Freedom is not as cut and dry as you would like to think. Just about every freedom that is protected comes at the cost of some other freedom. For example, my freedom to murder someone is squashed and rightly so by a person's freedom to live without getting murdered.
So the debate remains whether or not someone's right to eat at a restaurant, drink at a bar, ride on airplane, work at any those places, etc without having to breath secondhand smoke should or should not supercede someone else's right to smoke when and where they please.
There is not easy way out. Someone has to get their toes stepped on to protect someone else's freedom.
Yes there are those who want to push the argument to the extremes and try to eventually ban smoking altogether, but all I am talking about is public smoking laws which in IMHO are generally good laws. The freedom to try and live a healthy SHOULD trump someone else's right to smoke anywhere that they want to.
Smoking in public is a totally different animal than drinking, gambling, snorting coke, or having sex in public. You could make a much better argument if you were trying to tell me that people should be allowed to walk around nude and fornicate when and where they pleased. Allowing public smoking is nothing short of giving people the right to slowly poison those around them.
By the way I am against seatbelt laws, drug laws, prostitution laws, mandatory auto insurance, and many, many other freedom restricting laws. |
