The smoking ban - a liberal diagnotic
The principle behind the smoking ban is profoundly illiberal. It is predicated on a vision of government as having a duty to protect people against themselves and their own actions or that people are incapable of exercising choice in what they do with their time.
If the government wishes to ban smoking from all government property then fine. They can do that. As the property owner that is their prerogative, but to tell others that they cannot allow smoking on their own property is a violation of their rights.
I am not talking about any right to smoke. You have no positive right to smoke where you wish, that is up to the owner of the place you are in. You do have the right, should you wish, to pollute your body with whatever you want.
The argument that you must protect people from passive smoking is false. People are free to choose whether they go to a smoky environment, or if they work in a smoky environment. Are we going to prevent people from throwing food which smells in the bin because it may offend bin men? Or ban miners from working because of the health hazards? Am I to stop posting to this blog because I may get RSI? Everything we do poses risks, we choose to accept them however. In the workplace we expect more money for a risky job. In other things our pleasure outweighs the risk.
We have had many instances of smoking being banned on property by private and public entities without government legislation. My office has always been non-smoking. No need for government legislation to make us do that.
These arguments, and others have been hashed out many times all over the media. My main point is that attitudes to this smoking ban reveal whether a person can be called a liberal.
A liberal may appreciate the results of the ban (I count myself in that) but cannot support the ban on principled grounds.
Those who support the ban are more like the US ‘liberal’ in that they view the state’s role as protecting you from yourself and managing your life. That is not liberalism, it is authoritarianism. Either that or they are simply selfish and view the state as a means to benefit themselves at the expense of others.
I simply cannot call anyone who urges state intervention in a private matter a liberal. It goes against the very grain of liberalism. There is not even any justification for it as pursuing positive freedoms or as protecting people from the aggression of others (if I willingly go into a boxing ring I cannot complain that I’ve been hit)
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July 2nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Hear, hear - and spoken like a true liberal!
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I would agree if smokers only hurt themselves, but that’s just not true. To say that passive smoking is irrelevant because you don’t have to go where smokers go is bizarre logic - why should I put up with their habits if I want to go to just about any pub or nightclub?
As for suggesting that the market will make some places smoke free, if you’ve ever been in a group where even one person smokes then you almost inevitably get dragged to a pub that allows smoking so that they can partake. Without considering this it might appear that the ‘market’ doesn’t want non-smoking pubs!
Smokers also cost us all money. I’m not going to bring-out the tired NHS argument, but have you looked at the ground pretty much anywhere? There are a lot of cigarette ends. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that most smokers don’t even consider this as littering, but we all have to pay to have it cleared up.
If I was to start shouting loudly into stangers ears in a pub then I would rightly be thrown out. How different is smoking? It’s a selfish habit, and I don’t see any conflicts between being a liberal and seeing the back of it.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
why should I put up with their habits if I want to go to just about any pub or nightclub?
You have no positive right to go to those places. Indeed, as private property you are there on sufferance of the owner.
f you’ve ever been in a group where even one person smokes then you almost inevitably get dragged to a pub that allows smoking
Is the smoker to blame for your decision to go there? Could you not refuse to go? Why should they suffer for your inability to persuade them to go somewhere where they cannot smoke?
I’m not going to bring-out the tired NHS argument
Good because its another fallacy.
There are a lot of cigarette ends.
That is nothing to do with smoking in enclosed ‘public’ places. That is to do with people littering. A different matter, unless you’re advocating banning smoking all together, in which case this argument leads to the banning of anything you like.
If I was to start shouting loudly into stangers ears in a pub then I would rightly be thrown out. How different is smoking?
If you go into a pub where you know there is smoking you do so acknowledging the fact. If someone shouts in your ear without invitation (there may be some strange people who like that - if they ask people to do it then fine) you are being assaulted without permission.
There’s a world of difference.
I don’t see any conflicts between being a liberal and seeing the back of it.
A liberal does not seek to use the state to satisfy their own desires or support infringing on private property. That is an essential part of liberalism.
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
There are many health and safety regulations protecting or mitigating risk in the workplace, and this is just another entirely reasonable one - smoking presents a danger in a workplace, one that can be removed without affecting the work, therefore it’s obvious and simple to prevent it.
Just as it’s not your right to masturbate, spit or defacate as you wish in somebody elses workplace, it’s not your right to smoke there.
I’ve worked in some grim environments - cleaning both hospital wards and pubs, and worked in nightclubs and bars, and unless you’ve worked all night in a busy smokey bar I don’t think you can comment on how nasty cigarette smoke actually is - any other environment where you are working in noxious fumes would mean wearing protective clothing and face masks, but most barwork is very poorly paid with no budget for protective clothing.
It’s common sense to remove an entirely un-necessary risk, which smoking is, rather than require hugely expensive costs of protective clothing and equipment.
A real liberal would be focussing on the far more unjust laws that prevent you producing or taking drugs in your home.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 am
But if a bar owner is willing to provide a separate smoking area, with adequate air conditioning, this illiberal law forbids it! Let the bar owner decide if he prefers excluding smokers or the cost of separate smoke free areas - that’s liberty - that’s democracy. What we have now is the state dictating - and as a liberal, I cannot stomach it.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Bar and club owners have had decades to install Air Conditioning, and develop decent sized non smoking areas. 99% of them have done nothing.
People smoking in public affect the health and enjoyment of many other people. Banning it was the correct thing to do.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Steve,
There is no adequate air conditioning to handle smokers indoors - it can be bad enough on a windblown station platform - in a confined space you can’t flush the cigarette smoke away like a well-formed stool, instead it mixes and remixes - imagine you’re in a jacuzzi and somebody is peeing continuously - despite the water being pumped in and out you’re still going to be smelling of pee when you get out.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
When you entered a pub which allowed smoking you did that with full knowledge that there was smoking allowed.
If there were a jacuzzi which allowed people to pee in it then you’d have no cause to complain if you went in there knowing the conditions and someone peed in there.
And you misunderstand my argument. I am not asserting a right to smoke, I am asserting the property owner’s right to say what goes on on their property.
If I owned somewhere and said people are free to masturbate and spit in that place and advertised the fact to anyone who entered then you have no cause to complain.
It is not the government’s place to regulate this. It is the property owner’s. The fact that there has not been enough demand for non-smoking pubs is not the fault of the smokers but of the non-smokers who prefer to go to the pub whether there’s smoking or not.