🚀 go-pugleaf

cfodor@megatek.com (Chris Fodor) wrote:

> In the case of smoking, the customer has the knowledge of both 
> the existence of smoke (through both sight and smell), and 
> nowadays, the possible hazards inhaling of secondhand smoke 
> entails.  Armed with these facts the customer can stay or leave 
> at their own risk.

I somehow doubt that an employer would give an employee an hour 
off (with pay) because a customer demanded the "right" to smoke, 
though.  So you're saying that the so-called "right" to smoke by 
a customer, who COULD refrain for an hour or so, supersedes that 
of an employee to either breathe smoke-free air and/or keep his/ 
her job?  (A customer CAN refrain from smoking for an hour, an 
employee with asthma or chronic bronchitis CAN'T refrain from 
breathing for EIGHT HOURS ... EVERY DAY.)  Incredible...

Are you really serious in your contention that ANYTHING GOES, as 
long as you put up a "warning sign" first?  If I were a business 
owner and I put up a sign in my parking lot warning customers 
that the possibility of rape, robbery, or murder exists in that 
parking lot, would those activities therefore become permissible, 
on the theory that, having been warned, anyone who ventures forth 
anyway was "asking for it"?  Does the KNOWLEDGE that something 
exists imply any CONSENT?  If a business owner puts a sign on his 
door that said, "Warning!  I might rip you off", should that 
provide him immunity from any possible civil and criminal action?

> You, and innocent bystanders (employees, children in cars, 
> pedestrians walking past, etc...), are also exposed to an 
> inordinate amount of toxic chemicals when you pump your gas.
> 
> Why should gas stations be legal and not smoking?

Maybe this thought never occurred to you, but driving a car 
serves a USEFUL purpose (transportation), cigarette smoking does 
not!  The production of pollutants is but a mere BY-PRODUCT of 
driving a car, and we as car owners have been forced to spend 
BILLIONS of dollars to reduce that pollution, as have the gas 
stations.  OTOH, the production of toxic gases is the ONLY REASON 
for lighting up a cigarette.  (Any other "benefits" could be 
achieved by sucking on an UNLIT cigarette.)

Those of us who are concerned about the effects of second-hand 
smoke back up that concern by NOT SMOKING.  If you're as 
concerned as you claim to be about auto-caused air pollution, do 
you back it up by NOT DRIVING?
 
> Disclaimer for Tommy, etc all:
> 
> I don't smoke.  I think the tobacco companies lie.
> 
> I just believe in freedom.

Freedom for whom, though?  "Freedom" for the smoking MINORITY to 
annoy and/or endanger the MAJORITY of those who do not choose to 
smoke?  Your side could not prevail, in a well-publicised 
election, in convincing the vast majority of California voters to 
vote for the bogus Prop. 185, despite spending millions of 
dollars, so why beat a dead horse here?  The law we're discussing 
exists because:

    a.) our elected legislature enacted it, and;

    b.) a well financed campaign by the tobacco interests failed to 
        overturn it.

As for your oft-repeated claim that you don't smoke, it reminds 
me of the person who said, "I don't use cocaine, I just like the 
way it smells". <g>  The fact is, "smokers" don't "smoke", the 
cigarette does that.  They just SUCK in the smoke.  And if you're 
around them, you do too -- whether you like it or not.

                        *   *   *   *   *



Do you like your Maadi.  I finished making the receiver for a Galil.  I
heard about a  postal worker with all the tools we need to make it
fully automatic.

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