Take it and run folks! Harmony reigns!

I’m saying there’s a balance – the freedom of one is at the cost of the freedom of the other. I didn’t say I support the smoking ban in pubs. Look at what I wrote – I said I accepted all your points were valid, and that I wished only for balance to turn them round and consider the arguments against. My point was only to note that your approach is simplistic – you appear to believe only the freedoms you enjoy count. You don’t give a shit for others’ freedoms when they happen to oppose yours, you think it fine that they are forced to live in certain ways so that the people you like can live life how they want.

Now, if you were someone who had a genuine and real sense of freedom and an ability to be self-critical, you would be able to see there is a balance here. If you had come to the conclusion you come to and yet showed some ability to acknowledge the balance, I would have no problem at all with you. The problem I have is your self-righteous belief that you are 100% right and cannot be criticised and anyone who even puts the case against you is 100% wrong. I don’t like people like that, and with good reason – people like that are enemies of true freedom.

Friends of true freedom and true liberals can always see both sides of a case, can always put themselves in the shoes of another, even when considering the balance of isues they all on one side rather than the other of an argument.

In other words, you’re saying that your right to shmooze in an environment you prefer is greater than the right of those with whom you are shmoozing to enjoy their preferred environment, and greater than the rights of millions of regular pub customers who used the pub as a regular place of socialising and entertainment and who are now denied the opportunity to enjoy themselves anywhere in the country.

The thing about cigarettes is I think anyone who smokes them only does so because they wanted to look big when they were 14. I may be wrong,

Ian B

You are, but don’t let me stop you enjoying getting a hate on.

I’m not hating anyone. I don’t hate people who smoke.

I am, however, here writing from experience. Everyone I know who smokes started when they were young teenagers, and I remember being that age. No-one then started smoking saying “this will be a nice relaxing drug”. Everyone who did it did so because it made them look big. That was the sole reason anyone started. I don’t know anyone who started smoking later for any other reason. As it is addictive, people found they couldn’t stop even when it was no longer a “look at me, I’m big” thing. Given the number of people who want to stop but can’t, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable hypthesis to state that there are many doing it just because they wanted to look big at 14.

As a consequence of this, it is obvious there must be a tendency for a personality difference between smokers and non-smokers. I’m suggesting this may be an explanation for other things. It’s just a hypothesis.

I do, however, intensively dislike cigarette smoke. Perhaps I am particularly sensitive, but I find it extremely unpleasant and physically irritating, not to mention the stench it leaves. That is a fact – your use of dismissive phrases such as “hygeine hysterics” suggests you are unable to accept the fact of people who are different from you in what they like or experience, so just rubbish them. I do not think this is good in someone who poses as a champion of freedom. A true champion of freedom would, I think be more able to accept straight someone whose tastes and bodily sensations differed from his.

Now, the reality is that when people suggested going to pubs after meetings, a common thing in political life, I generally accepted because if one doesn’t one misses out on the chat etc. I never made a fuss about the smoke even though really I hated it. There wasn’t any alternative place to go, it was just social convention that all these places had smoke as a given. Whether I’m in a minority in finding it really unpleasant, or actually there are many more who did also but who kept quiet as I did, I don’t know. Perhaps because people didn’t speak up (maybe because non-smokers tend to be less extrovert than smokers for reasons I suggested), it is the case that the impression you gained that “most people really aren’t that bothered by smoking” was wrong.

The point however, is that our freedoms may be trammelled by social conventions as well as by state law. Saying this does not mean I necessarily support heavy-handed legal mechanisms to bust those conventions. I’m just noting what I started off with – your definition of freedom is narrow, and I rather feel biased towards those freedoms you personally most value. In that way, you are no different than most people, so don’t pose as some enlightened one who is oh-so-superior to others who quibble with the full “libertarian” line.

Your reply is full of “tough, you have to do that”, and “go off and do the other” and the like.

Fine, so why is my being compelled in this way any different from you being compelled in other ways? Why is what you like and consider “freedom” better than what I might like and consider “freedom”?

I’m actually not particularly anti-smoking, I was just making the argument in the other side to see if you had any sense of balance and self-critical ability. You have proved my point – you haven’t.

I was discussing the civil liberties aspect of the smoking ban with a smoker. He came out with “I’m used to it now” routine. I then mentioned this is a slippery slope to banning it in cars, in all public places and ultimately upgrading it to a class B drug like cannabis. “If that is the law then I’ll have to give up then.” The classic sheeple person. In exasperation I asked, from banning smoking in pubs to a Nazi or Soviet style government, when would you feel motivated to object and campaign against it? “I dunno.” Compulsory ID cards, being stopped in the street by police for no reason, imprisoned without trial by jury? It says it all “we’re not quite there yet.”

FFS why do we deserve this?

http://www.liberal-vision.org/2009/06/01/guest-article-a-liberal-approach-to-the-smoking-ban-dave-atherton/

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I pinched your analogy from 12:15pm on the 17th by the way.

Then there would be some demand for smokeless pubs. There isn’t. There are lots of ways and places to socialise. Anyway, what you have to decide here is whether you want to go to a smelly place your friends go to, or not. If not, get some other friends.

Pubs, until the ban, always were full of smokers.

Yes, which means they were supplying the right service to their customers. In reality, smoking and drinking tend to go together. Health and hygeine hysterics rarely drink very much for the same reasons they don’t smoke. It’s worth remembering that pubs sell a drug. It’s bad for your health. People who are worried about that are not a good source of custom to pubs. They may prefer a juice bar, or the like- and if so, the market can provide that too.

The thing about cigarettes is I think anyone who smokes them only does so because they wanted to look big when they were 14. I may be wrong,

You are, but don’t let me stop you enjoying getting a hate on.

but I can’t think of any other reason why anyone smokes, at least people who are too young to have been around when they were promoted as being good for your health or used as a drug to calm the nerves of those being sent to war.

Because, like most drugs and experiences in general that people choose, it is pleasurable. It is like saying “I cannot understand why anyone drinks- hangovers, vomiting in doorways, liver damage” compared to “ooh, a nice glass of wine”.

So smokers are by nature extrovert dominating people, while we nonsmokers are by nature timid introverts, whose natural reaction to a smoker saying in effect “I’m going to stink you out, you don’t mind do you?” is “er, um, er no, go ahead”. Metaphorically that was what was happening when it was just assumed if you didn’t like cigarette smoke, tough.

Oh, good grief. You want the state to protect you from your own personality? Also, I can assure you that the majority of anti-smokers are very assertive indeed. Which is why we got to this ridiculous stage.

The problem is, most anti-smokers think they have some kind of right to be listened to. It is no different to me marching into the local and saying I’m offended by the smell of curry, and expecting the landlord to Do Something About It. Whereas his likely reaction is to be, “if you don’t like it, f*ck off”, which is how people often respond (”assertively”) to rude impositions. Nobody is obligated to compromise, especially in a situation in which everyone is there by choice.

If you wanted to argue about somewhere a person must visit- such as government buildings, or public transport perhaps, well then you’ve got a point. But a pub is a place you visit by choice which has a range of facilities. It is not just a beer dispensary. It’s food, jukebox, live band or other entertainment, and so on, and one facility is whether smoking is allowed. If you don’t like that mix of facilities, don’t go there. It’s not hard to figure that out.

The point is, a pub is not a public place. It is a private place which you are invited to enter should you desire at the landlord’s discretion. He can ask you to leave any time. If pubs generally feature smoking, and you don’t like smoking then, congratulations, you don’t like pubs. Find some other entertainment.

The reality is, and this is what anti-smokers hate, that despite decades of propaganda and junk science and massive spending, most people really aren’t that bothered by smoking. THey may not like it in their homes, but down the boozer, most people were okay with it. There was no great public demand for a smoking ban. They recognised that pubs are places where people smoke. Which is why the thing had to be rammed through by subterfuge.

That isn’t a form of social tyranny. It’s that pubs are not squeaky clean health bars, and if you don’t like that- well, the pub isn’t the place for you. That’s it, really.

Don’t you think there’s an element of self-destructiveness in there too?