Idea about "click it or ticket" (mandatory seat belt laws)

[Velociryx]

In terms of licensing issues, if you create a smoking room license and allow it to be mixed with a liquor license, there would be huge competition

A good thing.

and likely a lot of corruption around the issue.
Pure speculation. No more likely than the level of corruption possible ANYTIME the government gets involved in anything.

As for the idea that many people only smoke when they are drnking, well, isn;t then banning the combination of the two one of the BETTER ways to get people to stop smoking?

Why are you so intensely interested in seeing that the government get into the behavior modification business? If you do not wish to smoke, that's cool. If you want to segregate the smoking population on account of the "health issues" surrounding second hand smoke (which are negligible, but that's a whole nother ball of wax), I suppose that's cool too. Just this side of silly, given how quickly the particulate levels drop in just a foot or two, but *shrug* smokers are used to being shunted off to the back room.

I just don't understand why the big push to rid smoking in any building where a non-smoker MIGHT wander close to. a) it's not that injurious, and b) it's not exactly a hot button political potato(e, for dan quayle fans).

Why the control fetish?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Reasons for the rise in health care costs:

1. Rise in the cost of modern treatments
2. Rise in the cost of medicines and increased used of expensive pharmaceuticals.
3. Aging population increasingly afflicted with more expensive to treat chronic ailments.

When the cost of medicine increases and the use of medicine increases and the need for medicines increase, then the price of healthcare will increase as well.

None of which matters to the point at hand.

You touted significant health care savings as the only real benefit to the law (again, it was the only one you made mention of).

But health care costs didn't drop.

In fact, they didn't even slow down (which you would have expected, had there been a significant impact as you described).

Wasn't there.

Since it wasn't there, your only listed benefit seems....hollow.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Cause I think its a good idea for society to make the stupid people pay their way for their self-destruction fetish?

[Velociryx]

And...how does banning smoking in bars help make them pay?

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx

None of which matters to the point at hand.

You touted significant health care savings as the only real benefit to the law (again, it was the only one you made mention of).

But health care costs didn't drop.

In fact, they didn't even slow down (which you would have expected, had there been a significant impact as you described).

Wasn't there.

Since it wasn't there, your only listed benefit seems....hollow.

-=Vel=-

Jesus H. Christ

GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEAD:

The cost of health care is growing for a variety of reasons. Even if everyone stopped smoking health care costs would continue to rise given the simple factors laid out. That lowering smoking rates will lower the incidents of the ailments most commonly associated with smoking, therefore meaning savings is a given. That other vices, the after effects of people smoking for decades already, and that other factors continue to make healthcare costs surge, none of those things invalidate the very simple and scientifically sound premise of "less people putting tar and carcinoges directly into the pulmonary system will mean less deaths and lower healthcare costs".

OK?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
And...how does banning smoking in bars help make them pay?

-=Vel=-

Because they must learn self control, and pay fines if they are too weak to do so. And if we are really lucky, these pathetic beings will segregate themselves from the rest of the population, kill themselves faster, and stop endangering the gene pool.

[Velociryx]

So show me the money.

It should be easy. I mean, since you're the one touting these vast savings in health care.

How much?

How much on average did each person in America "save" on their health care thanks to this selfless law banning smoking?

Because they must learn self control, and pay fines if they are too weak to do so. And if we are really lucky, these pathetic beings will segregate themselves from the rest of the population, kill themselves faster, and stop endangering the gene pool.

And this is the government's responsibility? To teach self control? To segregate?

Intriguing.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx
So show me the money.

It should be easy. I mean, since you're the one touting these vast savings in health care.

How much?

How much on average did each person in America "save" on their health care thanks to this selfless law banning smoking?

If banning smoking costs 300 Million dollars a year, that means the cost to each American is $1.

Oh, how evil! Its money we could be spending on porno! Gambling! Drugs! Tabacco!!!

Care to explain how less people inhaling extra carcinogens is a bad thing?

And this is the government's responsibility? To teach self control? To segregate?

Intriguing.

-=Vel=-

Government has no responsiblity. What a silly notion. Government is a system of distributing power. Any "responsibility" government has is the function of those things government must do to maintain the status quo vis a vi the distribution of power.
Government does whatever those in power deem necessary, justified, acceptable, beneficial, and self-sustaining.

If one justifies government under the rubric of popular power and the soverignty of the masses, then the government must do what the masses see as necessary, justified, acceptable, beneficial and self-sustaining.

Controlling the stupid seems justified, acceptable, and beneficial.

[Velociryx]

If banning smoking costs 300 Million dollars a year, that means the cost to each American is $1.

Oh, how evil! Its money we could be spending on porno! Gambling! Drugs! Tabacco!!!

Care to explain how less people inhaling extra carcinogens is a bad thing?

I don't need to. You are the one defending the law. I'm asking YOU what business of yours it is if people choose to smoke? If you want to limit WHERE they can smoke...okay. They seem to have adapted to that. But why the need to continue throwing money at trying to stamp out all smoking, everywhere. Especially in light of the fact that there are already plenty of places that non-smokers can go without having to be "endangered" by the insidiousness of second hand smoke. (the vast majority of places, in fact).

Government has no responsiblity. What a silly notion. Government is a system of distributing power. Any "responsibility" government has is the function of those things government must do to maintain the status quo vis a vi the distribution of power.
Government does whatever those in power deem necessary, justified, acceptable, beneficial, and self-sustaining.

If one justifies government under the rubric of popular power and the soverignty of the masses, then the government must do what the masses see as necessary, justified, acceptable, beneficial and self-sustaining.

Controlling the stupid seems justified, acceptable, and beneficial.

But thanks for the "lesson" in civics.

Actually, government has whatever responsibility the people behind the government grant it....my question is....why should we grant it the ability to control and modify people's behavior in this fashion? You seem quite in favor of this approach, and I do not.

That's all.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

And in case you're curious, I used to smoke.

Quit when I met Christina, so I'm not arguing this point from the vantagepoint of addiction.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Originally posted by Velociryx

I don't need to. You are the one defending the law. I'm asking YOU what business of yours it is if people choose to smoke? If you want to limit WHERE they can smoke...okay. They seem to have adapted to that. But why the need to continue throwing money at trying to stamp out all smoking, everywhere. Especially in light of the fact that there are already plenty of places that non-smokers can go without having to be "endangered" by the insidiousness of second hand smoke. (the vast majority of places, in fact).

I don;t ban smoking, democratically elected legislators do. I support those democratically elected legislators who want to, because smoking is no no consequence, more importantly, of no benefit to anyone except those that make money growing the noxious and toxic tabacco plant, and they can always find money elsewhere. No longer having to pay for people who made thier lives worse by smoking, or having ot bear more smoke than I already have to deal with is fine by me, if all it means is taking away someone's unhealthy oral fixation.

License is not Liberty. There is a vast difference.

Actually, government has whatever responsibility the people behind the government grant it....my question is....why should we grant it the ability to control and modify people's behavior in this fashion? You seem quite in favor of this approach, and I do not.

That's all.

-=Vel=-

The polity has every right to limit license if it finds an activity more trouble than its worth.

Take ALL THE GOOD smoking has ever done. Compare it to all the unnecessary pain, death, and annoyance. That is a pretty uneven scale. So the polity decides the licence to smoke is not worth the trouble. Good for the polity. Now society can spend its limited resources on something else.

And that is the basic point- we all have limited resources to do everything and anything with. If in order to better and more effectively spend those limited resources we have entail modifying people's behavior for the better, then GOOD.. lets do it.

[Velociryx]

Good. Now we're getting somewhere.

And I'm glad you mentioned the notion of limited resources, because that's important.

And...you're right.

Even the government (tho it likes to pretend otherwise) HAS limited resources.

Then there's the concept of diminishing marginal utility.

At some point, it becomes more trouble than it is worth to continue fighting pollution, the high cost of health care....anything, really. Including stamping out the last few remaining places that smokers can go.

Places that can be clearly marked so non-smokers won't unwittingly expose themselves to a stray particulate that the dreaded smoke contains.

Now...we *could* ply our limited resources to stamping out every last of those vestiges, and then go even further, and start searching people and private residences in sting operations, bring out the dogs....all the juicy stuff we save for harder drugs.....but why?

At this point...limited smoking areas and all that jazz, we've already gotten 90%+ of the "gains" (those vast savings to health care and such) that we're gonna get, so plying yet MORE resources into something that's already pretty much a dead horse seems.....well, actually it seems pretty typical of government waste. They've never really been known for their efficiency.

And, for all the danger that second hand smoke causes (especially being as limited as it is in the here and now), I can't help but wonder when the anti-flatulence law will come up....I mean...let's face it, those "silent but deadly" green gassers are WAY more menacing than a ciggarette or two, and the stench is way worse to boot.

Think of all the money we'd save in health care if we weren't inhaling each other's anal gasses all day? And the dramatic reduction in pollution.

But then...that's rather silly.

And so's this.



-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Is that what you call a serious examination of cost/benefit?

Its simpler than that:

What benefit is gained from smoking for society? As far as I can tell, NONE.

What cost does society bear from smoking? Increased rates of illness.

So, what is the point of allowing individuals the license of smoking when the benefits to society are none and yet there are costs to society?

To me the answer seems simple. There is no point to allowing smoking. The only point is ideological, not economical or medical. The ideological point is the fetish with license, ie, LET ME DO WHAT I WANT!

People who hold this fetish call banning smoking part of the "nanny state". Of course, maybe if these people grew up and saw the falacy of the license fetish they would not need to be nannied. People need to be responsible for their actions- and they need to be cognizant of the fact that since men live in a society, one's actions have consequence not only for the individual, but for other individuals, and you need to be responsible not only for yourself, but for the ways you impact others.

Smoking serves no purpose, nor does it even give us any benefit whatsoever (things that are not true of most other drugs, even many of the more powerful narcotics). Society should not be made to bear the cost of this habit simply because some whinners need to feel in control, thought of course they aren't.

[Velociryx]

Then we must, by that line of thinking, ban any and everything that offers no gains and increases societal costs.

That list is frighteningly long, and one day, it just might butt up against something YOU enjoy.

I wonder how quickly your opinion will change when it does.

It is not the state's function (at least not in a democratic society) to decide for us.

Smoking in places where non-smokers do not go, carries no societal cost.

Drug screening techniques can pick up nicotene concentrations just as easily as they can pick up cocaine, so the costs in health care CAN BE easily contained to the smoking population only, but that's not good enough for you, is it?

And in the end, the last bit of the veil falls away, and the truth is revealed.

It's not about forcing people to bear the costs and consequences of their actions...we could do that right now (as mentioned above).

It's about control.

I believe that the less say a government (any government) has in our day to day lives, the better off we are.

You are, of course, free to disagree, but no argument you can make will change my mind.

And...I don't really expect to change yours.

You've created for yourself the perfect little internal logic puzzle, and you're so comfortable in its confines that you cannot see out of it.

That's fine, and I understand.

Your abrasiveness and your condescension only serve to underscore your extreme defensiveness whenever anyone comes along to challenge the intricately interwoven worldview you've created.

You've got it all figured out and already have all the answers, so everyone else MUST BE off their rockers.

If that's the way you see it, that's cool.

And you're lucky in this instance that a lot of people agree with you about banning the insidious habit called smoking.

But the day will come when you find yourself on the opposite side of that fence.

I only hope the powers that be are more charitible to you, than you wish to be to the smokers.

And with that, I'm going to bed.

G'nite.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Go on with your license fetish all you want.

As for the most obvious logical mistake you made:

Then we must, by that line of thinking, ban any and everything that offers no gains and increases societal costs.

That list is frighteningly long, and one day, it just might butt up against something YOU enjoy.

This, of course, is wrong. We are under no compulsion to ban anything, since there is nothing forcing the polity to do anything.

So the polity can pick and chose what it wants to ban that serves no societal purpose whatsoever.

As to what happens is something I like doing is banned? I will be an adult, accept it, and find another thing to do. I will not be happy for about a while, but then life will continue, and who knows, I may actually be happier spending my energy elsewhere.

That of course, is being adult.