Planetarium - politics/music/culture/smarts

Well, shit.

My point on this was that people who profess to be concerned about the public health aspect of this ban are disingenuous. That's impossible to prove, sure, but really how concerned do you think people are about Sam down the street sitting in a smoky bar. It's all about whether it affects you. A comparison to those statistics(which I did not know, so thanks) is this:
2.9 million injuries in car accidents per year in the US.
40,000 traffic fatalities
$150 billion cost

Also:
64,000 cardio-pulmonary deaths per year due to non-smoking related particulate air pollution.

Perspective: I'd now agree that second-hand smoke is a public health issue. I think there are other similar public health issues that people ignore because to do something about(ie., stop driving/support public transportation) it would inconvenience them. I just want people to be fair with their reasoning on the thing. Thanks for pointing out a major weakness in my argument.
P.S. Why is heroin illegal?

There seems to be a good area for concurring here. People SHOULD be as concerned about the negative effects of car exhaust, transport safety, so on and so forth. Planetarium would love to see, at the very least, MAJOR reinstatements of emissions testing for autos in every state in the country. It's offensive and appalling that they've been removed, especially considering they almost completely paid for themselves. (In Minnesota, we owe a big thanks a fucking lot to Jesse Ventura for that one.)

However, the question of parity is always murkier than it gets made out to be. There always seems to be a lot of "ha ha- you're caught in a contradiction!" when it comes to political arguments- i.e. "you hypocrite, you're against abortion but you have no problem bombing large numbers of innocent people overseas!" This isn't an argument, or even a point, really- all it proves is that we all draw different lines in the sand of what we choose to make our stands on. Planetarium certainly doesn't waste any time on animal rights these days, but we're darn glad OTHER people have chosen to make that THEIR commitment. Point being, there can be agreement on the smoke issue, and while there certainly SHOULD be more parity with regard to other public health issues, it's simply not that case, and not because the people trying to get a smoking ban across are all blithering idiots. This issue's time has come. Hopefully, someday the transportation one will come, too. Soon.

Agreed on all points. Just don't misinterpret my point as being that people shouldn't pick issues to take a stand on, but rather that they should be able to look at their true motivation for choosing where that line is. I'd like people to weigh the public health aspect of secondhand smoke in bars against the consequences of banning the use of a legal substance on private property and make their decision on which is more important instead of reacting to their dislike of being in a smoky bar and latching onto the popular argument against it. I think people tend to do this kind of thing with lots of issues, which makes for bad democracy. Taxes, environment, immigration, etc... I think my line in the sand is for quality discourse regardless of which side is right. Which makes me all the more shamed that I could have said something like "there's no evidence for the ill effects of 2nd hand smoke." I'll work on that. I'll stand by what I think I drunkenly meant, though, which is that I have heard of studies that deny that evidence(probably Phillip Morris commissioned, true.)

PS. Hey, Planetarium, what do you think about the neocon idea that the Iraq invasion is an ingenious plan to lure potential terrorists to a region on the opposite side of the Earth from the US?

What is that?! "This issue's time has come"?! What the hell does that mean? Are we so bereft of ideas that it has come time to revive the antiquated notion of prohibition? If it's possible for me to argue for both the smoking ban and a more comprehensive public health initiative, isn't it possible for those driving the campaign against smoking to do so as well? If yes, then why don't they? Hmm...could it be because the greatest share of anti-tobacco monies come through the state, and Appropriations might be a little less affectionate tomorrow if anti-smoking crusaders take a stab at ideological diversity today? Just a thought.

Furthermore, in New York, the people who succeeded in putting across the smoking ban were, by and large, blithering idiots, and the ban had little to no popular support or initiative behind it. Quite the contrary: The NYC smoking ban was the brainchild of our centrist to right-leaning billionaire mayor who spun his altogether absolute decree--a terrifically grand act of noblesse oblige--as a Defense of the Working People. Meanwhile, workers in bars could have cared less--or rather, would have cared far more for a comprehensive public health care initiative, or a comprehensive wage and benefits package for tipped employees... In the great scheme of things, all it has meant is another opportunity for the NYPD to regulate public and ostensibly public space, and for the City to fill its tax-starved coffers by subjecting bar owners to a slew of outrageous fines. Public health was, at best, a red herring and has become, at worst, a cynically debased political concern.

That being said, I don't really miss the smoking.

Exactly.

Agreed- except that, um, public health isn't really a red herring when it actually DOES concern the public health. We'd love a comprehensive health care package, too, but in the meantime, no real problems with regulating smoking. We hate the state plenty, too (as you well know), but just because bad guys come up with a decent idea doesn't mean the idea can't be decent. Otherwise, why are ANY of us talking to anyone else trying to convince them of anything?

Perhaps it's best to look at the ends rather than the means in this situation. It's a curiosity that the wave of smoking bans sweeping our country can be traced back to a corrupt mayor in New York, but probably not much more. The bottom line seems to be static. Perhaps it would be better to take a ban's positive aspects as precedent for acheiving other health/safety legislation versus dismissing it on motive.