busyAyn Rand Institute Press Release
Property Rights Go Up in Smoke in San Francisco July 17, 2008
Irvine, CA--San Francisco is poised to pass one of the nation's most radical smoking bans. Mitch Katz, director of the city's Department of Public Health, endorsed the anti-smoking proposals saying, "Tobacco remains the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S.--period. It's government's responsibility to protect people from obvious risks."</p>But according to Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, "It's not the government's responsibility to protect us from risks, obvious or otherwise--its function is to protect our rights from being violated by physical force or fraud. The American system is not one of nanny-state paternalism, with the government controlling our lives and choices. It is a system in which the government exists solely to protect our freedom so we can direct our own lives and choices.
I don't smoke; I'm allergic to tobacco. However, I still support the right of people to smoke on private property, in designated sections of public places such as restaurants, outdoors, and anywhere else it doesn't trap unwilling participants. If they want to have special smokers' bars or lounges, that's ideal because it lets them enjoy themselves without bothering anyone else. It makes sense to ban smoking in places where it's dangerous (grain silos, hospitals, etc.) or public places where people are sometimes obliged to go (courthouses, utility companies). Beyond that, the bans do more harm than good -- not to people's bodies, but to their liberty.
The easiest way to cut down an inconvenient right is to start by attacking some unpopular group. It's simple to get people to support the attack against someone they find annoying. But that opens the door for applying the same principle elsewhere, which is what makes it dangerous. There's a very famous poem about this technique. Right now, smokers are unpopular. So attacks on smokers' rights are sailing through because other people like the idea of not being around tobacco smoke. Those precedents can then be used to ban other activities on private property -- for no better reason than somebody else thinks they have a right to fob off their personal morality on you.
This also promotes the pernicious idea that the government has a right to enforce what you do with your very own body. Remember the recent attempt to reclassify birth control as abortion? These two things are connected, not by impetus (cutting down property rights vs. cutting down women's independence) but by principle: "you control your own body" vs. "the government controls your body."
Rights only work when they protect everyone, even the people you find irritating. I don't like smoke. But I like my freedom a lot more than I dislike smoke. If somebody lights up, I can move upwind or elsewhere. If the government demolishes property rights and bodily integrity ... that's a lot harder to evade. Our ancestors fought a revolution over freedom, and we've mostly thrown away those gains. That's very disturbing.
If you don't like this trend:
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July 18 2008, 17:37:32 UTC 12 years ago
July 18 2008, 17:44:12 UTC 12 years ago
July 18 2008, 20:13:11 UTC 12 years ago
July 18 2008, 18:29:32 UTC 12 years ago
Right now, the ban is on smoking, because that's what is unpopular enough to get the support. What else will the government decide to ban "to protect people" ...? Because it does a wretched job of actually protecting people; that's obviously not its real goal here. Ask what the government gains from this ban. Scary things.
July 18 2008, 18:41:28 UTC 12 years ago
Smokers do not believe in the right of other people to breathe clean air, in my experience. They believe that the outdoors belongs to them, and that they can smoke anywhere they want. They ignore "No Smoking" signs, and think only of their addictions. Before Barnes Hospital began enforcing their entranceway smoking ban seriously, I'd see smokers light up right next to people in wheelchairs wearing oxygen masks.
Rights without responsibilities? Hell no.
July 18 2008, 18:53:10 UTC 12 years ago
The hit-the-unpopular tactic works precisely because of dynamics like this: it's very easy to seduce people into torpedoing their own rights by waving a target they want to hit.
You don't live in a big city, so you don't see the abuses I see on a regular basis
July 18 2008, 19:28:02 UTC 12 years ago
People ruining beautiful outdoor planters by using them as ashtrays.
People blowing smoke directly into the faces of infants and young children.
People lighting up in movie theatres.
People lighting up in gas stations, just feet from gas being pumped.
I've seen all of these things, and more. The only one I haven't seen repeatedly was the incident in the movie theatre.
If you had to deal with this kind of smoke, and the health consequences of it, regularly, I don't think that you'd still be as eager to defend smokers' rights. When I rode the bus daily, I had many more migraines than I do now. The typical fifteen minute wait for a bus would expose me to as much smoke as a trip to the smoker's side of a bar. I feel guilty about my gas consumption, but I'm tired of the health risk posed by waiting for buses.
The smokers you know may be considerate toward their friends, but how do they treat strangers? That's the real test.
Phone call for Fitt, Mr. Nick Fitt
12 years ago
July 18 2008, 20:12:34 UTC 12 years ago
A completely false statement. See for example
If you're unlucky enough to live where smoking is allowed in bars or restaurants, then waiters and bartenders who do not smoke, and who perhaps do not have the education and connections to pick and choose another job, inhale as much smoke as heavy smokers. Should they let their families starve, or should they take the good chance of dying of lung cancer? That choice sucks.
There are also many outdoor events where smoking is allowed, and sometimes it is hard to find a place to stand where you are not choking on other peoples' smoke. Why should MY right to go where I want without being physically assaulted be infringed, while leaving a smoker free to assault people at will?
Smoking bans do an excellent job protecting people. I can eat in a restaurant in NY since smoking in restaurants was banned here without worrying about the noxious fumes that easily drift over from an inefficiently segregated smoking section.
What does the government gain from a ban? How about a healthier, happier populace? A populace that the government has to spend much less money on in medical bills (Medicare, Medicaid and so on)?
Thank you.
July 18 2008, 18:35:03 UTC 12 years ago
One place in which smoking is particular difficult to escape is bus shelters. They are extremely small spaces, but often constitute the only reasonable place to stand for some distance to stand. By "reasonable" I mean shaded, sheltered from the elements, or even paved. In my area, during a typical wait for a bus, at least three or four people will light up, sometimes repeatedly. Such smokers seldom ask those around them if smoking is a problem. Is it right that sensitive non-smokers have to move upwind into the blazing sun, a blizzard or downpour, or ankle-deep mud because of the "rights" of such individuals? I don't think it is.
Re: Thank you.
July 18 2008, 20:16:09 UTC 12 years ago
here we go again..
July 18 2008, 18:54:13 UTC 12 years ago
http://www.ochealthinfo.com/tupp/laws.htm
I'd much rather they banned or forced the labeling of GMO's. But, oh, wait, that wouldn't involve giving people on the street someone other than the government to bitch about, would it?
Next up, laws against "those horrible _____ people." Who are also asking for it. /snark
otoh, If a state wants to ban tobacco, I think they should just deal with the results of banning it. No tax money from it, sudden new business of people smuggling it, whatever.
And as for damage to people around smokers? How much damage to your person do you think comes from old factories dumping mercury and gods know what else into the air, water, and soil every year? How much from pesticides? How do you think the states are doing on those problems? Think maybe any lack in that quarter has to do with the amount of lawyering up an industry can manage compared to a few smokers?
I am highly allergic to tobacco, corn, cane sugar, tomatoes, and any number of other things that are literally a poison to my immune system. I walk through a grocery store and there are entire aisles that are nothing but trouble and a possible trip to the emergency room for me.
It's my immune system that's wonky.
I don't demand that the grocer remove otherwise legal products for my benefit, and I shouldn't, because that would be stupid. Some people are so allergic to peanuts that opening a package of peanuts anywhere nearby can send that person directly to the hospital. Peanuts are still on the shelves, and they almost certainly don't have warning stickers.
Tobacco stinks and clings. It messes with asthmatics. It marks it's users as a nice little group for other people to look down on. That's it. That's all. That's all that's needed to direct all the 'oh-god-our-lifespan-is-shrinking' crazy at them instead of the stress and weird chemicals that make up a modern life.
*This rant brought to you by a pissed off person with hives.*
Re: here we go again..
July 18 2008, 19:06:09 UTC 12 years ago
The social fabric is fraying. People often don't care about each other anymore. It's okay to hurt people; it happens all the time.
In order to stop that, it takes a personal commitment to community and emotional skills. In the company I choose to keep, smokers politely keep their smoke safely away from anyone who might be bothered by it; and nonsmokers generally don't hassle them. We have a lot of different food allergies and other dietary quirks, so our potlucks begin with a summary of what's in each dish; we don't ban allergens unless someone present is allergic even to air-contact, and that hasn't happened yet. If we banned all the allergens there wouldn't be much left to eat! Last night a wasp got into the house; we shoved the deathly-allergic person behind us while the non-allergic people hunted the thing down and killed it. All this is more work than "you can't play" or "I don't care," but we like the results.
YMMV.
July 18 2008, 21:23:38 UTC 12 years ago
However, in *public* places, it's different. I don't believe that anyone has the right to harm other people.
And this goes for corporations as well as individuals. The only objection I have is that there's too much focus on individual offenders and not enough on corporations poisoning us with pollution.
Earlier in the 20th century, chewing tobacco was quite popular, and people would chew it in public, spitting out the juice. Today, it's accepted that you can't do that in public, but chewing tobacco is still perfectly legal. I think smoking tobacco should be the same way. Legal, but do it in your OWN space.
July 18 2008, 22:40:51 UTC 12 years ago
Although there was much to-ing and fro-ing in actually implementing the law due to vested interests kicking up a fuss, and also some discussion about the freedom of smokers, the law has gone down surprisingly well and we are now at a place where there really is no going back to the old ways. Smokers can still get their fix, but they no longer threaten anyone else's health by doing so.
(I must add that with the exception of my biological siblings anyone I've known who smoked was nothing but considerate.)
I do believe this law works and it was one of the few moments when I felt proud of my government for leading the way on a change that was waiting to happen.
Block That Metaphor
July 19 2008, 16:37:18 UTC 12 years ago
Wait, a nanny, definitionally, is a non-parent performing child care, and so, regardless of gender, a nanny isn't the father of that child....