Blowing smoke up your ass – part 2
We know how I feel about the smoking ban. Good to see Naifeh do the right thing. For once:
Despite reports of growing support for a ban on smoking in workplaces, House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh said Wednesday he opposes the idea and believes most other legislators feel the same way.
MKS says: Can you say “tobacco lobby?”
I can. I can also say private property owners lobby or nanny state pricks lobby.
January 4th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Naifeh is doing the right thing for the wrong reason (tobacco $ influence).
Does his lobbyist wife represent the tobacco industry?
This guy is a socialist (think: his efforts in trying to pass a state income tax on working people several years ago, while simultaneously eliminating the tax on interest and dividends (aka the Hall tax, which is primarily paid by wealthy individuals on their interest and dividend income)).
Even though I am a libertarian-leaning Republican, I like and respect Bredesen (on many matters) and John Wilder in the Tn Senate.
Naifeh, though, acts like a thug most of the time.
January 4th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I don’t want a smoking ban.
Naifeh is scum (although this is an insult to scum everywhere).
Not necessarily any relation between these statements.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Uncle:
In the original thread, you challenged me to produce evidence that second-hand smoke is anything more than a nuisance to non-smokers. I’d do so (I could easily produce reams of it), but you’d reject it out of hand, the way you do other things (like global warming, for example) that you find politically inconvenient. I’d produce peer-reviewed studies showing the harmful effects of second-hand smoke, and you’d go find some study that contradicts it, and choose to believe that one.
It’s not just you, though; it’s a common problem. “As long as I can find a couple of obscure (and usually well-compensated) experts to tell me what I want to hear, I can go on pretending that broad scientific consensus is wrong, because to believe otherwise would inconvenience me terribly.” I encounter that attitude all the time, in all sorts of debates, including among people that I normally agree with. It’s just that based on past history, I expect better from you.
As a side note, you really need to Thank You For Smoking if you haven’t done so already. It’s an absolute riot.
January 5th, 2007 at 12:02 am
You know what? I’ll do it anyway. First quoth Uncle:
Then quoth Uncle:
Well, let’s see. Start with those hacks over at the American Lung Association. Or failing that, the partisan nannies over at the American Cancer Society. Or the commies over at the National Institute of Health.
Find me half that many articles from respected scientific organizations and/or government departments on the harmful effects of second-hand obesity, and I’ll concede the point. Do that, or admit that you’re full of shit, and that concerns about obesity are nowhere close bo being “indentical in every respect.”
This is a legitimate public health issue that directly impacts more people than just those who choose to engage in the habit. If you think government should be prohibited from taking reasonable measures to protect public health in those circumstances, then just admit that you’re essentially an anarchist and get it over with.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:47 am
I’m not pretending anything. I said quite clearly that I have yet to find any evidence supporting the claim that incidental contact with secondhand smoke causes anything (i.e., the kind you’d have in a bar or restaurant). Prolonged exposure has been shown to have some effects, particularly on children and a very low rate of lung cancer to people who live with smokers.
I only skimmed the first 2 sources from your links there but they address prolonged exposure. As I said, incidental contact with secondhand smoke only causes annoyed non-smokers. So, I don’t buy the health arguments, unless, of course, you’re a non-smoker whose always hanging out at bars. It’s about non-smokers being annoyed. Period.
That said, I’m not saying smoking is good for you nor am I saying exposure is not at all harmful. I’m saying there’s not enough of a causal link for me to be willing to have the .gov order business owners to ban smoking.
Not to mention the little fact that you can go places where there isn’t smoking.
January 5th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Put down the donut Utopian nannyist know it alls.
Can’t we all just leave each other alone? The great philosopher Rodney King might have said that.
Never have so many people told other people how to live their lives…
Let he who is without faults cast the first stone.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
The problem with all the smoke blowing over second-hand smoke is the simple fact that the dose makes the poison. Of course secondhand smoke is just as bad for you as first hand smoke – worse, even, assuming filters have any benefit whatsoever – but only if the secondhand smoker manages to inhale anywhere near the same quantity that a firsthand smoker does, day in and day out. That will only happen if he consistently places his nose and mouth in front of the offending cigarettes and intentionally inhales the stream. Show me a cigarette strong enough for its dissipated smoke to kill a secondhand smoker gradually, and I’ll show you a cigarette potent enough to kill a firsthand smoker instantly.
On the flip side, there are plenty of political reasons to push this phony “science” about secondhand smoke. These groups you cite are not disinterested researchers, but folks with an axe to grind. Their real goal is to regulate firsthand smoke, but they realize that intrusive, friendly fascist laws aimed at protecting an individual from his own choices sell better if they can be repackaged as laws designed to protect individuals from each other. This is also the reason why arguments about helmet laws, seatbelt laws, etc. are always accompanied by some phony baloney about how we’re really protecting society against this cost, that cost or the other one, not passing the paternalistic nanny-law everyone knows we are in fact passing (and a sizeable minority of us are actually OK with). That these groups haven’t concocted similar “scientific” claims about secondhand obesity has nothing to do with their inability to come up with misleading statistics to “prove” it, and everything to do with the fact that the premise is so transparently stupid no one would beleive it. Granted, if our culture were not so innumerate, the same would be true of secondhand smoke, but it’s not. Most of us have a hard enough time counting to 10, let alone counting to pi*r^3 and multiplying by 4/3.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:51 am
All these bans/limitations etc. are just a way for politicians to avoid accountability. If they really think it’s so bad, then they should have the guts to outlaw smoking. But they feed at the trough of the revenue it produces…so they want to have their cake and eat it too.
It’s disingenuous.
January 5th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Terry:
Given the outrage from some circles over a ban on smoking in certain places, how badly do you suppose their heads would explode if someone seriously suggested banning it outright? If the former is intrusive, what does that make the latter? I do agree, however, that the tax situation is problematic.
Uncle:
I sometimes forget that you live in the imaginary world where anyone who works in a place that allows smoking could just run right out and get another job at some other place that doesn’t allow it, and all for equal or better money. (In Libertarian Fantasy Land[tm], nobody ever has to work in less-than-ideal conditions, becuase they can just run right out and get some other job that’s better!) If working in a smoky bar eight or ten hours a day, five or six days per week, doesn’t count as “prolonged exposure,” then I don’t know what does.
Frankly, I’d rather see a ban that allows indoor smoking areas under certain circumstances. If you have an enclosed-but-well-ventilated area, and that area is situated such that neither your non-smoking patrons nor your non-smoking employees ever have to go through it (say, to get to the restrooms), then I don’t see why you shouldn’t offer an indoor smoking area like that. But given the known public health risks of second-hand smoke, I just don’t think it’s all that oppressive to ban it in indoor public places.
And guess what! You can go places where there is smoking, if you so choose. Outside, for one. Home, for another.
#9:
We can all leave each other alone when smokers start treating cigarettes like they expect hippies to treat their patchouli incense — keep it the hell out of my face.
Xrlq:
What the hell has a volume of a sphere got to do with anything? Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever said that organizations like the American Cancer Society wouldn’t try to ban smoking altogether if they could. But even if they would like to do so, that does not by itself invalidate the evidence indicating that it’s also harmful to others.
You may be of the opinion that public health risks must be black-and-white and wholly egregious before any action is considered, but I don’t share that opinion.
January 5th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
If it were an issue to them, they wouldn’t have started there. Also, places that allow smoking there tend to employee folks with minimal skill sets. So, yes, that is the case.
BTW, wonderful job of changing the subject.
Indeed. And when I smoked, I did. Now that I don’t, I don’t.
January 5th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
I told you smokers were generally nicer people.
January 5th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
TGirsch:
It has everything to do with the concentration of smoke a “passive smoker” can expect to inhale on any given occasion. If your face is right in front of the cigarette and you suck in the fumes directly, you can expect to inhale about the same amount of smoke the firsthand smoker would. If you are 1 foot away, expect that little trail of smoke to be diluted by approximately 4/3 x pi x 1^3 = 4.19 cubic feet of clean air the firsthand smoker is not inhaling. It won’t always happen that way, of course; as the trail doesn’t dissipate that quickly, sometimes it will be more and other times less, but on the average, it WILL work that way. Once in a while, that stream will stick together and hit your nostrils just right. The rest of the time, it will miss them, resulting in an annoying but harmless stink.
Of course, unless you’re in really tight quarters you can probably move at least 2 feet away from the nearest cigarette rather than one. That waters the cigarette down even further, by a factor of eight, giving you 4/3 x pi x 2^3 = 33.5 cubic feet of clean air to work with. If you can tease out a third foot of distance, you’re up to 4/3 x pi x 3^3 = 113.1 cubic feet of clean air, vs. that one measly cigarette. For comparison’s sake, try adding that much water to a fifth of vodka, and see how drunk you get.
No, but simple math does, as illustrated above. The prohibitionist mentality of these groups should, however, cause you to take their “scientific” claims with an appropriately sized grain of salt, particularly when they make claims that make intuitive sense (He’s only 3 feet away, the smoke couldn’t have dissipated that much) but turn complete rubbish when you do the actual math (113 cubic feet of clean air —> yes, it has dissipated that much). That’s why I’m convinced they would be equally quick to advance equally dishonest theories about secondhand obesity, if only they could find a way to make that lie sound half as believable.
The real kicker ought to be the truly implausible claims even to those who don’t bother computing the volume of a sphere. My favorite is the canard about there being “no safe level” of secondhand smoke. Sure, there may be a safe level of hemlock, arsenic, cyanide or even polonium, but second hand smoke? No way.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Uncle:
If it were an issue to them, they wouldn’t have started there.
Why does every single bit of your “market will provide” logic always assume that everyone always has the ability to choose among a wide range of jobs? Have you never been in the situation where you had to take a job because you didn’t have a choice? If not, count yourself fortunate, but others aren’t so lucky.
Also, places that allow smoking there tend to employee folks with minimal skill sets.
Thank you for making my point. Because these people have minimal skill sets, they don’t really have the choice to stop being a bar waitress and instead get that administrative assistant’s position they’ve been eyeing. No, if they’re lucky, they can get a job at another bar or restaurant, which almost certainly also allows smoking. An imaginary choice isn’t actually a choice, you know…
And by the way, how was I changing the subject? I argued that second-hand smoke is a legitimate health risk to others besides the person doing the smoking, and have not backed away from that argument. Just because you may have assumed that I was talking strictly about the patrons and ignoring the employees does not mean that this is actually the case. In fact, I’m talking about all of the above.
Xrlq:
All that fancy math, and still my clothes reek of smoke after less than ten minutes in a room full of smokers. Of course, that’s the only impact to me — fortunately, my clothes were kind enough not only to absorb the odor, but also to soak up all of the carcinogens and other airborne particulates, and prevent them from getting into my lungs.
I’ll give you this, though: While you’re full of shit, you’re exceptionally good at being full of shit. So much so, actually, that I’m convinced you could argue the opposite side of pretty much anything you argue with equal conviction, and be very nearly as convincing.
January 5th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Dude, i said low skilled jobs. That includes waiting tables and picking fly shit out of pepper and ditch digging. There are a wide variety of low-skilled jobs. period.
They’re also more likely to smoke if they are lower skill sets. It’s not the educated that tend to smoke. Just saying.
or picking fly shit out of pepper.
Well, that time I thought it was clear. But let’s review. So far, it’s been about health. Then convenience. Then your clothes smelling like ass. Then about looking after those poor low-skilled folks. And next it will be? I’m guessing saving those low-skilled smokers from themselves.
Glad to see you finally admit that is exactly what it’s about. Period. End of story. You lose.
Translation: Crap, I lost. Stupid math and figures and logic and whatnot. I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!!!!!
January 5th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
#9:
We can all leave each other alone when smokers start treating cigarettes like they expect hippies to treat their patchouli incense — keep it the hell out of my face.
That’s pretty good Terry. I don’t smoke and haven’t for, well, a long time. I was one of those who didn’t get hooked but occasionally smoked. For a long time I smoked once in a while but when I got married that changed.
I have recently thought about getting a nice cigarette case and purchasing some of those James Bond cigarettes without filters that I can use when ever hipsters at a cocktail party want to blabber about global warming.
I could fire one of those suckers up and clear a good ten foot hippie/hipster free space around me. I don’t even have to inhale. Heck, just having the thing lit up is all I need.
But I won’t do it for spousal reasons, besides, those things will kill you and I am not stupid, at least not any more.
Another problem is I would have to wash my clothes before the boss kicked my ass. I was smart, I married a non-smoker, one with an attitude.
January 5th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Well, duh. That’s because it doesn’t take anywhere near as much cigarette smoke to stink up your clothes as it does to fuck up your lungs. Did you really need me to spell that out for you? If so, consider this: one drag off a cig every day will suffice to give you bad breath. It takes about a pack a day to kill you, and even that assumes you start in your teens or early 20s.
January 6th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Uncle:
Well, that time I thought it was clear. But let’s review. So far, it’s been about health. Then convenience. Then your clothes smelling like ass. Then about looking after those poor low-skilled folks. And next it will be? I’m guessing saving those low-skilled smokers from themselves.
Bullshit. I have never deviated from my position that it’s a public health issue. You can agree with that or disagree with it, and you can accuse me of making poor arguments, but it’s beneath you to accuse me of changing the subject when I have done no such thing.
Glad to see you finally admit that is exactly what it’s about. Period. End of story. You lose.
Oh, fuck off. I never said that my clothes stinking was a primary concern. I was using it as a counterexample to Xrlq’s asinine argument that because cigarette smoke dissipates, it has no noteworthy health impacts. If it’s concentrated enough to get all over everything, including clothing, within a few minutes, that’s tough to square with the idea that it’s so diluted that it really doesn’t matter, no matter how many silly “bad breath” arguments he tries to make.
And in any case, let’s pretend for a moment that “annoyed nonsmokers don’t like it” really is what it’s all about, with no health concerns whatsoever. So what? It’s still well within the government’s power to regulate, what with bars and restaurants being commerce and all, and if a majority of the people of the city/town/county/whatever decide that this is a rule they want implemented, they should by all means implement it. No basic rights would be infringed by such a regulation — you’d still be able to smoke, just not in public where it’s bugging others. Kind of like noise/loud music regulations. You know, part of living in a polite society.
I guess I didn’t realize that libertarianism was just a fancy word for “I should be able to do whatever the hell I want whenever and wherever the hell I want, as long as I don’t kill anybody (well, anybody who I can’t say I reasonably construed as a threat),” or maybe just “I don’t like rules.”
But all that aside, there’s enough evidence that there is a legitimate public health issue at stake to justify such bans in localities that choose to implement them. It might not be enough evidence to convince the Xrlqs and SayUncles of the world, but democracy marches on with or without your permission (just as it marches on without my permission if such bans aren’t passed).
Translation: Crap, I lost.
Incorrect translation. Correct translation: Since Xrlq can’t dazzle them with intellect, he’s resorting to baffling them with bullshit. It’s a neat tactic, oft-used, where one throws as much complex information as possible at a debate, preferably of a type that’s likely to go over the heads of most observers, figuring that nobody will bother to challenge it, and even if somebody does, by the time it all gets ironed out, everyone else will have tired of the discussion. But he’s right in this regard: a single smoker on the other side of the gymnasium is highly unlikely to harm you with his or her second-hand smoke. Now if only this argument had ever been about that.
I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!!!!!
I admit it, that’s funny. Wrong, but funny. 🙂
Xrlq:
I still bet you could argue it exactly the other way if you wanted to. Hell, you’re a lawyer! You’re not paid to be right about stuff, you’re paid to win arguments, right or wrong. 🙂 (Yeah, I know, you’re not that kind of lawyer — nobody ever is…)
January 6th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Oh, fuck off. I never said that my clothes stinking was a primary concern. I was using it as a counterexample to Xrlq’s asinine argument that because cigarette smoke dissipates, it has no noteworthy health impacts. If it’s concentrated enough to get all over everything, including clothing, within a few minutes, that’s tough to square with the idea that it’s so diluted that it really doesn’t matter, no matter how many silly “bad breath” arguments he tries to make.
As someone who works with quite a lot of chemists, I have to tell you this really isn’t an argument. There are many many compounds that in very low concentrations will stick to shit like glue, particularly sulfur compounds, like the kind you get in skunk musks and in natural gas odor markers, that are completely harmless even in quite detectable concentrations. The human nose is more sensitive to some compounds than others, and some of the most deadly and toxic compounds are completely imperceptible to our olfactory system. Our noses tend to be sensitive to combustion odors, because it’s probably a very good survival trait in an environment where there would naturally be a lot of forest fires.
January 6th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Translation: “la la la, I can’t hear you!’
Thanks for the compliment, I guess. However, I am “not that kind of lawyer” in a more literal sense than many in that I’m a solicitor who is paid to be right about stuff, not a barrister paid to convince a judge that any particular position – determined by my client’s interest, not my take on right and wrong – is right. I probably could construct a convincing-sounding argument to support the “secondhand smoke kills” position if I wanted to, but to do that, I’d have to stop saying what I honestly believe, and start doing exactly what you’ve been accusing me of doing up to this point: baffle them with bullshit. I’d probably dodge the issue of concentration entirely, as most anti-smoke nuts do, unless confronted by it squarely. Then I’d fall back on the same “What’s a sphere? What’s concentration? All I know is my clothes stink, so my lungs are sad” argument, and dress it up to make it sound less retarded than it actually is. I could throw in a few scientific-sounding terms, that may have nothing to do with the topic at hand, but they’d make me sound really, really smart. Then I’d change the subject and focus on the health problems of smoking generally, and hope no one will notice. If they insist on drawing a line between firsthand smoke (i.e., sucking in enough of that crap to kill you) and secondhand smoke (i.e., being exposed to just enough to stink up your clothes and annoy you), I’d fall back on lies, damned lies and statistics. My favorite variety would be the ones that confuse co-occurrence with causation with correlation – the kind they could also offer for secondhand obesity, secondhand drunk driving, secondhand pot smoking, and secondhand every-other-bad-habit-likely-to-correlate-with-other-bad-habits-shared-by-associates-and-family-members and doubtless would if they thought anyone would believe them.
And yes, to the average listener, my phony argument would likely sound about as impressive as my real one does, and its detractors would again call bullshit. The difference between the two is that when it comes to my real argument, all my detractors can do is call it bullshit. In the case of the hypothetical one, they’d be able to demonstrate that it is bullshit.
January 6th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
If Say Uncle were a bar it would be my favorite place.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Sebastian:
You could be right about that. Is that true for cigarette smoke? I’m not sure, but I’m willing to concede the point. Especially given how eager Uncle was to jump on it and say “See, it’s not about health, it’s about you wanting to make it illegal for me to make you smell like ass if you get in my vacinity in public.” 🙂
The problem I have with all of this is that when you smoke in public, it’s more than just a “personal choice”; it’s something that unquestionably has an impact on others around you, including some health impacts.
Xrlq:
I think I see a big part of where we’ve been talking past each other. It seems that you’ve focused in on whether or not second-hand smoke will kill you, whereas I’ve been talking more broadly about health concerns. You mention killing in virtually every comment you’ve posted on the subject, and I haven’t mentioned it at all. It’s probable one of the links I cited did so, but that doesn’t matter, given that Uncle’s original challenge, which was simply to show that second-hand smoke does more than “annoy” non-smokers. (Heck, the “making people around you stink” point, largely a throwaway, is still more than enough to disprove his assertion that smoking in public is “identical in every respect” to being a fat-ass in public.)
All that aside, however, what of the crap you cough up the next morning after being in a smoky bar or diner? Is there truly no health impact at all from that, either? Does that not qualify as anything other than an “annoyance?” What of employees and patrons with respiratory allergies or asthma? Are their concerns secondary to the unequivocal, God-given right of smokers to smoke in bars and restaurants?
January 9th, 2007 at 1:26 am
I should point out that my “you” in my comment to Sebastian was a hypothetical “you,” not “you, Sebastian.”
January 9th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
And I point out, once again, that smokers are generally much nicer people than non-smokers. Non-smokers don’t live longer, it just feels like it to everyone around them.
January 9th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
No significant one, no, especially not by comparison to all the firsthand booze you likely consumed at said smoky bar or diner. But if it’s enough to annoy you, don’t patronize the joint, and send the owner a letter telling him why.
Absolutely. This has nothing to with the God-given rights of smokers to smoke in bars and restaurants, and everything to do with the right of bar and restaurant owners to set their own rules. If you don’t like other people’s cigarette smoke, don’t frequent bars that allow smoking, and don’t even think of working at one. If you want the “right” to force your favorite bar to go smoke-free, buy the friggin’ joint and make whatever rules you want.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:48 am
straightarrow:
Non-smokers don’t live longer, it just feels like it to everyone around them.
Funny, but again incorrect. 🙂
Xrlq:
No significant one, no, especially not by comparison to all the firsthand booze you likely consumed at said smoky bar or diner.
Except that the booze is something I did to myself (assuming I did — in my personal case, a safe assumption). The guy next to me didn’t do it to me. I can’t believe nobody else here seems to think this is an important distinction.
This has nothing to with the God-given rights of smokers to smoke in bars and restaurants, and everything to do with the right of bar and restaurant owners to set their own rules.
I think even you would agree that there are limits to this. It’s just that we’d set those limits at different levels.
If you don’t like other people’s cigarette smoke, don’t frequent bars that allow smoking, and don’t even think of working at one.
Again, that last “choice” sounds easier than it often is. But who cares about those low-wage workers, anyway, right?
If you want the “right” to force your favorite bar to go smoke-free, buy the friggin’ joint and make whatever rules you want.
Or, you know, work within the existing legal system to change the rules, provided you can get a majority to agree with you, and provided those rule changes are constitutionally allowable at all relevant levels. Nahh, what am I thinking?
And if such a local ban passes, the restaurant owners of course have the right to relocate to somewhere else that doesn’t have such a ban.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Of course it’s an important distinction, when it exists as a distinction at all. But unless the guy next to you was dragged into the bar kicking and screaming, by entering and remaining voluntarily, he did do this to himself. Besides, if he wasn’t thinking of doing something unhealthy to himself, what the hell was he doing in a bar?
The usual “there oughta be a law” mentality that is all too typical of liberals – and frankly, not as atypical of conservatives as I’d like. Democracy is fine when the alternative is worse, i.e., where reality dictates that we must all follow the same rules and the only question is whether these rules will be decided by a democratically elected leader or a tyrant. But where the alternatives are freedom or democracy, who in his right mind prefers democracy to freedom?
For now, as there is no law obligating business owners to stay put. Maybe we should all vote on that, too?