I've just been to a networking event in a new(ish) bar to the south of the Workers' Stadium - and it was very nice indeed: subdued lighting, comfy seats, lots of dark wood, multiple bars, a couple of decent-looking pool tables (didn't get the chance to play), beautiful garden (not in use today, because we've been having another of those grey, dingy, drizzly days), dazzlingly clean loos, and a couple of high-end restaurants en suite. Damn it, they seem to be doing everything right: the staff are polite, attentive (well, one of the barmen tried to wrap up 'happy hour' 5 minutes early, but he soon gave up on that aberration!), and all seem to speak good English; the drinks are excellent - you can actually taste the alcohol in them! I was even offered a choice of gin brands for my gin & tonic. (If I'm ever offered a choice of tonic brands too, I'll know I've died and gone to heaven!) This place is like Centro - done right.
And then I realised there was something oddly familiar about it. Yep, it's a transplant from Shanghai..... the beginning of a super-swish franchise. I had thought I knew the name - Face - from somewhere, but just couldn't place it. The trouble with Shanghai - and especially with Shanghai's foreigner-friendly bar & restaurant scene - is that it's so bloody expensive!! Typically around twice the price of most comparable places in Beijing, and sometimes more. (I'm told there are some cheap, hole-in-the-wall dives - like my beloved Huxley's - down there, but I've never been able to find one on my rare visits.)
I'm not going to assign the Beijing Face to the 'love it' or 'hate it' list on the basis of one visit. I suspect it could make it into the former eventually (it's affordable during the half-price 'happy hour'; and, although somewhat hard to find, it's not too far away from some other decent bars in the centre of the city). However, as a portent of things to come, it worries me. Pre-Olympic Beijing is in the grip of a creeping gentrification: more and more fancy-dan restaurants, bars, and coffee shops are opening up with alarmingly high prices..... and clear aspirations to being like Shanghai.
Most Beijing residents prefer the capital to Shanghai because it is more friendly, more down-to-earth, more culturally vibrant, and more affordable; Shanghai comes across as smug, pretentious, excessively Westernized, at times strangely soulless.... and super-expensive. The contrast between the two cities is itself quite stimulating, a source of endless debate (Shanghai is a great place for a weekend getaway - but I wouldn't want to live there.) I don't want to see that contrast eroded - but it is in danger of happening.
52 comments:
Are people smoking in the chinese bars?
I'm so happy that is being stopped for good soon here in EU.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa....!!
Smoking in China remains pretty much compulsory. I am constantly being offered cigarettes by Chinese people. Most foreigners here seem to succumb to the overwhelming 'peer pressure' and start smoking here, even if they've never touched a cigarette before in their lives. I imagine it's just about impossible to contemplate giving up smoking here. Chinese restaurants are particularly thick with smoke: people smoke before, during, and after the meal.
You get used to it after a few months.
There is talk of a smoking ban in Beijing during the Olympics. It will never work.
It sounds once again that I wouldn't like the place. It sounds as if they have picked up where the rest of the world has left off more than half a century ago. Do they not have any "smoking kills" campaigns? Or nicotine plaster and chewing gum adds in all the medias?
no.
smoking is cool.
so is drinking yourself silly.
and walking in construction zones with heavy debris falling.
and driving without a license.
and exposing all the electrical wires to wet surfaces and humid air.
This country just LOVES living on the edge.
Why is it people think they have a right to enforce their own smoking preferences on individual private bar owners?
You want a non-smoking bar? Open one up yourself. Stop messing with other people's livelihoods because you don't like something.
Hey Brit CB,
How's the "enforcing personal smoking preferences on private bar owners" thing coming along in the DC area?
As i was leaving, they were getting ready to do just that.
Has all the business migrated across the Potomac to NoVa?
If people like their smoke that's fine with me, as long as they don't kill me while they enjoy their smelly thin friends.
It's not fair that people who don't like smoke should not be able to enjoy the night life (or bar/cafe life) just because they also want to stay alive and healthy. It's not a bad idea to have both smoking and non-smoking bars, but then people would need to start changing their social groups and friends.
One more thing to add to "living on the edge" in China:
Spotted this morning --- a dad placed his baby daughter in the basket in the front of the bike, then got on the bike and pedalled off... The basket had not been adjusted to hold babies... it was your standard bike basket, hanging off the bike handles, all metal mesh with an open top and exposed nailheads.... oi vey!
Hey, she should be happy she's alive, being a "daughter"!
Some say it's not that bad anymore. I hope that's true.
Tulsa - DC is now "smoke free" without a huge loss of business as far as I can see to Nova.
And, earthling, I don't think you get what I am saying. I hate to break it to you, but you don't have a right uner any rights theory I know to a bar without smoke. If they were all run by the government, you might have a case. But (thank God - a nationalized bar) they aren't. Private individuals put their cash and sweat into establishing a bar. They should, to a large extent, determine what happens in that bar. If you happen, like me, to intensely dislike top-40 music, should you be able to require that no bar can play top-40 music?
The great public desire for non-smoking bars wasn't very successful in developing a rash of voluntarily smoke free bars, was it?
I think "freedom from being subjected to extreme physical discomfort or harm" figures in most "theories of rights", Cowboy.
The argument of the anti-smoking lobby is that the activity is so anti-social and noxious to health that it can be construed as an assault on the person. Odious as most Top-40 music is, it's probably not going to kill you. It might, of course, make you deaf if played at extremely loud volumes - but, what do you know, the law intervenes to prevent that sort of thing. You might think there's a world of difference between making it illegal to break a beer-glass over someone's head (or just to behave in a loud, loutish, objectionable way - which will get you thrown out of most bars eventually, even without any actual physical violence) and blowing smoke in someone's face.... but passionate non-smokers won't. You should show a little respect for their perspective.
Heavy drinkers are statistically more often smokers than non-smokers, I think; and it's pretty darned difficult to discourage smokers - especially drunk smokers - from smoking, no matter how many "No Smoking" signs you put up. I suspect that's why non-smoking bars haven't really appeared, rather than a weakness of demand from the non-smoking population per se.
Personally, I'd far rather see compulsory (completely) smoke-free rooms (and/or an all-smoking or all-non-smoking option) for bars and restaurants rather than this blanket ban.
Where does a right to inflict grievous harm on yourself (and, indirectly, on others around you) figure in your "theory of rights" of choice??
As you should know, froog, blowing smoke in someone's face is already assault, and prosecutable as such.
To be honest, if someone wants to set up a bar that advertizes that in here, you may be hit randomly on the head by pint glasses, then good luck to them. I think they will probably get no business, but there it is. Once people are aware that an activity is going on in a place, it is largely there choice as to whether they enter such an establishment.
You don't have a right for their to be a bar that caters to your tastes. Nor do you have a right for a bar not to be allowed to serve peanuts, even if you are allergic enough that a small amount of peanut matter in the air causes your throat to constrict. Nor do you have a right to a bar where no one wears perfume, even if perfume on others makes you violently ill. The bar owner has the right to set up a bar that does not serve peanuts, does not allow perfumed clientelle, or does not allow smoking. But you don't have a right to make him do so.
The glass on the head analogy is not accurate, though. Breaking glasses on people's heads is banned throughout society. As it probably should be, all libertarian silliness aside. However, this is a law targetted at specific businesses. If smoking is so harmful to others, ban it. This is akin to saying that you can not break a pool cue on someone's head in a bar, but have at it walking own the street. That's not only asinine, but discriminatory against bar owners.
Because of their position in selling alcohol, bar owners are subject to restrictions other businesses are not. But those restrictions have to be related to the effects of alcohol. This isn't.
There are some good reasons for smoking bans - such as workers' rights. What pisses me off no end is the sense of entitlement people have - that they should be catered to. If there were enough people who wanted non-smoking bars, don't you think some canny businessman would provide them? But because most people didn't really seem to care, a few pressure groups got together and railroaded legislation through against the wishes of the hospitality industry.
I don't think blowing smoke in someone's face is prosecutable as assault in the UK. Not the last time I looked. America so often leads the way in such enlightened developments! Maybe you smokers should counter that you perceive people blowing clean air in your face as an assault?
Is the ban just in bars in DC? I thought it was bars and restaurants. In most of Europe, I think, it's now banned in all public places. Smoking is that harmful and probably should be banned altogether - but it's such a deeply socially ingrained habit that governments have to move in baby steps on the issue. It doesn't seem that unreasonable to me that places where people congregate socially for prolonged periods should be targeted as the first venues to be subject to such restrictions.
The allergy and perfume analogies are obviously weak and inapplicable because they are only harmful to a few people, and you don't have whole room environments routinely entirely suffused with them. Cigarette smoke is universally noxious and impossible to avoid. Dangerously loud music is the more apposite parallel.
Bar owners - being the lucky recipients of "licences to print money" - already happily submit to numerous other restrictions and qualifications on their business which are not directly related to the serving of alcohol: when they can open, how and whether they can advertise, whether they can or cannot (or must) serve food, whether they can or cannot have children on the premises, whether they can or cannot host live music.
By the way, as we both know, there are plenty of bars that have a reputation for regular fights and glassings, and they don't seem to lose all their custom. That kind of thing actually attracts a certain kind of punter.
British Cowboy said: "If there were enough people who wanted non-smoking bars, don't you think some canny businessman would provide them?"
In reply to that:
This reply is to British Cowboy, In the UK, there is a very big chain of pubs called “whetherspoon”. They have cheap alcohol, cheap food and lots of room in all their venues, however, they have never –as long as I’ve known them, the past 4-5 years- catered music, as it would cost to much and therefore affect the price of their drinks and food. However, this has never stopped their venues to be busy. Of course they cater to a certain cliental, students, young stingy professionals, working class people, and all the rest of those who like to do the PUB thing but keep it cheap. Now this huge chain, was the first of all the pubs in the UK to go Non-smoking. So now, they serve all the same stuff as before for the same prices, and you can be sure not to get smelly or sick from the smoke.
I personally like my cocktails which they don’t serve, so I have only been dragged to wetherspoon place 4-5 times in total by poor student friends in the past.
So you see Mr British Cowboy, some business people have done that, and more will follow, as health awareness is rising in people everywhere -ecxept for China as it seems.
On a different not:
Could this be a master plan to be rid of them/or as many of them as possible? Or at least worsen their health so that they would become less of a threat as the biggest nation/biggest army in the world?
And now a suggestion from someone who believes in freedom in most ways as long as it doesn't harm others;
Why should governments ban USING drugs such as hard drugs, cigarettes and alcohol(in my opinion alcohol is a drug which has not yet been made into powder), when they can ban PRODUCING them??
It will one day come to that, and then the people behind the plasters and chewing gums providing the drug, will have to find a new thing to get people hooked on in order to get their $$$.
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/
My 2 miao:
i like beijing. and as my friend R the Shanghai Expat, who recently came back to Beijing for a visit, said to me over the phone, upon his arrival and check-into a hutong bed and breakfast south of Tiannemen Sq.: "I love your city."
If they bulldoze all the ancient character and put up flashy highrises and "it" bars... what would I do with my free time? where would i find my peace? where would all the quiet go?
And please, that does not mean you preserve one or two blocks of hutongs and turn them into Epcot-Center-style tourist traps.
It's the people living there, the kids playing in the courtyards, the grandparents strolling in the evenings, that makes the place home to me.
As another friend, N -- also an expat, said to me over lunch today, Shanghai is like Bombay -- All business. Beijing is like Delhi -- business, culture, and politics all rolled into one.
So when it comes to the bar scene (and I still claim to know nothing about bars... afterall, i'm not the going out type) what makes Beijing awesome is the unique culture to be found in the bars. (as opposed to mass-produced, common to every international city culture to be found from Shanghai, to NYC, to Dubai).
I could go on. but, I kinda think Froog and I are on the same page on this one. Any dissenters out there?
Froog, if they all do become IT bars, I'll be looking to you to open up that construction-themed bar you mentioned several posts ago.
Also, side note: I saw this happening in DC during my 6 years there. I shudder to think how far it's probably gone by now. Is U street just another las vegas strip now? if so, don't tell me. Is Ben's chili bowl still there? if not, don't tell me. Someone told me Eastern Market burned down a few weeks ago -- I'm still recovering from the sorrow of that!
hey, i'm not being schizo. I meant for "the constant socialite" to link over - but apparently it does not if you don't sign in, and if I sign in, then "letters to HiK" shows up. But apparently I do not yet know all the ins and outs of blogger! anyway, that is me, Tulsa.
Earthling, are you on a commission from JDW? I didn't know they had voluntarily gone smokeless. An interesting snippet of news; but I assume it only happened after the timetable for the blanket ban was known.... so, they're just adopting the 'new regime' earlier than the competition, rather than bravely trying to change the regime.
Much as I loathe cigarette smoke, I do have a lot of fond associations between smoke and good pub experiences..... so I will be sorry to see smoking in bars banned. It's just another factor that makes Wetherspoon's shit in every respect apart from the prices.
I thought of trying to get commission out of them somehow, but no, I'm too lazy to chase such commissions.
I think it was in 2005/06 they started. And yes, after they found out it'll be a must in the end.
Very clever marketing strategy actually. This way they win a whole new group of cliental, the non-smokers, and loose a few of the old ones who cannot live with the fact that they have to go outside for smoking, but then, after everywhere has turned non-smoking, they will win back the cliental they had lost to other bars. So it's a win win situation for them. The people behind their marketing must be American (too clever in the profit business to be of any other nation).
re: wetherspoon marketing strategy of voluntarily changing once they see where it's all headed --- wasn't there something in the news a couple months back about Apple, Ipod, and music sharing along similar lines?
or was it related to some OSS stuff? hmmm....
I just recall some exec of some company flipflopped his (it was a "he") position on some technology or IP issue, and some claimed his flipflop was less "goodnatured" and more "follow the trend".
Froog, TBC, do you remember this? a few months back? what news story am I trying to remember?
No, sorry, missed that one. Try Imagethief or Silicon Hutong.
Earthling - if bars are doing this on their own, all well and good. I don't think a bar should be forced to allow smokers in, just as I don't think a bar should be forced to prevent smokers.
Froog - I would be amazed if deliberately blowing smoke in someone's face was not assault in the UK. It may never have been tested as such, but it falls under the common law principles.
Yes - DC has banned bars and restaurants. There is an escape clause for those who sell 10% of their total sales in tobacco, which means only one bar I think will survive. Fortunately it is a wonderful cigar bar by where I work. The downside is we get all the idiots just wanting to smoke cigarettes in there now, and that makes it even harder to keep the license because they raise overall sales without raising tobacco sales.
My original complaint isn't so much about the bans, though I think they are moronic. It's about the rationale that many people have. "I don't like X. X should be banned." I honestly don't care whether that rationale is applied to smoking in bars, weed, or porn on TV (that should boost your search engine hits.) If you don't like a smoky bar... don't go to a smoky bar. Kinda simple, isn't it...
Cowboy, I agree with the part about things just not bein banned for the sake of being banned, because then the freedom is being taken away from people. But it's really hard for governments to choose and decide what is in the interest of the majority and what is not. Who should really make such decisions? Should it be up to the public? Well, I guess the public have spoken and have asked the governments to put such bans on things, otherwise the governments wouldn't have made such decisions, would they??
But you are again right about people needing to have a choice between the two kinds of bars, the smoking ones and non-smoking onse. But then the profit making would be unbalanced and worse for the poor "healthy bars", we all know that. So they have made the bans so that the public get their wish and the bars still make their profits as before.
It gets confusing if we talk about "the public will" or "the wishes of the majority" on issues like this. Smokers may now be a minority in most of the developed nations, but they are still a very large and significant minority - and a very powerful lobbying group because of the enormous industry that depends on them. They are also, for a complicated collection of reasons, unduly influential in the bar market.
I find it disappointing - and scarcely explicable - that the non-smoking constituency doesn't seem to have established the commercial viability of non-smoking bars.
However, I really don't think that the 'ban smoking' campaign is driven purely by a "we don't like that, so let's ban it" mentality. It's a legitimate public health issue.
Smoking is perhaps unique as a health risk in that it is: a) a widespread, extremely addictive, and deeply socially ingrained habit (only alcohol use comes close - and I don't think that's nearly as addictive); b) that it takes place just about anywhere and everywhere, and is difficult to restrict without pretty swingeing government intervention (this is probably the major problem with the idea of voluntarily non-smoking bars: it would be very difficult for individual proprietors to enforce the rule); that it quickly and lingeringly contaminates a whole environment; and that it is not just unpleasant but deeply noxious to health, not only of the smoker himself but of innocent bystanders. I keep racking my brains for a comparable case, and the loud music example is the only one I can think of that comes close - but even with that, you can end the problem immediately with a flick of a switch (rather than having the harmful influence hang around for hours afterwards), and it tends to be the product of isolated offenders, not the collective impact of numerous individuals. Smoking is a very difficult and unusual problem, and I think unique solutions in addressing it may be justified.
And Cowboy, I don't think you've really come up with much more than "I like it, so it ought not to be banned."
I would guess that the strategic thinking at the moment is that allowing exceptions to the no-smoking rule would undermine the whole measure, because - as we've discussed - bar-goers who like to smoke are probably in a majority, and thus it would be difficult for non-smoking bars to become commercially established. However, after a few years, when some adjustment of attitudes has taken place (more people have stopped smoking, smokers have moderated their smoking or learned to accept that they can't always do it in bars, non-smoking bars have established their credibility and popularity - even with some smokers), there should be room for a liberalisation of the policy.
Earthling - you ask who should make the decisions? Actually, on this, nobody. If individuals are doing things to themselves, where there is no compulsion to join in, then by and large the government should leave them alone.
Froog - you really are a closet authoritarian, aren't you me old mucker. If you want to stop smoking, ban smoking. I would disagree, but it is far more consistent than assaulting the hospitality industry. It is an utterly ridiculous system where an individual walking down a public pavement to get to work is compelled to walk through crowds of smokers, but a person voluntarily sat in a bar cannot have a smoke. That strikes me as asinine. I would be on board a ban on smoking outside, and in public areas. But I don't view bars as public areas in teh same way. I'd also allow store owners to permit smoking if they wanted, but would ban it in the communal areas of a mall.
You then state (once again showing a frightening authoritarian streak) "And Cowboy, I don't think you've really come up with much more than "I like it, so it ought not to be banned.""
I don't have to come up with anything more. It is not for the individual to justify his freedom to the government; it is for the government to justify restricting that freedom. I have the same view of guns. I don't need a good reason to own one. You need a good reason to stop me.
The odd thing is that the smoking ban has had a totally different effect on me. I am a cigar smoker by choice. When in Ireland, it wasn't possible to smoke a cigar often as standing outside away from the group for an hour is anti-social. So guess what I did? As a direct result of the smoking ban I went back to smoking cigarettes (which I am in the process of giving up).
And Froog - I like non-smoking bars. I would love to see them succeed. I just don't think nanny-state enforcement is the way to do it.
Cowboy - Ha, you start an argument on here.... and then say you don't have to come up with any arguments to support your view?!
The problem with your position (one of them) is that this is not just a question of "people doing things to themselves". Smokers harm others around them as well; and just about every 'theory of rights' acknowledges that there have to be limits on individual freedom where the exercise of that freedom interferes with the freedom,health, or comfort of others. If you accept that smoking ought to be banned on public health grounds, it's a bit feeble to criticise the ban on smoking in bars as an incomplete measure. I've discussed previously why it is probably a necessary and useful first step, and about as far as governments are willing or able to go at this stage.
I think it's also hard to argue that the right to smoke is a 'natural right'. You may think (and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you - I have far more of the libertarian than the authoritarian in me) that the default position should be that you obviously should have the right to smoke in bars (and anywhere else you choose); but if that position is attacked, then you have to be able to defend it. We've heard lots of arguments on here to support the no-smoking policy; you need to come up with a stronger counter-case.
Cowboy, what I said about who should make such decisions was formed in the form of a questions but it wasn't a question. The two of you (Froog and yourself) are experts on the legal parts of things, and I don't know much about that siden of things; however what I said before sounds right when I read it again.
The public has decided what they want, and they want no smoke in public areas. The governments, give a service to the public, and therefore are putting the ban on smoking. It's simple. The people who don't agree with the rest of the public, might think about what the rest of the public felt like when they had to put up with the stinky smoke everywhere.
Alcohol in moderate quantities is not directly going to kill you or directly going to kill those exposed to your drinking behavior.
Smoking is a direct cause of death for most smokers and can directly kill those who are exposed to your smoking behavior.
That said, bars are private establishments that should be allowed to do as they please, with the exception that workplaces are subject to OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration (if you non-Americans are curious, check out www.osha.gov). I think TBC made reference to the stronger case from a bar worker's perspective than from a bar visitor's somewhere in the comments up above.
And while I certainly do visit environments that are smoky, I acknowledge that it is my right to NOT visit those environs. And in fact, many of the people I choose to spend time with prefer NOT to do so. In the USA , that's cool, cuz I can easily find other venues at which to entertain myself and friends and other activities with which to pass the time.
It's different here. I can't get away from it. The air quality in my office building is horrendous. On my walk down any street or trip in any taxi, I'm assaulted with smoke.
So, now, I doubly appreciate the USA's smoke-free work environments, smoking restrictions within certain number of feet of building entrances, and smoking and non-smoking sections of restaurants.
I can certainly get annoyed by others smoking behavior and do what I like to stop it within the limits of the law, but if I'm visiting an establishment intended for smoking, well, can I really complain?
All that said, I do think governments can and do make laws based on public policy concerns for the health of its citizens. The gradually increasing ban on smoking is leading in one specific direction, wiping out a killer. Considering the size of the Tobacco industry, I don't think it will disappear, but I'm sure it can and already is focusing its marketing on less restrictive economies.
I envision a time when the USA's population of smokers will be limited to those who bring the habit in with them through the doors of immigration. But who knows, by then, being a non-smoker might be an entrance qualification. Goodness knows the immigration laws are much more open to arbitrary application of policy without democratic consensus. But it won't happen for another generation, yet, I think.
Yes, well, I suppose the key point here is what has been at the heart of the Cowboy's various observations - that bars are (as Tulsa has just implied) "places intended for smoking".
They're not. They are "places intended for drinking". And for listening to music, watching sports, playing games, sometimes for eating, for conversation and gathering socially. But they are not primarily intended for smoking. It's just that they almost always tend to get hijacked by smokers.... leaving the rest of us with very few smoke-free choices of venue in which to pursue these activities.
Ideally, there would be a blanket ban on smoking anywhere. But, if we're going to move towards that goal only gradually, banning smoking in bars is an obvious and sensible place to start. Of course, this will irritate and inconvenience smokers. GOOD. That's the point.
When the Cowboy rages against the notion so violently.... I have my doubts as to whether he has really given up the demon weed in his heart, or ever will.
C'mon, Cowboy. Come on over to our side. If you're really a NON-SMOKER now, you should be intolerant and authoritarian towards smoking & smokers.
I think we have a fundamental disconnect based on the view of the role of the government.
I find in particular scary the concept that because the public has decided they want something, it is argument over. The public wants many many things that involve trampling on the rights of others (and, Froog, it isn't the right to smoke, it is the right to not be interfered with by the government).
My supported solution in DC, recognizing the inability of non-smokers to mobilize their market power to the extent of developing a series of non-smoking bars, was to license 20% (or so) of bars to be smoking bars. The license would be purchased, thus raising the cost for that bar. Non-smokers would have bars they could go to without being exposed to smoke in the air. However, I doubt this would be acceptable to many as it might just lead to a situation where the demand from smoke free bars was shown to be significantly lower. Or maybe not - but it would preserve freedom of choice for bar patrons and workers alike.
While I agree that bars are not necessarily places to smoke, this would get round that too. The bars with smoking licenses would specifically be places to drink/smoke. Exposure to second hand smoke would be an unavoidable employment risk there, gettign roud OSHA problems. I doubt you would have much of a problem finding sufficeint employees given the number of smoking barstaff. And if you did, then, like other more dangerous jobs, you would need to pay higher wages.
It isn't so much the smoking bans I oppose, it's the creeping authoritarianism that they entail, both in the government action and in the attitude of the supporters.
Nobody has an absolute right not to be interfered with by their government. That's what governments are: licensed interference for the greater good. Well, ideally, anyway. More often we have unlicensed interference for the perceived self-interest of the minority of influence-holders.
The arguments here are about the justification for interference on the smoking issue, and the tolerable extent of that interference.
As soon as you start trying to invoke 'rights' on the smokers' side, you're pissing in the wind, Cowboy.
Governments exist to wield authority. We only disparage it as 'authoritarian' when we disagree with the object or the extent of that use of authority. I have no problem with the wielding of government authority to curb public nuisances and health hazards - a perfectly legitimate object of such authority, as far as I can see.
And there's nothing all that 'creeping' about the increasingly active role of the Federal Government in America. I think there are probably more important issues in your adopted homeland to become incensed about than the withdrawal symptoms of DC's smoking drinkers. You don't have a 'right' to "bear arms" (just in case this debate was running out of steam, I toss another one out at ya!), and you don't have a 'right' to smoke in bars; you do have a right not to be lied to by your government, and not to be spied upon by them without a very good reason. The smoking ban is not the 'thin end of the wedge' that leads to the Patriot Acts. Concentrate on some worthwhile targets.
And on a more personal note, Cowboy - didn't Jimbob get his leg-iron attached last weekend? Were you not able to go? News, please.
Ah, yes, and - although it has been largely a two-hander (and 'meta-posts' such as this ought not really to count) - this is now officially the most populous comment-thread on either of my fledgeling blogs.
Yes he did get married on Friday I believe.
You are twisting what I am saying, Froog. I talked about creeping authoritarianism, not creeping increasing federal involvement...
And yes, there are more important issues, but that doesn't mean you should roll over and play dead for everything else.
I don't think the right not to be interfered with is absolute, but it is the government that has to justify the interference, not the private individual to justify the non-interference. They have done that pretty strongly on smoking in public places. They haven't done it on smoking in bars, as far as I can see.
And, if you want to get into that fight, I sure as hell have a right to bear arms. Not only does the federal constitution give me that right, but so does the constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Not twisting what you're saying, merely responding to it. There is a distinction to be drawn between the scope of federal government (the range of different areas in which it claims the right to intervene, the scale of its activity, its budget) and its authoritarianism (propensity to wield its authority in a certain way [excessive, dictatorial]), but it's a pretty slender one. What we have been concerned about in these discussions is the (arguably) inappropriate use of government authority. What do you see as other evidence of the US government's "creeping authoritarianism"? Would you not include the Patriot Acts.
Bars are 'public places' - unless they restrict entry via a membership registration scheme. Although a commercial enterprise, they are supposed to be open to anyone who might want to use them, they are places designed for large numbers of people to congregate. It is therefore perfectly reasonable for governments to regulate them heavily on grounds of public health and safety.
If you regard 'public places' only as open spaces, then the argument for smoking restrictions seems to become weaker rather than stronger: even in an enclosed mall, the huge volume of space and the air-conditioning mean that smoke is fairly quickly dispersed; it doesn't hang around for hours and accumulate as it does in small, enclosed spaces (such as bars, especially).
Your private/public (or closed/open space) distinction is a bit opaque to me, I'm afraid.
And it would appear you have something of a blindspot on the argument for restricting smoking in bars. I can understand that you are emotionally out of sympathy with it (as a not-quite reformed smoker yourself), or idealistically resistant (as a sometime libertarian); but the argument in favour of the restriction is pretty clearcut and overwhelming.
On the arms-bearing:
I would make a distinction between the rights your legal system proclaims for you, the rights you may in practice exercise (which may be lesser or greater: in China, for example, I can expect no protection from the judicial system whatsoever - but I can 'break' most of the laws with impunity, because there is no effective enforcement), and the rights that we all of us have or ought to have at a more fundamental level, based on an objective moral theory.
You clearly do in practice have the right to bear arms, the 'type 2' right; however, that right is based upon an interpretation of your legal rights which is highly questionable, and - for my money - clearly does not accord with any 'type 3' rights theory, and therefore ought to be changed. I say there ain't no 'natural right' to bear arms - and there isn't in the Constitution (properly interpreted) either.
Does the Virginia constitution follow the wording of the national one? And do you think its right to arms could endure, if the Supreme Court overturned the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment?
The 2nd Amendment pretty clearly does not give you the right to bear arms, because you are not a citizen. Other - judicial - rights might be extended to anyone living within the American jurisdiction, but this right is framed for national (not personal!) defence, and is thus a citizens-only thing. Anyway, I think it pretty clearly doesn't give modern citizens the right either. I don't think any objective legal commentator (unswayed by the political culture of America) could possibly interpret it that way. The 'right' is explicitly based on the necessity of maintaining a citizen militia for national defence; it is specific to the historical circumstances of the War of Independence, and obviously has no continuing relevance or validity in a modern America which has a standing army and no present threat of invasion.
"I find in particular scary the concept that because the public has decided they want something, it is argument over."
This is copied from Cowboy's comment. You are very very right and I agree completely. Now read this:
I find in particular scary the concept that because the public has decided that they want to kill themselves and polute the aire for the rest of the population while doing so, it is argument over.
Froog - of course I would include the USA Patriot Acts Mark I & II - badly written, counter productive, insidious pieces of legislation that they are...
I think our major difference is that I don't think of bars as public places. And they aren't fully public under US law, or at least not in the way a shopping mall common area is. They occupy a kind of middle ground here. You cannot discriminate who you will serve based on race, but you can, I believe, discriminate based on political viewpoint, for example. Though I have gone pretty hardcore here, I am definitely in favor of a compromise - a limited number of bars (I think 20% would be a good start) with licenses to allow smoking, and after a few years, that number can be adjusted.
As for guns, well, suffice to say, you are absolutely, 100%, totally, ireevocably wrong. There is no sensible reading of the second amendment as to provide anything but an individual right to bear arms. It is written... "Because X, then Y." Because we need a militia, then people can have guns. It simply cannot be read (honestly) as saying "People can have guns as part of a militia." What the first clause does is regulate the type of weaponry available (under Miller) to those carried by an infantryman. It is twisting it unbelievably to claim that it limits ownership ony to those active in a militia.
The VA constitution is very similar to the federal one on this. However, the court decisions in VA are unanimous in their determination that the VA constitution protects and individual right to gun ownership. Even if SCOTUS decides the second does not protect an individual right (which I find highly unlikely, as they avoid the issue generally, and with the balance now I cannot see them going the collective right route if they did take a case), that woudl not prevent VA allowing gun ownership under principles of federalism. It's a state issue by and large.
The tide is turning on this issue here - a recent decision in DC overturned the ban on private ownership, and the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit refused to take the appeal.
And, earthling, earthling, earthling...
You say the following...
"I find in particular scary the concept that because the public has decided that they want to kill themselves and polute the aire for the rest of the population while doing so, it is argument over. "
One thing you will find out about me is that I think however regretable it may be that the public has decided it wants to kill itself, well, that's within the public's right to do. And as for pollution for the rest of the population, I've already said that I would ban smoking in public places, and even outside in public places, to protect people who do not want to be exposed to second hand smoke, whatever the side effects of that may be.
I think people have a right to do stupid things to themselves, whether that is to smoke, or to choose to go into a bar and sit with people who are smoking. You don't think people have that right. Instead, you think that the majority of the population has the right to dictate to society at large that such a right does not exist. It's a very different view of the relationship between government and the governed than that which I possess, and is one which falls into the trap of tyranny of the majority as far as I can see. I'm a believer in a constitutionally limited democracy, and those limits should be based on individual rights.
38 comments!! I step away for 24 hours and the comments triple?!?
ugh, I haven't got time to go through it all, but wanted to drop a quick note to acknowledge Froog's comment that bars are not "intended for smoking" as I unthinkingly stated in my comment way up above.
to explain that -- whilst in DC, my smoky weekend outings were more often to hookah bars and less often to beer bars. Hence, the inadvertent comment that bars are meant for smoking...
I'll have to return to this thread another time to catch up on the rest.
"Middle ground" status for bars, huh? That's bizarre. I can't see how they're any different from sports stadiums, for example. They may be privately-owned, but they provide an attractive leisure opportunity for the general public. It really wouldn't be commercially viable, would it, to allow a smoking-only or non-smoking-only distinction for stadiums? I don't think it's any more viable, in present circumstances, to try to make that distinction for bars.
No-one is yet trying to ban smoking altogether, to prevent the individual from harming himself; the restrictions are only aimed at protecting others from secondhand smoke. Since bars are quite clearly 'public places' in the only meaningful sense of the term (unless they are private members' clubs) - i.e., places where large numbers of the general public can congregate - it is reasonable for governments to restrict activities such as smoking in them on public health and safety grounds.
It's utterly cracked logic to maintain that actually they're in some important way private, that you should be allowed to do whatever you want to in private (hmmmm, shoot kiddie porn? watch kiddie porn? eat human flesh? play Russian roulette?), and that any attempt by the government to regulate such "private" activity is a monstrous tyranny. You're so far out there, Cowboy, I can't always tell if you're just doing it for comic effect.
And while we're on the subject of logic - "because X, then Y". Quite so. Thus, "if not X, then not Y". Pretty basic syllogism, that.
Quite a feat of mental gymnastics to argue that it actually means "A private citizen can have all the same weapons as a militiaman.... but doesn't actually have to be a militiaman." These days, of course, a US infantryman can deploy surface-to-air missiles, depleted uranium warheads, etc., etc. Sonic deathrays just around the corner, no doubt. Does your conception of the 2nd Amendment encompass phasers and photon torpedoes for all?
Actually, Froog, bars pretty much are a middle ground legally speaking. They aren't fully public places. A publican can refuse service legally for no reason (not for any reason, but for no reason). There's a series of cases regarding shopping malls that are interesting on this - if I remember correctly, the finding is that the common areas of malls act as public places while the stores don't - a store may refuse entry to someone in an anti-war T-shirt, but the mall cannot.
Your argument as to "well you can do anything there" is patently ridiculous. If there was an overall ban on smoking, then of course it would apply to bars. Hence no watching/making child porn, no eating human flesh (though that is something I might consider legalizing). As for playing Russian Roulette, there is a general public policy that guns and alcohol are dangerous together, hence carrying in a licensed establishment is banned. Like drunk driving really.
I should add at this point that I do believe the government (probably) has the power to do this in the US, though there are some constitutional issues. What that doesn't alter is the fact that it is a bloody stupid thing to do.
Now, to guns. Once again, Froog, you are just wrong on American law and constitutional interpretation.
The meaning of the 2nd Amendment, pretty clearly, is "Because we need a militia, people can own guns." You then give a woot, and triumphantly state that well, because we don't need a militia any more (which not everyone would agree with) then logically people cannot own guns. But that, my friend, is not how constitutions work. It doesn't say "As long as we need a militia, people can have guns."
There are plenty of other justifications for private gun ownership. But the one that the founders chose to mention was the need for the raw material to form a militia.
You then go on another tangent about the type of weaponry that can be carried, and trot out the old tired line that people must therefore be allowed SAMs and depleted Uranium warheads. The problem with that, Froog, is that you are talking about ordnance, not arms, which are not covered by the 2nd Amendment or its state counterparts.
What it does mean, however, is that I think the ban on "assault weapons" is probably unconstitutional. It's also unconstitutional on grounds of vagueness, given that it is an invented category, and stupidity, given that all it seeks to do is ban scary-looking long arms. But that oen does not bother me too much, as I have absolutely no need/desire to go higher than semi-automatic.
Restrictions of public access to private premises have very limited applicability or legal significance, and do not alter the fact that premises such as bars are fundamentally 'public spaces'.
"Patently ridiculous"?! Er, yes. That was the point. I was lampooning your oft-expressed suggestion that bars - as 'private spaces' - should be allowed to sanction whatever aberrant behaviours they chose (even otherwise criminal behaviours, so long as they advertised to would-be patrons what they might expect within). Yet you, I, just about everyone, in fact accepts that really extreme behaviours may be criminalized - even in private, between consulting adults; and that far less severe behaviours may be barred on 'public policy' grounds in such ('semi-private', if you must) spaces as bars, restaurants, and department stores.
Moving on to guns: actually, in logic and grammar, THAT is exactly what the 2nd Amendment says: if the 'right' is based on a condition that no longer exists, the right no longer exists.
Perhaps the Supreme Court has evolved a whole web of doublethink to allow that logic and grammar do not necessarily apply to the interpretation of the US Constitution, particularly in regard to this most troublesome of Amendments. But they do customarily apply to the interpretation of all other constitutions and legal documents. That is "the way constitutions work". It's curious that the US Constitution should become the solitary exception because one particularly vocal - and particularly crazed - lobby refuses to believe what it actually says.
One of the problems with the Amendment (or what should be one of the problems with it, if it weren't on other grounds already obviouslyredundant) is that it doesn't define either what 'arms' are, or what the scope of the 'right' to bear them was understood to be at the time of the framing of the Amendment. It is fatuous to claim that weapons not yet invented in the 18th Century should or should not fall within a presumed definition in the minds of the Founding fathers. Trekkies conventionally regard phasers as 'small arms' - you duck the issue of whether existing or soon-to-be-invented weaponry that is awesomely more destructive than assault rifles should also fall under the 2nd Amendment 'right'.
'Ordnance', though sometimes applied to very large, non-portable guns and rocket launchers, is more properly limited to missiles - as opposed to delivery systems. Here you (inadvertently?) raise an interesting further distinction - left unaddressed by the Founding Fathers, with their lack of historical foresight. I'd be pretty happy with an interpretation of the 2nd that allowed the sale of guns ("arms") but banned the sale of ammunition ("ordnance").
And another thing - I don't know if the Supreme Court has attempted to define 'arms' within the scope of the 2nd Amendment as meaning only guns (or only guns of a certain size); but 'arms' is generally a broadly inclusive term, encompassing all varieties of both guns and ordnance - firearms, bombs, rockets, satellites, the whole shebang (as illustrated in the pervasiveness of such phrases as "arms race", "arms trade", "arms control", etc.).
A Constitutional right to bear pitchforks and flintlocks I might accept (although still historically redundant); but modern battlefield weaponry - NO. And that includes semi-automatic handguns, thank you.
Hmmm. I don't really have the time to get into this argument, but this is directly relevant. See also this. Plenty of other material on the framing and jurisprudence around the second amendment here. Strangely enough, I came to the US with views similar to yours, my dear Froog, but my research into the history and philosophy of the right to keep and bear arms as well as research into the statistics surrounding gun violence and crime in the US have turned my view completely 180 degrees about.
Anyway, it's an ancient English right that was eroded in the 1920s over fears of a Bolshevik revolution. Remember Ratty in the Wind in the Willows picking out two stout pistols from his collection to defend himself? Evil, crazed NRA member, that vole.
Ah, Swordsman, good of you to join us.
I didn't want to get into the possible justifications for free gun ownership. The notion that an individual has the right to bear arms is of course a very ancient one. It is now deeply ingrained in American culture and law, and will be next to impossible to displace.
However, I maintain that the attempt to justify that right as resting on the 2nd Amendment is nothing short of ludicrous. It is impossible on any sane reading to detach the 2nd Amendment right from the historical condition on which it is explicitly based, and I don't think any legal scholar outside of the United States would even try (your man Volokh was firing blanks!!).
But there are good practical arguments for free ownership of guns, are there? It doesn't make it a necessity and a norm for both police and criminals to carry guns, since they may meet with armed citizens in the course of their daily activities? It doesn't make it easier for the criminal fraternity to get hold of firearms? It doesn't increase the rate of accidental discharges, including fatal accidents, often involving young children? It doesn't normalise the shooting culture to the extent that certain kids will think that "popping a cap in someone's ass" is a perfectly reasonable means of dispute resolution, preferable even to the outmoded practice of 'fisticuffs'? It's completely unrelated to the enormous number of shooting homicides in the States?? Yes, yes, of course. Silly of me. If those weasels from the ghetto come and invade your crib, of course you've got to keep a few blunderbusses on hand so's you can show them who's boss.
Froog, moving to a no-legal gun America would not change anything you have written about, but in all likelihood make it worse.
If I was starting a country from scratch, I would consider no private ownership of guns, though I admit I am very reluctant to leave the sole control of force in the hands of a government. But that isn't the case, and all takign guns away from law abiding citizens will do is ensure that only the criminals have them.
As for your interpretation of the Constitution, well, it's crazy. The 2nd Amendment is pretty clear, it seems. The fact that you believe the rationale expressed in the Amendment (the need for a militia) is no longer valid, does not mean the right granted no longer applies. A provision that said "The need for fresh meat and eggs being paramount, all citizens may keep chickens on the common land," would be seen as somewhat outdated in a world of supermarkets etc. But were that part of the bill of rights, it would be legal poppycock to suggest that because people no longer have the need for home produced fresh eggs and meat, that there is no longer a right to keep chickens on the common. What there would be would be a justification for repealing the Amendment. I would haev a lot more respect for the gun control people if that was the tack they took rather than waffling about the meaning of the text.
And arms is pretty well defined in the law, and in general usage in this arena - shells, tanks, ground-to-air missiles, tactical nukes etc are ordinance. Arms covers long arms & hand guns pretty exclusively, and the ammunition to use them.
You are falling into the trap that Congress falls into way too often - anything that looks scary or has the word automatic in it should be banned. There's no great difference between a semi-automatic handgun and a revolver.
Cowboy, keeping a gun under your mattress is not the only means of force available to you. And if you should discover a need to take up arms for any reason, I don't think it's ever going to be that difficult to find some. The notion that you find your government so untrustworthy and tyrannically-inclined that you can only protect yourself that by keeping guns in your house is BONKERS.
I have, however, accepted in earlier discussion here that it would be next-to-impossible to make guns illegal in the States in current circumstances. Let us dream, though: if guns were to cease to be legal, it is difficult to comprehend how the total number of guns in circulation would increase. I think a majority of American citizens have a strong streak of respect for the law in them - however much they may disagree with it in the details. And there would presumably be fairly stringent enforcement in the transition period to such a new regime. Most people, I think, would give up their guns, and not seek black market replacements. Of course, your diehard NRA gun-fetishist may go to the other extreme, thumb his nose at authority, and double the size of his present armoury. But I'd be prepared to bet that even if the total number of guns stayed about the same or even increased slightly, the total number of people in possession of a gun would surely go down quite drastically - and thus everybody's exposure to guns would also diminish. The problems I mentioned were all to do with the prevalence of gun ownership. That would not get worse under a no-legal-gun regime. In addition to the sheer numbers of guns (legally) in circulation in America, there's also , I think, a problem that legitimate ownership of guns is perceived to legitimise the use of guns: if it's OK for you to blow away someone who's breaking into your house.... it too easily becomes "OK" in some people's minds to blow away someone who looks like he might be about to break into your car.... or someone who cuts you up on the freeway.... or someone who just looks at you funny. There's an awful lot of 'gun crime' committed in the States by people you wouldn't ordinarily categorise as criminals.
I have no comment on the legislative initiatives of the Congress. My point about automatic or semi-automatic weapons is that they were completely beyond the imagination of the framers of the Bill of Rights. From this point of view, I would agree that there is no meaningful distinction to be made with revolvers: they both have an accuracy, stopping power, and rate of fire far beyond anything that was envisaged in the notion of 'arms' existing at the time of the framing of the 2nd Amendment.
It's nice that America's judges are doing such sterling work to impose upon the 2nd Amendment definitions of terms which are not implicit in the Amendment itself, were not extant at the time of its framing, and are not the common usage of English today. The attempt to make a clear distinction between 'arms' and 'ordnance' is just another sign of the desperation to preserve the Amendment from historical redundancy. The evolution of weapons technology is accelerating. What are accepted as 'small arms' today would have been awesome, battle-winning, history-changing weapons in the 1780s. The 'small arms' of the near future may be even further ahead of your semi-auto Colt of today than that Colt is of the muzzle-loaders they had back then. (And you can put depleted uranium - and other nasties - in the tips of small arms ammunition. When exactly does it start becoming ordnance?? Portable rocket-launchers - difficult borderline case?!)
Your chicken analogy is off point (as are most of the cases Prof. Volokh raises in the articles Iain cites). The aim of the justification clause you suggest - the paramountcy of fresh meat and eggs for the diet - is unchanged today. The best means of securing that will inevitably change over time, but the basic aim remains - and, although going down to the supermarket may be favoured as more convenient by many, it still makes perfect sense as a reason for an individual's right to keep poultry. If chicken meat and eggs had been conclusively proven to be wholly bad for health, then the right enshrined in your hypothetical amendment would evaporate along with that changed state of knowledge.
The 2nd Amendment is more like "Mammoth meat being essential to a healthy diet, every man may dig a 30ft-deep pit in his back yard." No mammoths any more, and the big holes in the ground are pointless and a public nuisance. The justification clause being now redundant, the right it was attached to is redundant as well.
I find the linguistic somersaults American legal scholars put themselves through to try and salvage this Amendment are just risible. Trust me on this, no-one outside the United States thinks it's remotely debatable.
A few thoughts trying to pull this back to smoking bans...
First, Froog, you are just wrong in how you view constitutions and their interpretation. Where a constitution includes a right and a justification for that right, it, legally speaking, does not matter whether you think the justification is still valid or not, the right remains valid until revoked. Were it to state "As long as a militia is needed, then people can have guns" you would be correct. But saying "Because a militia is needed, then people can have guns" makes the justification essentially indesputable in a legal sense. It's a finding of fact. Obviously that doesn't affect the views as to the sense of private gun ownership, but it does negate your argument as to the legality.
The views of other countries as to the interpretation in the US are, fortunately, irrelevant here.
What is important, though, is how the gun-control and smoking-ban debate provides a great example of the different view of the role of the government held by the citizens of the US and those of other countries.
Those who support smoking bans, and gun control, tend to view the government as the problem solver of first-choice. If there is an issue, the response is what government control can be implemented to solve it. The view I am putting forward is much more distrustful of the government. While defending oneself against the government isn't necessarily realistic, private gun ownership allows one to defend oneself without immediate reliance on the government. My options are not simply to call 911 and hope if someone is in my house. I am not requred to delegate the protection of myself and my family to an agent of the government.
The same can be seen of smoking bans in bars. As I said, I think (probably) governments in the US have the authority to do this. But it represents a mindset that I find unfortunate. My real problem comes with the attitude of the supporters. "I don't like smoke in bars, so I should have a right to prevent bar owners from allowing people to smoke in their bars." It again is a delegation of responsibility to the nice friendly smiling bureaucrats. If you don't like smoking in abrs, which I accept a large number of people don't, then do something about it. If there are enough of you, and you feel strongly enough about it, then it will work. If there aren't, then reassess how strong the feelings actually are. I'd support a system that incentivized bars to go non-smoking, maybe even a licensing scheme. But the attitude that the government is always the answer, whether it is to provide a bar you like to go to, or protect you and your family, strikes me as an abandonment of humanity.
Cowboy, I only keep on taking issue with you because you keep on making loose arguments - points perhaps deliberately broadened to give them a suggestion of weight they in fact lack.
There is no special way "that constitutions work" that is any different from how any other laws or legal documents work - there are conventions of interpretation, yes, but the basis of it all is logic, common sense, and common usage. American lawyers have creatively abandoned this heritage in regard to this one Amendment, by trying - with utter lack of credibility - to argue that a 'justification clause' is essentially irrelevant to the interpretation of the sentence as a whole. It is not; it is inextricable; it is effectively a condition which may limit both the scope and the duration of the right. Logic, common sense, common English usage, basic rules of legal interpretation.
It seems you are trying to ridicule my understanding of "constitutions" in general by repeatedly using this plural. I have spent a good deal of time studying the British, European, Canadian, and US constitutions, and a few others besides. The 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution is the only place where I have come across such arguments being made. This is not "how constitutions work"; it is how the American courts are trying to make the 2nd Amendment work.
And, on a linguistic pedant note, it doesn't say "because", it says "being" - which, in the usage of the time, was a straight conditional (as well as being sometimes, admittedly, a causal clause; although in sentences such as this, a causal clause is clearly equivalent to a conditional, so it makes no difference). If you're going to argue on the basis of grammar, you should know some grammar - and quote the text accurately.
The real problem, I feel, with the wording of this Amendment is the fact that the the concept of 'bearing arms' is not defined at all (we are somehow supposed to infer the scope of meaning of the term from our knowledge of the historical circumstances), and the 'right' relating to it is framed in purely negative, not positive, terms - "shall not be infringed". I find the Amendment untenable on grounds of vagueness alone. If we have no real idea what the scope of the right conceived of by the framers of the Amendment was, we can't possibly know what would be an 'infringement' of it.
You're playing the same "make a much broader accusation than is justified, in the hope of intimidating or bamboozling your debating opponents" game - and it's obviously a bit of a knee-jerk for you, because you've done it 3 or 4 times on here now - when you assert that the attitude of the anti-smoking lobby is "I don't like it, therefore I have a right to make trouble for bar owners ". Although that may be the case with certain of the anti-smokers, that is not the argument of the lobby. It is not a question of personal likes and dislikes, but of public health. Bar owners are not being unfairly victimized; their premises are being reasonably prioritized for smoking restrictions because of their special nature as places where large numbers of the public congregate. You are using imprecise, inaccurate, but emotionally loaded language to try to make your argument; when one strips away the imprecision and the inappropriate emotion, you appear to have no argument left.
Governments are not our "problem solver of choice". They are our only problem solver. That is the reason for their existence. They may make a pretty fucking terrible job of it most of the time. We may resent the power they have over us, even when they are making a good job of it. But "taking the law into your own hands" is almost universally recognised as a bad thing to do. Your concept of "humanity" seems to centre on violent activism, gun law, mob rule. I am quite happy to abandon that.
As I've suggested before, 'market forces' are at a huge disadvantage in tackling the smoking problem, because smoking is so powerfully addictive, and because smoking addicts are so goddamned stubborn (and so potentially violent in their stubbornness); 'smoke-free zones' based on commercial choice alone are likely to be unenforceable and/or commercially unviable.
However, non-smokers have "done something about it". They have successfully lobbied the government to introduce a change in the law. Democracy in action - gotta love it!
You do not need a gun to defend your home. In the words of Mr Miyagi, "The best defence is to be somewhere else."
49??? I just scrolled down to Shanghai'd and now that I see that awesome number -- 49 -- I'm too scared to read....
Aren't boys supposed to be able to have a fight then go back to playing friends? so surely, these 49 comments haven't really pushed you out of your Virginia home...
but who knows. I'll take a peak in the comments eventually and see just how bad a fight it is.
Well, froog, dealing with the non-accusatory parts first...
The market did, in DC at least, provide some non-smoking bars. Lucky Strike, for example, went non-smoking before the ban was even mentioned. While I am willing to accept enforcement might be a problem in China, it wouldn't be here - many bars for example banned cigars/pipes before the ban came in, and had no problems enforcing that. A market solution could have worked here. However, I have a strong feeling from talking to some anti-smoking people that a market solution wouldn't be desired, because the aim was more to ban smoking than it was to create non-smoking bars.
Your points as to what the government is for are well taken, though I disagree with them. I have repeatedly said that the government has the power to do this - I don't think there is a fundamental right to smoke, be it in bars or elsewhere, but that I think the rationale behind it was flawed, and to a large extent based on a sense of entitlement. That's amongst some. Amongst others it was a neo-puritanism that simply doesn't like other people enjoying themselves. These are the people who would ban smoking in bars despite having no interest in going to a bar whether there is smoke there or not.
Yes, the anti-smokers have lobbied their government and "done something about it". I think what they have done is inconsistent (a much better policy would be banning smoking in truly public places, or banning smoking, but instead they have chosen to ban it in more private places, forcing smokers out onto the street where those walking past on a public thoroughfare have to walk through clouds of smoke).
When you claim that governments are our only problem solver, though, we part ways pretty heavily. I think that is justa wrong attitude. Much can be done without government. Unless of course you are saying that everything is underpinned by governmetn force in the end - like a private bar-owner's right to exclude smoking customers being underpinned by his ability to call the police and have them ejected, for example, but I think you were being broader than that.
And yes, I would rather not be in my home when a crack head breaks in. But to be honest, I pay a pretty large chunk of change as rent. And I am not going to leave my house empty 100% of the time so I am never there if anyone breaks in. Far more so than smoking, I have a right to self defense. While the police are there to protect me, they aren't HERE to protect me. I don't own at the moment, because I live in a very safe neighborhood, and I havent got round to it. I do like having the right to defend myself, however. And that is one I would fight pretty hard to stop them taking it away.
And tulsa, froog would have to do a lot to lose his bed in NoVa. His semi-regular visits keep me a little bit less insane than I would be otherwise. The fact that he is totally wrong on interpreting the US Constitution doesn't alter the fact that he is, after all, pretty damned good company. Although nowhere as good a pool player/sports prognosticator as he thinks.
Hi Cowboy,
I think we'd better put this one to bed now. This is getting a bit like "Bar Bores" at its worst. And I'm getting fed up with scrolling all the way down to Shanghai'd every day or two to check for your latest onslaught. If I were more savvy with the technology, I might try to set up a chatroom/bulletin board section of the site where we could continue this intellectual ping-pong more easily.
Naturally, there are again loads of things I'd take issue with here (clouds of smoke in the open compared with clouds of smoke in a closed room; pipes & cigars compared with cigarettes??), but I will - for now - leave you the last word on most of it.
I suspect neither of our positions is quite as extreme or as opposed as we have made it seem here; we just like locking horns for the fun of it.
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