🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3tpmc5$es6@uuneo.neosoft.com>, astroboy@neosoft.com (Mr. Fun) wrote:


:  I realize that government CAN ban smoking in restaurants.  I just don't
think 
:  they should.

Fair enough.

:  Not the same.  A fireworks display is not a restaurant.  If the same thing 
:  happened in a restaurant, then you could have gone to the management and 
:  complained.  Then it would be up to them what to do.  If they want to sell 
:  food to loud drunk people, THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DO SO.  If they want to 
:  sell food to people who smoke or fart or wear too much perfume, they
have that 
:  right, too.  You of course have the right to eat somewhere else.

My point is that bad behavior drives out civil enjoyment. A restaurant is
a public place and *good* behavior should be the standard. I agree we
should insist on it. That's why I support mandatory non-smoking sections
in all restaurants. Smoking is not civilized behavior when it is indulged
in in the presence of non-smokers who have not consented. 

:  Why in restaurants?  I can see it in work places, in govt. buildings, in 
:  hospitals, in schools, etc.  But restaurants are optional.  No one has to go 
:  there.

That's true in one sense. But we are supposed to be running a society
here. We have handicapped access laws for that reason, and they apply to
restaurants. By your reasoning, the handicapped can just eat at home.  

I know people who have asthma (which I think I thpelled right.) Should
they stay home? 

:  Then lets leave free markets out of this.  I'm advocating that people take 
:  responsibility for their own lives and just refuse to eat anywhere that 
:  offends them.  What could be simpler?

Forbidding smoking in enclosed public places. That's *real* simple. Let
the smoker's step outside, or go to management and ask for a smoking
section. 

The onus is on the people exhibiting the behavior, not the people
objecting to it. This concept is the basis of civility, and the attitude
that those who *object* should have the burden is, at its core, an
attitude that undercuts civil life. It is the attitude of a barbarian. (I
don't mean to flame you here. I mean this literally - that it is barbaric,
*in the context of civil life*, to insist on imposing one's disruptive
behavior on other people, as judged by those same other people.)

My own position is that smokers should be accomodated, where possible, and
that it is reasonable to make such an effort. I suggested a few posts back
that we should reserve Tuesdays and Fridays for "smoking days" at
restaurants, and though I meant it in jest, it just might work! And I *do*
understand the civilized enjoyment of a cigar & brandy, after a meal,
though I don't do the cigar part meself.  But if push comes to shove, and
it is the smokers or the nonsmokers, the nonsmokers win, hands down, IMHO.

H.

=> When any action is regulated by law, the incentive for individual conscience to govern is diminished, unless the law coincides with almost universally held moral standards." --Greenleaf's Principle