You've got the medieval argument backward: smoking in public is the modern equivalent of dumping a chamber pot out your window. *Insert standard quotations about your right to swing your fist and my nose*
Miko,
A bar or restaurant isn't "in public." It's a private establishment with someone who theoretically owns it.
I say "theoretically" because regulations like smoking bans intervene between the alleged ownership and the actual manifestation of that ownership, i.e. control of how the property is used.
To use your analogy, smoking in a restaurant owned by someone who chooses to allow it MAY be like emptying a chamber pot on the floor ... in a room full of people who have voluntarily chosen to be there with the full understanding and advance knowledge that chamber pots may be emptied on the floor.
Hear, hear.
Though, I vote for the original version of the piece.
Tom, the smoking/anti-smoking thing is similar to the abortion/no abortions ever argument - one side is as dead-set as the other against compromise.
It's sad and tragic at the same time (re: the smoking ban vote). Real bread-and-circuses stuff. Imagine, all those REAL problems to deal with, and the Cig Nazis have to waste time and resources to prevent business owners from choosing for themselves. T'hell with property rights, eh.
Commenting by HaloScan
