NY passes same sex marriage

[_harmony]

Harm is essentially advocating arguments that favor taking the drug war to cigarettes too. Privatized morality indeed.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the FDA has determined that nicotine is a drug, as thus falls under federal regulation. So... the "drug" war already includes cigarettes.

And I don't see how a person can make an informed choice, when they are addicted to a drug. And it's doubly a killer, since it's an addiction to a known carcinogen.

[_EAllusion]

Cal -

There are equivalent smoking bans that effectively prevent people from "stepping outside" too, but even if they weren't, it is a clear breach of liberty. Not just for the smoker, but for the business owner who wants to provide a space to attract smokers. Bans on smoking in private businesses often carve out exceptions for hookah bars, smoke shops, and the like under the rationale that this is the product of the business. I don't see why "providing a space for smokers" can be the product of any business open to the public.

I don't think you'll ever catch me overestimating the intelligence or awareness of people. Second-hand smoke dangers are generally widely understood or people remain willfully ignorant of. It's an area where there is a reasonable presumption of public knowledge if there is to be any presumption of public knowledge. Again, I don't think the liberty of many should be restricting for the failings of the few.

I'm aware that people make bad risk/benefit decisions. I think they should be allowed to do so because it is in the interest of general welfare for people to make decisions for themselves about pursuits of fulfillment. In short, those bad decisions are overwhelmed by the benefit of individually fine-tuned decisions compared against top-down, one lifestyle for all dictates. The way you prioritize health over other concerns isn't right for everybody and it is unfair to them to force them into less than ideal arrangements because of your desire to parent others into decisions they will eventually appreciate.

Finally, I don't think the morality of smoking in the deontological sense matters to anyone who isn't a deontologist. You're "balancing of liberty and health" is a moral calculation, probably a utilitarian one, that is just as much a moral matter as thinking of this in terms of duties.

[_harmony]

Cal -

There are equivalent smoking bans that effectively prevent people from "stepping outside" too, but even if they weren't, it is a clear breach of liberty. Not just for the smoker, but for the business owner who wants to provide a space to attract smokers. Bans on smoking in private businesses often carve out exceptions for hookah bars, smoke shops, and the like under the rationale that this is the product of the business. I don't see why "providing a space for smokers" can be the product of any business open to the public.

What state are talking about? Because that isn't the case in my state. There's no smoking in smoke shops, bars, bowling allies, restaurants, grocery stores, the courthouse, or any other building where the public can gather.

. Again, I don't think the liberty of many should be restricting for the failings of the few.

An addicted person cannot make an informed decision about his/her addiction.

I'm aware that people make bad risk/benefit decisions.

See above.

I think they should be allowed to do so because it is in the interest of general welfare for people to make decisions for themselves about pursuits of fulfillment.

Pursuit of an addiction is not pursuit of fulfillment.

They way you prioritize health over other concerns isn't right for everybody and it is unfair to them to force them into less than ideal arrangements because of your desire to parent others into decisions they will eventually appreciate.

See discussion about the cost to the public, based on Medicare/Medicaid/State insurance claims for smoking related illnesses. As long as the public pays, the public has a right to say.

Oh wait! You just want smokers dead years before they would have been had they not been smokers. The hell with the cost of keeping them alive.

[_EAllusion]

What state are talking about? Because that isn't the case in my state. There's no smoking in smoke shops, bars, bowling allies, restaurants, grocery stores, the courthouse, or any other building where the public can gather.

It is the case where I live and in other areas.

An addicted person cannot make an informed decision about his/her addiction.

Well there's several things wrong with this statement in the context of this discussion. First ,the people we are talking about are necessarily addicted to anything. A person who doesn't smoke who chooses to walk into a bar with smokers, for example, isn't addicted to nicotine. People who use nicotine (or more commonly other drugs) aren't even necessarily addicted.

Second, people who have addictions do not automatically become completely incapable of making consensual decisions regarding their substance use by virtue of being addicted. That's just not true. Drugs don't automatically make people zombies. Compulsive use that manifests from addiction is far more nuanced than this.

Pursuit of an addiction is not pursuit of fulfillment.

Using substances or being in the presence of people who use them that carry the potential for addiction is most certainly a decision people make trying to weigh what will fulfill them against what will thwart it. And who the heck uses a substance in "pursuit of an addiction?" That's a risk, not the typically desired outcome.

See discussion about the cost to the public, based on Medicare/Medicaid/State insurance claims for smoking related illnesses. As long as the public pays, the public has a right to say.

Yeah, and yet you don't think whether people should be allowed to smoke or chew tobacco in their own home should is a government matter. Why not? Whether you chew tobacco in a restaurant or in your house has the same impact on your longterm health. You're not very coherent on this point. You are right in that one of the dangers in publicly funded health care is people such as yourself who will want to start to direct people's behavior to lifestyles they approve of with health care costs as the justification. It's one of the arguments against government involvement in health care.

One can easily imagine a scenario where there is a biological test for number of lifetime sexual partners. One can also imagine conservative groups arguing that anyone over a certain total without warranted reasons (deaths of spouse, etc.) should be stripped of medicare, medicade, obamacare subsides, etc. Number of lifetime partners is a predictive risk for all manner of diseases and associated costs of treating those diseases. Would you be in favor of that? Probably not, but I'm not sure why given your line of argument here.

Oh wait! You just want smokers dead years before they would have been had they not been smokers. The hell with the cost of keeping them alive.

What he hell? I just pointed out that from the studies I've seen, the health care costs of a smoker vs. non-smoker is a nearly a wash because smokers tend to die younger and thus use the health care system for fewer years. It's not less because they also are more likely to develop expensive problems. This is relevant when you argue that smoking bans are justified because smokers cost others in mutually shared health care costs. So does all manner of risky behaviors you probably don't want regulated, but that's a separate conversation and I don't think you are being self-consistent here anyway.

[_CaliforniaKid]

EAllusion,

You seem to view liberty as a supreme, sacred value that should never be compromised for the sake of other values. Not that your view is necessarily wrong, but I wonder if you realize how arbitrary it is. It is, I'd suggest, the product of a thorough socialization into a particular interpretation of American civil religion that deifies the free market and subordinates all other values to liberty. Not everyone shares your interpretation. The interpretation I hold to-- which is also the interpretation of the courts and both political parties-- makes liberty merely one of several sacred values, and suggests that sometimes the balancing of these values requires trade-offs and compromises between them.

Finally, I don't think the morality of smoking in the deontological sense matters to anyone who isn't a deontologist. You're "balancing of liberty and health" is a moral calculation, probably a utilitarian one, that is just as much a moral matter as thinking of this in terms of duties.

You seemed earlier in this thread to be suggesting that the public health argument is just a cover for people's general sense of revulsion against the act of smoking. This is a good example of where I'd draw the line between the legislation of established values (which admittedly have a moral dimension) and the legislation of sectarian morality. In my view, it is illegitimate to restrict a behavior because one finds it emotionally repulsive, deontologically immoral, or contrary to non-established values. I think people have a duty (ha ha) to make sure that their voting is based on rational balancing of established American values such as life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness.

There may be little difference in your mind between legislating cardinal American values and legislating deontological moral duties, but in my mind there's a world of difference. One type of thinking is useful for the smooth functioning of a pluralistic democracy, whereas the other kind is an obstacle to it. The established values were intentionally created as a kind of lowest-common-denominator, and as far as I can see, they've worked beautifully.

[_EAllusion]

EAllusion,

You seem to view liberty as a supreme, sacred value that should never be compromised for the sake of other values.

No, I don't think that.

You seemed earlier in this thread to be suggesting that the public health argument is just a cover for people's general sense of revulsion against the act of smoking.

No, I wasn't suggesting that. I'm sure that is the case in plenty of instances, but my actual point is the public health argument is a moral argument that enforces on others one's beliefs about how to prioritize health over other concerns. It is just as much an issue of lack of "privatized" morality as what you are trying to hit Republicans with. More so if you are including things like abortion in that statement.

In my view, it is illegitimate to restrict a behavior because one finds it emotionally repulsive, deontologically immoral, or contrary to non-established values.

I have no idea why you keep focusing on the term deontological. My sense is because you misunderstand what it means, but given that you're an otherwise intelligent person, I want to give the benefit of the doubt. Why shouldn't we restrict a behavior because we find it deontogoically immoral? And why is it Ok to restrict a behavior because we find it immoral in terms of consequentialist, contractarian, or virtue ethics?

I think people have a duty to make sure that their voting is based on rational balancing of established American values such as life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness.

Oddly enough, that's a moral assertion worded in way that best reads as deontology. I disagree that there is some established system of American values that everyone taps into and I'm not sure why people would be required to vote based only on them. When we pass a legal restriction on something, we are saying that the tools of the state - it's police powers, its capacity to seize property and redistribute it, etc. - should be used against people in certain instances. Whether this is the right thing to do is a moral question and that moral question should involve our best possible understanding of what is moral. Tradition can be wrong, and there's no reason to limit ourselves to shared tradition, real or imagined. The problem with what you are calling "sectarian morality" is really just that the kinds of arguments they imply are on questionable ground and/or are not publicly accessible.

And just so there's no confusion, I want to reiterate that simply because we determine an act to be immoral, it does not follow that it is moral to restrict that act with legal consequences.

[_harmony]

What state are talking about? Because that isn't the case in my state. There's no smoking in smoke shops, bars, bowling allies, restaurants, grocery stores, the courthouse, or any other building where the public can gather.

It is the case where I live and in other areas.

Well, it's not that in mine. Or other areas. You can't extrapolate your experience as more reliable or more useful, just because it's yours.

An addicted person cannot make an informed decision about his/her addiction.

Well there's several things wrong with this statement in the context of this discussion. First ,the people we are talking about are necessarily addicted to anything. A person who doesn't smoke who chooses to walk into a bar with smokers, for example, isn't addicted to nicotine. People who use nicotine (or more commonly other drugs) aren't even necessarily addicted.

You might want to read up on nicotine addiction, how quickly a smoker becomes addicted, how tobacco companies spike the nicotine content in cigarettes in order to addict new smokers more quickly, and how difficult it is to break the addiction.

And I think you left out a word (not...)

Second, people who have addictions do not automatically become completely incapable of making consensual decisions regarding their substance use by virtue of being addicted. That's just not true. Drugs don't automatically make people zombies. Compulsive use that manifests from addiction is far more nuanced than this.

Again, check out nicotine addiction. There is no "consensual" decision for an addict, regarding the use or non-use of the substance to which the addict is addicted.

Pursuit of an addiction is not pursuit of fulfillment.

Using substances or being in the presence of people who use them that carry the potential for addiction is most certainly a decision people make trying to weigh what will fulfill them against what will thwart it. And who the heck uses a substance in "pursuit of an addiction?" That's a risk, not the typically desired outcome.

Nicotine isn't just any addictive substance; it's a known carcinogen that is more addictive than herion. You might want to read up on it a bit.

See discussion about the cost to the public, based on Medicare/Medicaid/State insurance claims for smoking related illnesses. As long as the public pays, the public has a right to say.

Yeah, and yet you don't think whether people should be allowed to smoke or chew tobacco in their own home should is a government matter.

'Scuse me? I'm discussing public clean indoor air, not private homes.

Why not? Whether you chew tobacco in a restaurant or in your house has the same impact on your longterm health.

It's a loop hole we're still working on (chew tobacco is not under the same onus here.)

You're not very coherent on this point.

Are you channelling Daniel?

You are right in that one of the dangers in publicly funded health care is people such as yourself who will want to start to direct people's behavior to lifestyles they approve of with health care costs as the justification. It's one of the arguments against government involvement in health care.

Which isn't the issue on the table now. Unless you want it to be? Clean indoor air in my state is mandated and supported by the people, not the legislature. The legislature was too chicken to take on Big Tobacco. The people of the state finally got tired of smoke, though, and came through at the ballot box.

One can easily imagine a scenario where there is a biological test for number of lifetime sexual partners. One can also imagine conservative groups arguing that anyone over a certain total without warranted reasons (deaths of spouse, etc.) should be stripped of medicare, medicade, obamacare subsides, etc. Number of lifetime partners is a predictive risk for all manner of diseases and associated costs of treating those diseases. Would you be in favor of that? Probably not, but I'm not sure why given your line of argument here.

I have no opinion at this time. I've spent the last 15 years working against Big Tobacco and for the people of my state. I have opinions about tobacco.

So does all manner of risky behaviors you probably don't want regulated, but that's a separate conversation and I don't think you are being self-consistent here anyway.

You ARE channelling Daniel!

[_EAllusion]

Well, it's not that in mine. Or other areas. You can't extrapolate your experience as more reliable or more useful, just because it's yours.

My lord. I asserted that in some areas smoking bans carve out exceptions for businesses that specifically offer smoking as their product - such as a hookah bar. The fact that I live in one such area and am aware of others is evidence of my claim. It doesn't matter to me that your area does not allow those exceptions.

Again, check out nicotine addiction. There is no "consensual" decision for an addict, regarding the use or non-use of the substance to which the addict is addicted.

I worked in a neuroscience lab that studied the biology of addiction. I think I've "looked into it" enough that I don't think dismissing me with a naked assertion of being uninformed is going to do much for me.

'Scuse me? I'm discussing public clean indoor air, not private homes.

You're doing it again. You aren't just discussing public indoor air. You might want to be, but it's not like people get addicted to second-hand smoke in droves, and yet addictive potential is a key argument of yours here. You are using arguments that apply to any smoking, no matter where it occurs. Your whole argument on increased health care costs is relevant regardless of whether it is in a house or a restaurant that the smoking is occurring.

Which isn't the issue on the table now. Unless you want it to be?

You should want it to be, if you were consistent.

The people of the state finally got tired of smoke, though, and came through at the ballot box.

And again you appeal to majority rule, as if that determines whether a policy is correct.

[_harmony]

Again, check out nicotine addiction. There is no "consensual" decision for an addict, regarding the use or non-use of the substance to which the addict is addicted.

I worked in a neuroscience lab that studied the biology of addiction. I think I've "looked into it" enough that I don't think dismissing me with a naked assertion of being uninformed is going to do much for me.

Then why are you not acknowledging the impact of addiction on decision making? Why are you downplaying the addictive nature of nicotine? Because it suits your political agenda to do so?

You're doing it again.

Daniel? Is that you?

You aren't just discussing public indoor air. You might want to be, but it's not like people get addicted to second-hand smoke in droves, and yet addictive potential is a key argument of yours here. You are using arguments that apply to any smoking, no matter where it occurs. Your whole argument on increased health care costs is relevant regardless of whether it is in a house or a restaurant that the smoking is occurring.

True but the public (ie, the voters) aren't interested in banning smoking entirely (no, you aren't going to paint me into that corner). They just want to protect the public from a private addiction that spreads a known carcinogen into other people's lungs. And they're tired of paying the danged bills, so they'll take whatever they can get.

You should want it to be, if you were consistent.

Consistency isn't what is possible. We'll take what is possible, and continue to work on the rest.

The people of the state finally got tired of smoke, though, and came through at the ballot box.

And again you appeal to majority rule, as if that determines whether a policy is correct.

Correct? You want correct, go to church. Public policy is what's the best we can do at the time.

[_CaliforniaKid]

It is just as much an issue of lack of "privatized" morality as what you are trying to hit Republicans with.

Well, I'm not sure why you're ignoring the ways I've qualified that, but whatever.

Why shouldn't we restrict a behavior because we find it deontogoically immoral?

Because it is socially counterproductive to do so. When people start legislating strongly-held and widely divergent interpretations of "divine command" and "natural law", conflict usually results.

And why is it Ok to restrict a behavior because we find it immoral in terms of consequentialist, contractarian, or virtue ethics?

Because it is socially productive to do so. The most effective strategy for long-term stability in a pluralistic society seems to be when people are socialized into a minimalistic moral establishment, consisting only of those values that facilitate peaceful and civil coexistence.

Tradition can be wrong, and there's no reason to limit ourselves to shared tradition, real or imagined.

I'm not sure it makes sense to think of moral or legal tradition as being "wrong" or "right," but certainly some traditions are more functional and productive than others. Fortunately, tradition is also something that evolves in response to environmental pressures, and our American tradition seems to be one of the most productive and functional ones in the world today. I'm not suggesting that we should follow tradition just because it's traditional. I'm suggesting we should follow it because it works.

The problem with what you are calling "sectarian morality" is really just that the kinds of arguments they imply are on questionable ground and/or are not publicly accessible.

That's a very Rawlsian view, but I think Rawls failed to sufficiently explain why some arguments are "publicly accessible" whereas others are not. The answer seems to be that publicly accessible arguments are rooted in a national tradition into which all members are deliberately socialized. This process of socialization creates a shared, "public" language and value system so that our arguments are at least mutually intelligible.