I really, really hate smokers

[Asher]

I've treeplanted.

OH MY GOD! How did you survive TREEPLANTING.

!!!!!!!

If you can survive PLANTING TREEs then clearly there's no point to WORKPLACE PROTECTION LAWS.

Thank GOD FOR BEN. I have seen the light.

[Ben Kenobi]

BK, you've held every job you've had while living in countries that have large amounts of regulations concerning the exposure of employees to health risks.

I've treeplanted. 'Workplace regulations' are laughable compared to that job. The only way they make money is by ignoring them.

We had the Gilded Age already and the associated horrors to employees. Society said "No" to that a long time ago. Stop living in the 19th century.

Times have changed. Stop living in the 20th.

[Elok]

As an asthmatic, I say to hell with all of you. Chew tobacco, or the gum, or use a patch, if you can't do without the nicotine fix; you have no right to pollute my air. Certainly not to satisfy a personal vice. And yes, I know gum is a lot more expensive than straight-up tobacco. That can be fixed with even heftier cigarette taxes. Also floggings, and thumbscrews.

[Boris Godunov]

There's this little concept called a public good.

Hence your hypocrisy, as you only think "the public good" is a sufficient rationale when it supports issues *you* deem worthy, while you reject it for others, like smoking prohibitions. There's no evidence gay marriages are bad for societies that enact them, there's plenty that smoking causes significant damage, if just in healthcare costs alone.

[Asher]

There's this little concept called a public good.

Churches are a public nuisance.

[Boris Godunov]

wd, BG, you've completely failed to spot the difference between advancing the forces of production and authoritarian state control over people's lives.

No, you implied something was bad just because the Nazis favored it. I showed why that is dumb. Next.

[Ben Kenobi]

While we're on the topic, I don't see why churches need government benefits or why straight marriages need government benefits.

There's this little concept called a public good.

Churches and marriage do it better dollar for dollar then government programs.

[Asher]

It makes about as much sense to me as having a 'recognised national bird' of Canada be a penguin.

I don't care if you choose to sleep with men, fine. But I don't see why you need government benefits.

While we're on the topic, I don't see why churches need government benefits or why straight marriages need government benefits.

[Ben Kenobi]

He thinks it's outrageous consensual adults can get married if they're of the same gender -- the state can interfere here to ensure they can't.

It makes about as much sense to me as having a 'recognised national bird' of Canada be a penguin.

I don't care if you choose to sleep with men, fine. But I don't see why you need government benefits.

Ben is seriously crazy. I don't mean that as an insult. He's dyed-in-the-wool crazy. Ben is a couple traffic tickets and IRS audits away from being the next Ted Kaczynski.

Don't get me started on taxes. I'm shocked people put up with losing half their income every year.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, I suggest you go outside and take a look at the 'real world'. I think you'll find it works rather like I say it does.

I used to work at a bookbinding job. Regular breaks, etc. I remember every single temp help that we brought in watched the clock and at 10:01 made sure to go on their break, etc.

The regulars would work through their break, eat lunch together go back and then finish off their shift.

Some days I'd work straight through. Some days I'd ask if I could get off early, etc. I understand why the rules were put there, but if intepreted strictly are an impediment to actually getting the job done.

Do you suggest we abolish all workplace health laws, overtime, etc.? Do you, really, want to go back to that world? This is the world of "The Jungle" and Oliver Twist and whatnot, mind you. Where children work sixteen hours a day in the coal mines, and people dying on the job was a daily occurrence.

That world has gone. Instead we have the world of the job bank. Someone should write a modern day Oliver Twist which would be an eye opener. Regulations that originally made sense 100 years ago are now antiquated.

The difference between then and now is scarcity of labour. I don't know anyone who works for minumums, even Mickey D's pays 10 bucks an hour.

[Cort Haus]

wd, BG, you've completely failed to spot the difference between advancing the forces of production and authoritarian state control over people's lives.

[Boris Godunov]

We should tear down the Autobahn, and disband Volkswagen!

One of the most blatant Godwinizations I've seen in a while...

[Cort Haus]

And the first western regime (I hesitate to use the word 'government') to obsess over the joys and virtues of 'smokenfrei' was ....

[Boris Godunov]

BK, you've held every job you've had while living in countries that have large amounts of regulations concerning the exposure of employees to health risks. So to claim "I've never had a job where I was bound by the cumbersome 'rules' of employment standards" is laughable.

We had the Gilded Age already and the associated horrors to employees. Society said "No" to that a long time ago. Stop living in the 19th century.

[Asher]

snoopy: just ignore Ben please.

He thinks it's outrageous consensual adults can get married if they're of the same gender -- the state can interfere here to ensure they can't.

But worker health and wellbeing? Come on now, the government has more important things to do. We must remain vigilant about teh gays.

Ben is seriously crazy. I don't mean that as an insult. He's dyed-in-the-wool crazy. Ben is a couple traffic tickets and IRS audits away from being the next Ted Kaczynski.