We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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“Smoking is healthier than fascism” I must say that I like the style of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Rather than playing the game with mealy mouthed statements so typical of a lot of think-tanks, they push their ideas with a catchy boot-to-the-goolies like “Smoking is healthier than fascism”. Not surprisingly this is available on a tee-shirt from those most righteous pranksters, Bureaucrash.
I feel a purchase coming on…
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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No no no… NO! Not the “Fighting Whities” guy. This is a serious matter and for serious matters one must always go British. Therefore, I nominate the Sturmey Archer guy from 1936. I mean just look at that amiable smile. He’s perfect for the job.
http://www.sturmey-archerheritage.com/detail.php?id=219
Well obviously smoking is healthier than fascism. I have smoked for fourteen years and am in rude health. The same cannot be said for the likes of Herr Goering et al fourteen years after the Nazi rise to power in 1933.
And before anyone mentions it, I know I still have nearly ten years to go till I can best Mussolini’s cronies.
But I am trying my best.
I stopped smoking after ten years because I was tired of getting bronchitis twice a year and constantly coughing and being short of breath. Until I reached that point, though, no amount of being nagged, glared at, or made to stand outside could sway me. Now, my city has banned smoking in all public places. To me, it’s more of the welfare mentality. It’s the “Let us help you since you’re too dumb to help yourself” thing, only with a health twist… “Let us decide what you can and can’t do since you’ll just make your dumb self sick.” I think, for some people, that does start with having their hearts in the right places, but we know where it leads. Haven’t we seen enough examples yet of what happens when the elite few control the daily details of the common person’s life?
Two problems:
1) “Passive smoking” in public places; why should smoke-adverse libertarians have to put up with this shit??
2) Smoking causes illnesses which are quite expensive to society. Shouldn’t taxes on tobacco consumption be sufficiently high that non-smoking taxpayers have to pay £0 for lung cancer treatment for smokers etc..?
I have read every single word written by Ayn Rand! I am the very ideal of the Rugged Individualist!
Therefore, I will demonstrate my uniqueness and individuality by smoking the exact same brand of cigarette that all the other really cool and popular teenagers smoke!
And I will pretend that my lack self-discipline, internal strength and personal integrety is actually an example of my Inner Objectivist Superiority, just like John Gault!
So, yes. go ahead and smoke. But, like masturbation, do it in private behind the closed doors of your homes so the rest of us who had sense enough to see what a filthy and stupid practice smoking really is don’t have to see you acting like the pathetic tossers you are.
The state is not your friend, and neither is R.J. Reynolds nor Philip Morris.
Marcus – The answer to “2” is that tobacco taxes to cover health costs would be unnecessary if the onus of health costs were on the users (and their insurers).
I figure this is as good a place as any to ask a question I’ve got, as a follow up to Marcus’ comments above.
I agree that government is bad, and should make as few laws as possible, and that smoking bans for pubs etc are bad because it limits the owner of the property to do what they want with their property…
But, why are libertarians usually happy to allow people to smoke in “public” ? Why should I, in a public place, or government run place have to be assaulted by people’s second hand smoke ? It really is very offensive. Why can’t I get them charged with assault, same as if someone sprayed some other noxious smelly substance around ? Or why can’t I have a free pass to spit in the face of anyone who’s smoking near me ?
Serious question. As you can tell, I hate smoke, and am mostly libertarian, but can’t yet get with the “party line” on this issue…
I don’t like smoky atmospheres because I find cigarette smoke unpleasant (I believe there is some doubt as to how unhealthy it is) but I do not support an all embracing, gvernment sponsored ban. The decision should be with publicans and licencees.
As to the health “costs”; don’t forget to add back the pensions saved when discussing the cost of smoking related deaths. I don’t understand how a smoker’s death from lung cancer can cost so much more than my death from prostrate cancer, and absorb the extra pension I’ll receive.
Smokers also die younger thus being a smaller burden on the health system. Of course you can avoid this problem entirely by requiring people to pay for their own health.
Gib: how is a pub or a restaurant a “public place”? Unless, of course, the state has declared the air in those business is now under government control. Or is there no such thing as a private business?
Andrew, I don’t think pubs are public places. I agreed with you in my first paragraph. My second paragraph wasn’t meant to change that, I really was talking about public places there (streets, parks etc). I shouldn’t have put “public” in quotes…
Incidently for those keeping track on Samizdata’s effect on the economy, I just ordered 4 shirts from bureaucrash (the Sumarian, Marx on skulls, smoking/fascism, and capitalists of the world unite).
I must admit I have found it more enjoyable when visiting places like Italy, Scotland, Ireland and New York to enter into pubs and restaurants and not have to put up with smoking, but I in no way advocate legislative interference in the dealings of individuals and their property rights. This is yet another step down the slippery slope of the nanny state. Don’t be surprised by the number of private member clubs springing up about the place for whom the new laws in England and Wales do not apply.
You cannot be a libertairan and support smoking in public. It is fascistic to make others inhale what you have exhaled. (Notwithstanding what any raged trousered objectivists may assert.)
niconoclast,
If you smoke outside or in a sufficiently large hall, you can’t really be said to be forcing others to inhale what you exhaled. If the mere possibility or the mere presence of miniscule quantities of exhaled gas are sufficient for you then –by the standards of your own argument—a libertarian can’t support breathing in public either.
I’m not really clear on how smoking raises healthcare costs. Far as I can tell pretty well everyone spends the last few months racking up a giant hospital bill. Smokers just do it a decade or two earlier.
My my, passions are running high arn’t they!
Passive smoking is the Salem witch trials of our time.
The hysteria whipped up by small minded fanatics, like their brothers in the Animal Rights industry, is quite extraordinary.
Smokers die younger? Well some of them. But then non smokers die all the time too!
Both my grandfathers smoked and they made it to 90. So did my father and he made it to 80.
The only report on passive smoking I have come across said they could find no health risk from secondary smoke.
We have gone from being able to smoke absolutely everywhere to nowhere at all (I believe that the Govt even have private members Clubs covered as well).There are unintended consequences for you rightious non smokers. For instance the air quality is a third of what it was when smoking was allowed on board.Hence the rise in DVT.
But I can do no better than to refer the congegation to a much funnier man than I on the subject.
So get hold of the late great Bill Hicks Flying Saucer Tour CD, and laugh your ass off!
Bugger I missed out the vital words on board airplanes
Sorry folks
By that logic it is fascistic for you to make everyone you meet progressively stupider by exposing their brains to your idiocy. Cease and desist, sir, before the NuLibertarian Gestapo makes the decision for you.
I was about to joke about them also planning to ban driving petrol-driven cars in public places, but that wouldn’t actually be a joke, would it?.
It matters not how large the hall, or even if you’re outside, to be in the stream of smoke off a cigarette, or in the line of fire of a smoker’s breath. In fact being outside can increase the danger zone, because wind takes the smoke sideways, rather than straight up.
Confined spaces merely increase the amount of ambient smoke, which is also significant, particularly for the smell of your clothes and hair, but it’s not the only problem.
I couldn’t care about the health of smokers. Let them kill themselves. And, the health risks of second hand smoke are probably not significant compared to most other slightly unhealthy things people ingest, so that’s not a big factor either. But the foul odour that makes you cough, why is that alright to impose on people ?
RAB, would you care to explain this comment : “There are unintended consequences for you rightious non smokers. For instance the air quality is a third of what it was when smoking was allowed on board.”.
Are you suggesting that smoking on planes increases air quality ? Any evidence to show air quality is worse now, and that it’s due to smoking being banned ?
A pub or a restaurant that is commercially run and does not coerce people to work in it or eat in it is not a public place, but a private place that happens to be patronised by members of the public. Subtle but vital difference. If such places allow smoking, or ban it, or restrict it, then debate stops there. If anti-smokers want more such places so cater for their needs, they will do so. If the likes of Mary Ann Rand or whoever do not like smoke-filled pubs, then don’t go to them, but patronise other places, or set them up yourselves.
And in fact places such as Weatherspoon’s have been doing this for some time, to great commercial effect, I should add.
A large percentage of adults do not smoke and so many places can cater for their wishes. The same applies to privately-run cinemas or theatres. If people hate the smell of smoke they will go elsewhere and those businesses will have to change.
What I suspect the smoke-haters want is to impose their views without regard to any compromise or give and take. I find these people almost frightening in their intolerance. Mary Ann Rand’s remarks are vile.
No Gib, I’m not suggesting it increases air quality in the sense the smell etc. But apart from that irritation, it is a fact that airlines have taken the opportunity to cut costs and reduced the speed of recycling the plane’s air to one third of what is was when smoking was permitted.
I dont have chapter and verse on that. Perhaps someone like Dale can help.
I think it is important to keep the issues separate.
First, smoking is deadly. However, as a libertarian, I believe in every person’s right to kill themselves if they choose.
Second, I much prefer being in bars and restaurants that do not allow smoking, but clearly that is a choice any business owner could make for themselves in response to market demand.
The problem with smoking bans is not that smoking is healthy (it is unhealthy) or that business owners should never forbid smoking on their premises (they can, and indeed I think they should) but that the government has no business intervening in people’s private decisions.
Unfortunately, this is a bad issue for libertarians. For the most part, people only see the benefit of the bans, and see the libertarian concern for individual freedom as unimportant compared to the overall health benefit.
What they do not see is that having a government empowered to make these sorts of decisions also empowers it to make very bad sorts of decisions, but that is rarely understood in such discussions.
For this reason, I generally do not fight against things like smoking bans, not because I do not vehemently oppose them, but because I feel it is not the most productive place to spend one’s energies.
By the way, let me point out that today is the anniversary of December 5, 1933, the day that alcohol prohibition finally ended in the United States. Let us hope that the prohibition of other substances finally ends before December 5, 2033 comes around…
What’s the matter, Jonathan? Did these remarks perhaps hit TOO close to the mark for you:
“I have read every single word written by Ayn Rand! I am the very ideal of the Rugged Individualist!
Therefore, I will demonstrate my uniqueness and individuality by smoking the exact same brand of cigarette that all the other really cool and popular teenagers smoke!
And I will pretend that my lack self-discipline, internal strength and personal integrety is actually an example of my Inner Objectivist Superiority, just like John Gault!”
Were you one of those weak willed teenagers, desperate to fit in with the cool, popular crowd?
How’d that work out for you? DID you fit in with the cool popular crowd, or did they just continue to mock you?
Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em. But do it in private, behind closed doors. No one really likes to watch a pathetic addict feeding their habit in public.
Mary.
Nobody (leastways round here)
Likes to hear a whinging hypocondriac banging on about others obsessions or pleasures.
Smoking is legal. The government is mightily relieved that the E (spit!) U, upheld their right to theft taxation, against buying in from the rest of the EU, where taxes are much much lower.
Why?
They want your money not your wellbeing.
I dont know where in the Bible, that Jesus says
“The self rightious shall inherit the earth and tell us where to sit stand or stoop, whilst going about our lawful business, just because they dont agree with us”
But it’s got to be in there somewhere.
Mary, no, it was not the snide, pathetic remarks about Rand that pissed me off. After all, I have a fairly low opinion of the cult that surrounded that woman although I have a fair amount of respect for some of Rand’s ideas. What touched a raw nerve for me was your diatribe against the rights of owners of places like private pubs to permit smoking.
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I would rather watch a smoker – I am a non-smoker – than have my ears polluted by the ravings of an authortarian bully. Tastes vary, I guess.
That is what annoyed me. I hope we have cleared that up.
I can’t believe anybody who self-styles themselves as a liberal (I’m taking the word back) can be in favour of smoking bans in open-air environments. If, on the mean streets of Manchester, I could imbibe enough tobacco smoke to satisfy me, I wouldn’t need to go to the bloody expense of buying fags from my local Sainsburys with >80% tax added.
RAB is correct (as usual) about the airlines. They never miss a trick. They reduced the air-con the minute they banned smoking. In the US at least, they have also seized the opportunity the federal ban on taking liquids onto flights gave them to the extent that the last time I flew to the USA (on US Airways) I was charged $5 for a glass of wine with my meal. The last time I’d gone transatlantic BA were giving me JD & Coke all the way from Atlanta to Gatwick which was a necessary way to kill the time seeing as I couldn’t have a fag, I was seated in economy between two Lilt ladies, and the movie was absolutely bloody awful.
Other than the FA service US Airways was fine and provided me with six seperate, completely punctual flights that clearly didn’t kill me at a remarkably low price.
Somalia: Islamic court bans all forms of tobacco use, sale
In my earlier comment, I said my city has banned smoking in public places. Now I see many people don’t define restaurants and such as public places. In many ways, I do. I consider them public places if just about anyone can walk in and would have to cause a problem to be tossed out, rather than places where entering without an invitation, password, or some other proof that you belong there is an immediate reason to have you forcibly removed. I can see that my city should have the right to ban smoking in city buildings, or even out on streetcorners. They have banned it in every business, store, restaurant and bar. (With the exception of clubs that have private membership.) A business owner, or whoever owns the property where the business is, no longer gets to make the rules… the city has made them.
Smoking is good for your health.
See, it’s part of my stress management. Smoking may kill me after a long time, but me not smoking and getting stressed out will result in your death NOW. LOL
Another point to be made: Smoking may kill you, but at least you get to keep your soul in the meantime. Fascists want your soul now.
This is wrong on a number of levels. Just because you can walk into a pub does not mean it is a public space because the venue is privately owned, not a publicly-owned, space. If the pub landlord who owns the place has a big sign outside saying “This is a non-smoking pub”, then a person can have no complaints if he or she is ejected for sparking up. Ditto if the pub says, “This place permits smoking but not at the bar,” or whatever. It is not really all that difficult a concept to understand. The choice over behaviour lies with the person(s) who own the particular premises in question. The same applies to any building, with enclosed or open spaces. It can apply to things like dress code, speech, behaviours of all kinds. It is one of the things that demonstrates how private property, when held in many separate hands, allows people to freely associate with their fellows on mutually agreeable terms, without the need for a one-size-fits-all view to be imposed by the state. QED.
Well, I used to be a seriously heavy smoker meself, for some 20 years. Smoking is bad, really bad.
As someone already noted, you get bronchitis every other week, and you’re short on breath every time you rise from your chair to grab your next pack of cigarette in the drawer. Your taste buds go dormant, to the point where every food tastes pretty much the same. And your sense of smell just vanish too.
And that’s before you mention serious things, like cancer and all.
So I quit, and it’s been quite a few years now. I’m in a better shape, and food has some taste again. Joy.
My sense of smell is back as well, and I finally remark that there is a lot of people out there who do not shower and use deodorant half as they should. It goes to the point where I’d rather stand next to a smoker rather than a stinker, for passive smoking beats old sweat emanations any time, particularly in confined areas.
I shall then petition the government for a ban on stinky people in public places.
That’s a truly admirable sentiment!
Look, all you whiny types..
When was the last time that second-hand smoking snuffed out twenty million people?
I should think that second-hand fascism is a much more dangerous phenomenon…
🙂
My problem with my city banning smoking is that this…
The choice over behaviour lies with the person(s) who own the particular premises in question.
… is no longer true. If the place in question is a business open to the public… not a private home, not a club with private membership… then the owner does NOT get to decide if smoking is allowed there or not. Restaurants that had a smoking section had to make their entire dining area non-smoking. A small used bookstore where the owner used to smoke inside and had ashtrays for customers is now non-smoking. The owners did not choose to make this change… the city told them they had to. That’s what I have a problem with.
Phoenix, you are quite right to say that city councils and other political entities have told owners of spaces, such as restaurants or offices, how they must run their buildings. This does not just apply to things like smoking of course, but to all manner of regulations about fire, weatherproofing, the height of ceilings, use of building materials, and so on. What Perry and others are saying is that this state of affairs is wrong and is an assault on property rights. We are under illusions that in reality, property rights have been massively violated. The trouble is that people have gotten used to their property becoming so heavily regulated that they are not really owners in any meaningful sense, but more like park wardens who take some rent.
Oh bummer, I meant to say “we are under no illusions”. keyboard tiredness, I guess.
Actually it is always true. The problem, as discussed in the “we know where you live” comment section above, is that we effectively rent the restaurant/office/house from the govt.
I have seen a number of comparisons between govts and the Mafia and they seem surprisingly neat.
Apart from that, Phoenix, I am really struggling to understand from what angle you are approaching this debate and to see how your comments are consistent.
Johnathan, I couldn’t agree more.
If only I could post my comments quicker…
Apart from that, Phoenix, I am really struggling to understand from what angle you are approaching this debate and to see how your comments are consistent.
I was approaching it from the angle of an average citizen who is tired of seeing her government reach deeper into the daily habits of people, and tired of seeing the people around her continue to vote for leaders who do this even while complaining about what they’ve done. I guess I should have approached it from the angle of an intellectual who has nothing better to do than debate every nuance of the definitions of words such as “public”. I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have disturbed you all, and I’ll come back when I’m perfect.
Phoenix, no need to leave in a huff. You have not been personally attacked, or said that folk who smoke in bars are like someone who performs sexual acts in public (which is what MA Rand did). So stick around. But be prepared for some robust debate if we think your arguments are vague or if we just don’t grasp what you mean.