While we're at it lets outlaw Big Macs and french fries.

Freedom for the people is only possible with total tobacco-prohibition!!! The smokers-tyranny is at least as terrible as government-tyranny. Join our website for resisting the smokers-tyranny: www.passivesmoking.org.

"Because being free means being able to breathe freely and a state that does not allow its citizens to breathe freely makes its own citizens guilty of the worst violation of freedom!" 
(ADOLF WISCHNATH, former lawyer in Bielefeld and associate lecturer at the FACHHOCHSCHULE DORTMUND [DORTMUND COLLEGE])

The worst violation of freedom is demonizing those of us who are free. I smoke, and trust me our numbers are dwindling. A lot of the people I've come to know that have quit have done so because they need to, for their health. Your claim, Mr. Adolf Wischnath, makes our world sound like it exists in a haze of smoke to meet the smokers agenda to "tyrannize" you. Hitler convinced his people of the evils of Jews in the very same fashion and provided evidence that supported his belief.

If you do this to clean the air, you're foolish... ban cars would be more effective thing to try first. If you do this to cure the world of cancer then you will fail because this is only the number one cause of it... for now. If you do this for any reason really you're supporting a black market society, you are the supporters of Terrorism. Terrorists only make what everybody wants but the rest of the "civilized" world won't let them have.

The heart of this issue comes down to the simple fact that historically a significant number of smokers have violated the rights of others not to have cigarettte smoke blown in their face and in the faces of their children.

It is always so clear to ourselves when others violate our rights and our Liberty, but it takes a special focus to overcome our innate blindness to our own violations of others' rights and liberties.

The sad fact is that many people who loudly proclaim Liberty for themselves never make any effort at all to consider their own actions. That is why many Libertarians have earned the label of hypocrites, acting like spoiled brats demanding that they should be able to do whatever they want even if it infringes on other peoples' Liberty and Rights.

That is not what Libertarianism is about. It is about maximizing freedom by permitting everything which does not interfere with the rights of others.

The right to not have someone force you to breathe in fumes and polluted air is fairly basic. The flipside is how does one justify polluting the air of an unwilling person?

The Libertarian position should be that one is free to smoke as long as it does not bother other people. Since smokers have failed to police themselves, and failed to find a solution that keeps others from being bothered by their smoking, people have exercised the power of government to protect themselves from this violation of their rights.

That it is most likely going too far might very well be true. But it is false, and useless to argue that individuals have the right to pollute the air that other individuals breath. That is a violation of a basic principle of freedom.

Instead we should be working on at least a partial solution that respects the rights and freedom of everyone.

Morgan, which of the various laws do you believe to be ameliorating the injustices you see?

Banning business owners from allowing smoking in their buildings doesn't protect customer rights, as that would presume a customer has license on another person's property to begin with.

Banning cig. companies from advertising their products doesn't protect non-smoker rights, it silences unpopular speech, and is a sick attempt to enginneer social norms. C'mon... you know this as well as I do.

As for new FDA regulations and expenses to the cig companies, surely you know what every libertarian understands by heart: phillip morris, rj, and the other big guys are probably LOBBYing for those regs and esp the per-pack taxes, as it gives them a significant comparitive advantage against the little cig makers whom the regs hit hardest, and the cheap cig makers who lose their comparitive price advantage.

Z, I fear you are oversimplifying a problem to make it fit into a tidy dogma rather than considering the entirety of the issue.

Tell me how you feel about tobacco companies deliberately adding nicotine to tobacco above what is naturally occuring for the specific reason to make their product addictive as possible?

Is that another 'sick attempt to enginneer (sic) social norms'?

Are we discussing the state mandating that everyone prefer chocolate ice cream to cinnanmon? Or are we discussing an industry which used fraud and bioengineering and caused millions of painful deaths in order to make some profits?

Have you ever hung out in a chemo room watching people vomiting all over themselves while they hack out the last couple weeks or months of their lives?

It's disturbing and its real life.

I'm not suggesting that the government should be our nanny and decide what is good for us. I am however suggesting that the government does have a role in protecting me from force and fraud.

But you are confusing two different points that I was making. The first is that the right approach to smoking is to recognize that both smokers and non-smokers have rights and that the right solution is one that allows smokers to smoke as much as they want as long as it doesn't bother other people.

If you do a survey of bar owners you will be shocked to find that many of them are very happy about a state-wide ban. Trying to decide how to handle smoking is a no-win situation for most bar owners. They can't afford to piss off the smokers and they can't afford to smoke out the non-smokers. The law allows bars to become private clubs and to continue to smoke if that's what they really want. But most would prefer that they could become non-smoking without worrying about pissing off their customers and without worrying about losing customers to other bars. This is a way out for them.

But my other point is that the laws are most likely going to be too intrusive and go too far. I support a business allowing smoking if they want to. But there are going to ba a lot of laws restricting smoking more and more beyond what is necesary to protect other people's rights.

This is because smokers have acted the arrogant bastards for too long and built up such a huge well of anger and resentment that people are going to use the power of government, wrongly in my opinion, to punish smokers for their complete historical disregard of other people's right not to be poisoned.

I recognize that these laws are too draconian. But I'm not going to lift a finger to fight them because smoking has pissed me off too much over the years. There are far better and more important battles to be fought for Liberty and if I am going to lose some, well I'm happy to lose the one on smoking.

This addresses a larger issue which is that Libertarians have spent too much time and energy fighting tooth and nail over small impositions which seem to predominantly preoccupy rich, white trust fund kids and gloss over with scarcely a word the huge violations of Liberty which screw most Americans.

You are an extremely fortunate man if a public smoking ban is the most important issue in your life right now. If it isn't, than I suggest that you focus on the big issues which are much clearer and have a much larger impact on our freedom than whether or not you have to step outside to light up a cigarette.