just because they're a smoker, could they also refuse to hire someone who drinks occasionally? Could they legally refuse to hire anyone who was overweight, or an older person, or even people with certain disabilities. And could they then legally get away with not hiring women because they might have a baby and the insurance would have to pay?

I remember years and years ago going to a job interview and being asked if I was on birth control pills! It's been forty years and I'm still appalled that I was asked that! And for the record, I LIED and said, "yes" because I was afraid not to! There's good reasons why they can't ask those kind of questions in job interviews now, and they also should not be able to ask about your personal habits as long as what you're doing on your own time in your own home is not illegal!

 

[muttmeister]

OK, I can see the point of a lot of these laws. But I just don't think the government should be legislating this kind of stuff. It sounds like we come down to two kinds of people:
1. Those who think the laws are a good thing and trust the government to protect us and do what is right.
2. THose who can see the point of the laws but who do not trust the government to do what is right.
History has shown that if you give them an inch, they will take a mile. Today they can tell you when and where to smoke and that you have to wear a seatbelt to save your own life, and aren't they wonderful for taking such good care of us? Tomorrow they will tell us that we have to weigh in before we will be allowed to order a burger and fries and that our IQ is not high enough so we will not be allowed to reproduce and that our health issues are such that we would be better off living in a different part of the country so we will have to move. I think we are headed down a slippery slope and our freedoms are sliding away fast.

 

[Abbey]

Very interesting thread.

I've smoked on and off since I was 11. But, as someone else said, I'm a polite smoker. I have never to this day smoked a cig in a house. If I'm in a bar I always ask whomever is next to me if it is ok. If not, I'll gladly walk out the door 100 ft away. I've never smoked in a car. Casinos are free reign. That's why you will NEVER see a blanket smoking ban in Vegas. No longer grocery stores, etc, but the casinos will never go down.

Abbey

 

[everywoman]

My problem is that when we start legislating laws that infringe a person's right to choose---we take away freedom of choice. Today it's smoking. Tomorrow? Fast food--alcohol---the kind of dog you can own----your weight----your choice of music----
There are a lot of things out there that are not healthy----we shouldn't legislate healthy choices.
There is a reason Orwell wrote 1984----it was a warning about the loss of civil liberties!

 

[donna723]

"Tomorrow they will tell us that we have to weigh in before we will be allowed to order a burger and fries ..."

They're getting closer to this all the time! They've passed a law locally that requires all chain restaurants to post the calorie counts of all menu items in great big letters right next to the name of the item! This information was already available most places, on request, if anyone wanted it.

It's like they're assuming that people are so stupid that they don't know any better if "Big Brother' doesn't tell them! If you're watching your weight, you already KNOW that you shouldn't be ordering that double bacon cheeseburger and large fries! People know it, but they do it anyway. And they will continue to do it, but because they WANT TO, not because they're too dumb to realize that Big Mac's aren't diet food!

And the very next step will be when the kid behind the counter decides not to sell you that bacon cheeseburger because he thinks that you already weigh too much and it would be bad for you! Or that your weight exceeds the government guidelines to be permitted to purchase bacon cheeseburgers!

 

[amazeofgrace]

here in NJ I think people have always been able to do that. My oldest son smokes his grape flavored black n milds in the dead volvo wagon, it's his "smoking room", ugh

 

[Star*]

Well if they take away smoking your your car - you know whats next?

Booger picking. And I know this for a fact because the #1 answer on a recent, very serious poll for "Activity you do in your car while driving." - was picking your nose. Talking on the phone #2 and smoking a close #3.

So if they take away your cigarettes - your nose is next.

Dude loves to take long trips and make fun of people digging for gold - he'll bend his finger over and stare out the window at the drive with his finger going wildly like he's giving himself a lobotomy.

 

[Lothlorien]

Can you imagine going to court to fight that ticket?

Judge: "The ticket you are charged with is booger picking. How do you plea?"

Dude: "Not, guilty, Judge. I swear, I was not digging for gold."

Cop: "Was too. I saw him....it was like he was performing a labotomy."

Court erupts into laughter.

Judge: "Community service....three weeks with the booger-pickers."

 

[Nancy]

Hmmmm I wonder if I have a cause of action against my minor difficult child for bringing third hand smoke into my house and stinking everything up.

Nancy