Socialism under our nose.

[Twilight Hue]

It worked beautifully? For whom? Clearly these "smoking section" compromises were, and are, a meaningless bad joke.

I was a smoker for many years of my life, but then overcame that drug addiction around 20 years ago. It was during that time of "non-smoking sections" in restaurants. Now while they make have had a non-smoking section, it was NOT non-smoked filled. Smoke permeates everywhere indoors. And while it may be less volume of the cancer-causing pollutants, it is still there. In the air, in your lungs, on your clothes, in your hair, etc, even if you never lit up, nor where within 20 feet of smokers indoors.

Now, set the customers health and well-being aside for a moment. What about the wait staff, and other employees who have to spend all day in that environment? There is clear, researched proofs that that level of smoke exposure has negative impacts on human bodies. Non-smoking wait staff, end up with lung cancer. Well worth it for smokers freedoms to be inconsiderate of others?

You decry such laws as "nanny state"? Complete BS. Without some adult telling the reckless what they can and cannot do in serving the public, you end up with abuses that harm public health and society as a whole, such as racial discrimination by business owners. Nanny state to say you can't have a "whites only" section? Is that nanny state to you too?

Take away environmental regulations, for instance, and you think some business owner will pay more money to have his dangerous chemicals disposed of properly, versus just dumping them for free right into the river behind his land he owns? Time and time again proves, they need someone to establish laws for them to follow, for the sake of everyone else. Without them, they will not choose to do the "right thing". That has been demonstrated countless times throughout human history.

Healthy societies are based upon regulating behaviors of its members for the sake of everyone else.

It was a great comprise law. Whats bs is people who just have to be pathologicaly busy bodied enough to poke their noses into other people's business where it dosent even belong.

It's their choice to make and not yours.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Libs use government to fill the void left by god's absence. You can't truly be free without faith.

I'd rather not be Franz Reichert. The posterboy of faith.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Well, your example is typical of government stupidity. But in the broad view I expect limitations to my freedom. E.g. seatbelts.
But that is also subjective in part.

Yea I agree it's subjective. Why the need for a law when it's something that you can do for yourself though?

Think of it this way, Let Darwin's law set the president naturally.

 

[metis]

We live in "societies", and because of this there needs to be some social responsibilities dealing with cooperation. To not do so would jeopardize each one of us.

Thus, to privatize all would essentially be anarchy, and anarchies almost always devolve into repressive authoritarian systems.

 

[Stevicus]

The Constitution doesn't apply to us?
Huh.

Meaning they don't have to follow it. A private owner can prevent you from exercising First Amendment rights on their property or internet platform. Governments don't have that luxury, so therein lies the difference.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

More gaslighting from the right regarding the liberal agenda in America. Nope. I know of no liberal, including those like me who support infusing a significant number of public dollars into the economy, who don't support an economy that is principally regulated capitalism infused with some taxation and public spending. I support the ideas of people like AOC, Biden, Warren, and Sanders. I was born into a world (mid-20th century America) where government and union support had created a pretty wealthy middle class, but did not eliminate the opportunity for others to get very rich.

Since then, with the erosion of that liberal vision at the hands of the Republicans since Reagan, it is no longer possible for a postman or teacher to support a family in the suburbs as well as a mortgage and car payment, have a stay at home parent, and take a vacation every year. The Republicans falsely depict a return to that state as a desire to go to a 100% socialist economy with no profit incentive and a Venezuelan future. There is no middle place in these people's minds between cruel, unregulated capitalism that crushes workers and fully socialistic economy. But there is - we used to be there - and that's where Biden and the Democrats are taking America, in the vision of FDR, with conservative objections and gaslighting disregarded.

What is a nanny state?

A nanny state is a derogatory term for a government that wants to control you too much, such as limit when you can vote or if you can get an abortion.

A few years from now, countries with "free" healthcare, "free" education, etc. will become indistinguishable from the U.S.S.R.

More gaslighting from the right.

Much of the left has simply tuned out this continuous noise. These opinions are not even rebutted, just dismissed out of hand. Their sources are immediately discredited completely as soon as they mention words like socialism, communism, stolen election, hoax, and the like, or clamoring for rights they don't have while not caring about anybody else's rights. There is no possibility of constructive discussion with such people, and I simply don't try any longer - just rebuke them and move on.

Whenever I hear on the television that Rand doesn't like this or Cruz doesn't like that, my thought is always, who cares what you think? Who cares what your latest gripe is? You're not even being listened to any more. You are not part of the government any more, your party has no interest in the preamble to the Constitution and the proper function of government, you are not trusted or respected, and your opinions mean nothing.

I don't see how secularism or theism relates to freedoms.

You don't? Freedom of and from religion depends on there being a secular government. Remove that, and the church will be running your life as it did before the Enlightenment and the rise of the liberal, secular state with enumerated person protections.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yea I agree it's subjective. Why the need for a law when it's something that you can do for yourself though?

Think of it this way, Let Darwin's law set the president naturally.

Well, now we are getting somewhere. You have a stupid mon and dad and now you have x parentless children. Or you have an insurance company make different rates or policies depending on whether you were a seatbelt or not. Or you are driving on a toll road that requires to wear a seat belt.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The Constitution doesn't apply to us?
Huh.

No, the first amendment doesn't apply to private citizens as for free speech.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, the first amendment doesn't apply to private citizens as for free speech.

The Constitution applies to government.
This capitalist likes that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

A nanny state is a derogatory term for a government that wants to control you too much, such as limit when you can vote or if you can get an abortion.

...

Good one

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The Constitution applies to government.
This capitalist likes that.

Yeah, but that was not the point.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yeah, but that was not the point.

The point I addressed was....
"Capitalists don't even have that. In fact, they make a point in
proclaiming that the Constitution doesn't apply to them."
It applies to us via government, ie, we're a beneficiary.

This does not mean that businesses must confer rights
granted by the Constitution. For example, the right to
a jury trial in a criminal prosecution is another right
that can only be conferred by government.

 

[Windwalker]

It was a great comprise law.

No it wasn't. That is why it was overturned. Others rights to smoke, does not give them to right to force others to have to breath that stuff into their bodies. And it did force them to breathe it. None of the 'compromise' efforts of sections, had any real effect. The smoke was still there.

It's like noise ordinances. You don't have a right to play 1000 db rock music blaring into others homes while they are trying to sleep. Are smokers really that selfish?

As an ex-smoker, I can say the drug does cloud their judgments about how their habits affect people. It's a form of denialism that goes with the drug addiction.

Whats bs is people who just have to be pathologicaly busy bodied enough to poke their noses into other people's business where it dosent even belong.

Their noses is exactly the problem. Smokers are putting their smoke in others noses, where their smoke does not belong! They have no right to force me to have to breathe their pollutants.

It's their choice to make and not yours.

It is not their choice to make, if I have to breathe their noxious off-gassing from their drug habits. It is my body, and my choice and right to say no to offenders who violate my body. You can't throw your garbage in others yards, and you can't exhale your pollutants in their faces either.

It's really about establishing basic respect of others, for those who for some reason, refuse to do so of their own accord. The fact they complain so much, while others complaints about not wanting that smoke in their lungs is ignored or insulted, says something of just how powerful that addiction is to make them that selfish. That is why we need laws to protect us.

There really is no good argument for allowing smoking in enclosed public spaces. We are not living in the early 1900's anymore. We know a lot more about health risks today.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Whats bs is people who just have to be pathologicaly busy bodied enough to poke their noses into other people's business where it dosent even belong.

That's my call. I'll decide where my nose belongs.

By your reckoning, you're poking your nose where it doesn't belong. Why are you so pathologically obsessed about people not wanting to be near smokers? Why are you poking your nose into our business?

It's their choice to make and not yours.

Are you good with choices, then? It was our choice to make them go outside to smoke, not theirs. I assume that you will respect that.

Sorry, but when it comes to selfish people clamoring about their rights that they don't actually have - people who have no interest in the rights of others - I'm not interested. These people that claim the right to blow smoke in the face of those sickened by their habit are the same people claiming religious rights that they don't have without regard for anybody outside their religion, or the right to go unmasked who accept no responsibility for their actions and have no interest in the welfare of others.

Yeah, there are legitimate rights issues out there, such as the right to walk down the street while black and not being shot, or women wanting an abortion and unable to get one because of people forcing their religious views on others, and call that their right, too.

But these selfish people - I'm not even listening. They don't care about me, and I've stopped caring about what they want.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

It's their choice to make and not yours.

No, in the end there are no individual rights. They are an inter-subjective social construct.
So if your claim is that there are ontological individual rights, then that is no different that the belief in a God. It is a belief, but not how the world works.

 

[Kooky]

Libs use government to fill the void left by god's absence. You can't truly be free without faith.

I'm a little confused. Your first post in this thread warned against socialism but attacked social democratic policies like universal public healthcare. Now you've seemingly turned around to blame liberalism for atheism instead.

Can you tell us what it is that you actually believe?
I'm having a hard time making out any sort of coherent political position from all of this.

 

[oldbadger]

As long as the Ramones and AC/DC are there. ;0)

Top entertainment.

Hell is subjective. Imagine being stuck in church for eternity singing hymns.

I'd go mad for sure!

Can I go to hell with naughty ladies please?
Delightful.

 

[Kooky]

It was a great comprise law. Whats bs is people who just have to be pathologicaly busy bodied enough to poke their noses into other people's business where it dosent even belong.

It's their choice to make and not yours.

Arguably, one reason for there to be governments at all, is for them to be pathological busy bodies who poke their noses into people's business. How else would you enforce contract law, trade regulations, or ensure the continued dominance of the capitalist class by enforcing unequal power relationships in workplaces?

 

[SomeRandom]

It was a great comprise law. Whats bs is people who just have to be pathologicaly busy bodied enough to poke their noses into other people's business where it dosent even belong.

It's their choice to make and not yours.

Compromise? From what I have gathered it basically forced restaurant staff to suffer the affects of second hand smoke. Which causes cancer among other things. There’s a reason why the “smokers corner” is universally thought to be outside away from patrons and staff. Though the restaurants should have been compensated for installing the vents or whatever. That I would gladly argue for them

 

[Twilight Hue]

No, in the end there are no individual rights. They are an inter-subjective social construct.
So if your claim is that there are ontological individual rights, then that is no different that the belief in a God. It is a belief, but not how the world works.

That's true. Its also a reason why there are so many conflicts and wars.

Some fight back.