I hope that nobody in Ireland was naive enough to imagine that the recent public smoking prohibition was the zenith of their government’s ambitions.
Not even close. In fact, they are just getting warmed up:
After piloting through radical laws that will ban smoking in Irish pubs at the end of the month, Irish Health Minister Micheal Martin pledged to bring in new controls on alcohol.
Martin’s smoking prohibition will mean that anyone found lighting up in bars and restaurants after March 29 will face a fine of up to 3,000 euros.
Addressing his Fianna Fail party’s annual conference, Martin said he now planned to target the country’s alcohol problem and to encourage “responsible” drinking, in particular targeting under-age offenders.
Lord only knows what else is on his ‘hit-list’ but his blood his up and his nostrils are flared with the scent of victory so its onwards and upwards to new frontiers of micro-management. His is an addiction for which is there is no ‘cold turkey’. It is a thirst that can never be quenched and neither reason nor persuasion can divert such people from their mission.
How apposite is the wisdom of C.S. Lewis:
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
I have posted this quotation here on Samizdata before but the age in which we live demands that it be repeated again and again.
They’ve got to be kidding.
The statists are going to impose alcohol controls on the IRISH???
With widespread ownership of the means of defence, this would be an immediate death sentence for the revenooers. As it is, it may take some time for them all to become “lost in the swamp.”
Looks like TD Martin is so cocky because the Irish Vitners Association are unlikely to try the litigation path, so he’s effectively won.
As for the “alcohol problem”, what’s the deal? Plenty of alcohol here 🙂 No problem 🙂
James
*The “rare occasional” drinker who would rather be able to own a gun than smoke in a public bar*
According to Sunday’s Telegraph, the anti-smoking militia are planning for heads to roll. They been busy analysing 150 films produced between 1950 and 2002 they’ve found that there are now about 11 depictions of smoking in every hour of the typical film! Eleven!!
The anti-smoking industry has determined that incidences of smoking onscreen are at their highest for 50 years. Fifty years!
And get this! – grab a neat double whiskey to steady your nerves – “As well as the films in the study, other box office hits, including Chicago, the Oscar-winning musical that starred Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger, The Hours, which starred Nicole Kidman, and Monster, with Charlize Theron, have all featured characters who smoke.”
Innocent children watching these movies are exposed to people having a cigarette! Maybe even after the gratuitous sex! A self-righteous prig by the name of Deborah Arnott, the director of Ash, actually wants films which include smoking re-classified. How sad is this woman and her tribe?
Well, so much for my faint hope that Ireland was undergoing a whiff of liberalism.
– Josh
Jeez guys, not everything is a left-wing conspiracy.
There isn’t any intention of restricting people right to a drink in Ireland. But people ARE sick of every A&E hospital in the country filled with drunken yobs every weekend, they are sick of Gardai spending most weekends rounding drunks up off the street, and they are very sick of the huge number of drink-driving offences committed. Nanny state ? Hardly.
As for the smoking ban – the reason that the anti-smoking ban is to be introduced in Ireland is because Dept. of Health studies show that passive smoking is unhealthy (isn’t everything?). However, since it was a govt. study, the state can be sued by any employee for not providing legislation to protect them from smoking in the workplace. Simple as that. Michael Martin has far more pressing things to worry about than smoking – he’s only doing this to avoid another disasterous lawsuit. Remember – this is a country whose soldiers sued because their hearing was allegedly damaged from the sound of gunshots and the odd artillery blast (and it’s not like the Irish Army was getting through that much ammo in the last 30 years).
Funnily enough, every opinion poll shows that most people (including smokers) are in favour of the ban anyway. Imagine – a government carrying out the will of the people.
well said john.
damaged justice – no he wants to stop scumbags selling poison to children.
james – if you want to own a gun, join the IRA. sure it’s practically legal these days.
wild pegasus – yes it is. it’s called michael mc dowell and it’s more of a stench than a whiff.
verity – you may have a point. but on the other hand why should the poison industry be allowed to brainwash children?
why should the poison industry be allowed to brainwash children?
I assume you are refering to state education then?
There isn’t any intention of restricting people right to a drink in Ireland. But people ARE sick of every A&E hospital in the country filled with drunken yobs every weekend, they are sick of Gardai spending most weekends rounding drunks up off the street, and they are very sick of the huge number of drink-driving offences committed. Nanny state ? Hardly.
But it is left-wing the lengths that they will go, and the freedoms they will quash in an effort to do the Good things. It is the mark of hard left and hard right, have a general Good that needs to be done, and stop at nothing to intrude on freedom to gain its control. It’s what separates libertarians from this sort of ilk. I may wish that there were less of some particular malady (in my opinion anyway) but I won’t use the force of the state to change it. There are laws against drunken driving, enforce them as they proper in the sense that a drunk driver poses a direct threat to life and property and leave it that. Regulating and reconditioning are out.
But people ARE sick of every A&E hospital in the country filled with drunken yobs every weekend
What is it of anyone else’s concern if someone checks into a hospital for treatment as long as they pay for the privilege? Unless of course it is State financed. The perfect gambit by the Do Gooders “We’ll save Social Spending Dollars if we nip bad habit X in the bud” just another link in the chain.
the reason that the anti-smoking ban is to be introduced in Ireland is because Dept. of Health studies show that passive smoking is unhealthy
Perhaps one should ask what gave the state the right to confiscate people’s property to do the study in the first place. A state financed ‘study’ is merely the justification for future confiscation. I’ve yet to see a ‘study’ that led to less taxation and regulation. Statism begets statism. Justifying its advance in response to previous ill advised statism isn’t much of an argument.
why should the poison industry be allowed to brainwash children?
I assume you are refering to state education then?
Mr. de Havilland, I don’t know to what length you agree with anything I have commented, on but it’s nice to know we see eye to eye on this. I wish more folk did. Most fellows that consider themselves hard-line fiscal conservatives go weak in the knees when I suggest an end to Socialized Education. They have no concept of anything different. And if one cannot hope to end the State’s influence at this formative level, how does one have hope to actually change the whole system?
John,
Spare me the ‘will of the people’ crap, please and, while you’re at it, you can spare me all the bogus junk-science about ‘passive smoking’ too.
enda,
Nice juxtaposition of the words ‘poison’ and ‘children’. Hits the right psychological buttons despite that fact that you are actually squawking a lot of drivel.
Do you people have anything better to offer than hysteria and lies?
I am not surprised to hear that opinion polls show a majority “in favour” of this disgraceful ban. Talk is cheap and we certainly like to talk over here. I will be surprised if this ban succeeds as anything more than a rhetorical gesture. It is not as if there is anything like widespread compliance with pub licensing hours as it stands.
People may be surprised to learn that here in Ireland, following inevitably from a number of dog mauling incidents, it is illegal for dogs (including, laughably, poodles) to go unmuzzled in public. They may be less surprised that I have never actually seen a muzzled dog on the streets.
people,
as john above pointed out – we are talking on the first hand about industrial health & safety regulation to prevent workers being poisoned by their co-workers noxious exhalations.
now in the libertarian utopia you guys have lined up for us i know the obvious solution to this is that everyone will be armed and if someone lights up in my face i’ll just ‘smoke’ him – until then, i fail to see the problem with banning smoking in the workplace. i mean, you don’t object to the state outlawing sex with children do you? i didn’t think so.
on the second hand we are talking about tighter regulation of the sale of alcohol to children. of course all substances should be legal and people should be responsible for looking after their own kids, but until i can execute that f*ck in the offy who sold my 12year old the dutch gold, i am happy to rely on the imperfect state to sort him out on my behalf.
no perry, you know i wasn’t talking about state education – but that is not what the original post is about. so please stick to the point.
david, what specifically in what i said was drivel?
in conclusion then – until your revolution is over, or at least started, you are in no position to lecture ‘statists’ on such self evidently sensible measures. your idealogical zealotry is every bit as risible as that of the tranzis.
… i fail to see the problem with banning smoking in the workplace. i mean, you don’t object to the state outlawing sex with children do you?
I don’t think much more needs to be said….
of course all substances should be legal and people should be responsible for looking after their own kids, but until i can execute that f*ck in the offy who sold my 12year old the dutch gold, i am happy to rely on the imperfect state to sort him out on my behalf.
In this singular example, you’re right. Congrats. But where do you stand when the State uses confiscated funds for advertising campaigns or to fund ‘studies’? Where do you stand when a State panel of bureaucrats and politicians use the threat of Force to gain compliance from distillers and brewers (like they have with the tobacco industry here in the US)? Where do you stand on ‘sin taxes’ and other efforts by the State to recondition and alter behaviors? These are the things libertarians refer to when we go on about such issues.
To be sure much has changed in the last few decades, but in countering your example a bit, at the age of 12 (1980) I didn’t have the money to be buying any such item even if someone were willing to sell it to me, and I don’t think many children that age did. Perhaps if parents controlled the amount of resources they allocated to their children that might be the first place to start. Parents (at least here in the States) have turned over Billions to their children and then moan about what they do with it. Such resources weren’t available to previous generations. And of course the answer to such voluntary shifts is more of the State to correct the results of poor judgements.
thks toolkien,
i much prefer debate to abuse.
of course i am not a libertarian and so i have no problem with a state using the threat of Force to gain compliance from distillers and brewers if what we are talking about is preventing them from selling toxins to minors. beyond that, i say let the market decide.
you are of course correct in pushing ultimate responsiblity back to the parents, but remember the price of a can of dutch gold is very low (in ireland, we are talking the cost of 2 or 3 mars bars).
of course, when i was twelve, i’d have gone for the mars bars every time, but then i wasn’t subjected to mass media brainwashing suggesting or goading me to seeing things differently.
i broadly agree that a ‘big’ state is a ‘bad thing’ – but cannot bring myself to the view that no state would be better.
Enda:
You don’t need to subscribe to the no-state ideal to oppose the smoking ban. The problem here is that the government is interfering in consenting agreements between adults:
Adult1: I will allow you to smoke on my premises
Adult2: fair enough
Adult 3 who doesn’t want “second-hand smoke” is perfectly entitled to take his business elsewhere. In a sufficiently un-fixed market, Adult 4 will pop up and offer a non-smoking premises to cater for him. That deals with customers.
As for workers, this is ideally dealt with as part of the employment contract:
Employer: the policy here is non-smoking, is that acceptable?
Employee: that’s fine
or
Employer 2: the policy here is smoking, is that ok?
Employee 2: that’s fine.
If it isn’t fine in either case, they may wish to consider whether the job is right for them.
As for sale of alcohol to minors, that’s already illegal. What is the purpose of further regulation?
frank,
i see where you’re coming from, but the situation as it stands (prior to the ban) shows clearly that the scenarios you depict don’t happen, or of they do, only very rarely.
the reality is that there are hardly any smokeless pubs for bar workers to work in, so they don’t have the freedom to ply their trades elsewhere. in a country where 2/3 don’t smoke i would’ve thought that conditions would be ideal for people to set up smokeless pubs, but of course the profits to be made selling cancer sticks mean few (if any) publicans go down that road.
in a libertarian utopia there would be zero barriers to setting up pubs and you’re arguments would be more persuasive but of course in reality it is a closed shop. i think the ban yields the greatest benefit to the greatest number, while causing minor problems for the hardcore fag addicts.
i would take the view that if people love fags that much then they will just have to put up with such inconveniences – we don’t bend over backwards to give heroin addicts free rein to indulge in their addiction, so why should society care about the small minority of irredeemable fag addicts?