In a failure of Progressivism, San Rafael allows people to smoke in their single family homes
Bookworm on Oct 02 2012 at 11:21 am | Filed under: Government
I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! That hatred is entirely separate from hating the way cigarettes harm people’s health. Even if they were healthy, the smell would disgust me.
Having said that, I hate even more ordinances that prevent people from smoking cigarettes in their own homes. The town of San Rafael, just north of San Francisco, has gone ahead and passed just such an ordinance. If the news story is correct, the only serious exception to the new ordinance is for single family homes. Otherwise, if you’re a smoker (and you really shouldn’t be, because it’s bad for you and rude to others), you are seriously out of luck:
San Rafael officials approved the county’s toughest anti-tobacco ordinance to date on Monday, banning smoking from all apartments and condominiums, in addition to parks, bus stops, restaurant patios and many other outdoor spaces.
The measure is aimed at protecting people from secondhand smoke, officials said.
“What we are really considering is the impact of others,” Mayor Gary Phillips said Monday before voting with his four city council colleagues to approve the ordinance.
The ordinance includes special restrictions for the downtown area, banning smoking from sidewalks and plazas except while smokers are “actively passing on the way to another destination.”
The new rules are similar to those adopted by the city of Larkspur, the county Board of Supervisors and other Marin agencies. However, San Rafael is the first to ban smoking in all apartments and condos; others allow designation of some units for smoking.
In San Rafael, landlords, condo boards, employers, public event organizers and the city manager could still designate some outdoor smoking areas, with restrictions. The areas would have to be 20 feet away from places where smoking is banned and 100 feet away from children’s areas or recreation areas such as playgrounds and swimming pools.
The San Rafael ordinance spells out some indoor areas where smoking would still be allowed including single-family houses, vehicles, up to 20 percent of hotel rooms and tobacco shops that are not attached to other structures. Actors in theater productions may smoke onstage if “smoking is an integral part of the story and the use of a fake, prop, or special effect cannot reasonably convey the idea of smoking in an effective way to a reasonable member of the anticipated audience,” according to the ordinance.
Let me say again that I hate smoking. If I was a landlord, I’d include in my lease a clause prohibiting tenants and their guests from smoking on the premises. Then I’d willingly face the marketplace, which might favor my smoking prohibition (so that I could charge higher rents) or might leave me with vacant units.
I also don’t have a problem with designating certain areas in public spaces as smoking or non-smoking. Just as smokers should be able to smoke (despite the fact that it’s a foolish and costly habit), non-smokers in public areas should have a chance to be free of smoke.
What I don’t like is having a police state tell me what I can do in my home — and during the term of my lease, that apartment or whatever else is mine. If the landlord doesn’t want smoking going on, that’s one thing. For the government to interfere is an unconscionable intrusion on freedom.
As for smoking’s harm, the best we can and should do is to keep educating people. More importantly, make it socially unacceptable, especially amongst teens. Right now, because adults are so anti-smoking, more and more teens seem to be smoking to prove how cool and rebellious they are. And as we know, all the regulations in the world won’t stop a teen determined to break the rules.
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WWWWHHHOOOOOOAAAAAA Gal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!. But take time to pay a small degree of homage and REMEMBER — NO TOBACCO, NO AMERICA.
Agree, bad for health as currently used, and stopped my minor dalliance in January 1958 after doing my first autopsy on a smoker. But who knows what yet to be discovered miracles lay within the complex organic alkaloids contained within it’s leaves, and what benefits mankind may yet derive. Keep an open mind to other uses. Maybe Barry might even discover how to make gasoline from tobacco, if he just spent enough federal money.
The thing the authorities that meddle and create poverty, crime, despair, and war don’t realize is that there are lot of us living in America that would make better totalitarian dictators than they. They don’t seem to be capable of conceiving of that little issue, as they advance ever onwards towards their self-perpetuating Utopia that they, and they alone, will be in charge of. But it’s not often the case that the initial revolutionaries get to take control after the revolution. It happened perhaps once in recent history, the American Revolution, and that was about it.
When a soldier lay wounded in WWll the holy trinity was apply (1) compression bandage over wound sprinkled with Sulfanilamide powder, (2) hang a bottle of IV plasma, (3) a shot of morphine; and capped off with a lit cigarette stuck in the mouth. I might add it’s the last war we really won, so maybe that cigarette had magic powers we have since lost, or maybe it’s just the force of will.
Are you against governmental rules against loud noises? If, for instance, your neighbor decided to invite his band mates over for a jam session at 2 AM, and the noise was over 100 dB in your home, would you complain, or would you accept that playing music is his right?
I’m not opposed to people smoking, or even playing loud music in their own home, but when that smoke, or music, intrudes into my property and reduces my quality of life, that’s when I want the authorities to make it go away. I’ll always try to reason with the person first, but it’s been my experience that people will keep smoking or playing music until you bring in the police.
It is possible to soundproof your home such that no noise will intrude into your neighbor’s home. It’s also possible to seal your apartment or condo such that your smoke does not intrude into your neighbor’s home. It’s your responsibility to not cause injury or reduce your neighbor’s quality of life.
I smoked for 12 years. Thank God I had the strength to put down the habit one day and never look back. As time went on, I became very sensitive to the presence of tobacco smoke and didn’t like being anywhere near it.
But one thing I swore I’d never do—and I never have—was to become an anti-smoking zealot. I don’t give a flying f*** whether people smoke or not, and I’d rather walk down Market Street in San Francisco wearing an “I Love All the White Boy Winners on American idol” T-shirt than become one of those fascist/Marxist prigs who’s always looking down his nose at people who do.
I’m with Book on this one. If an apartment building owner wants to allow smoking on his property, the government can damned well keep its holier-than-thou nose out of it.
I love dealing with people who can laugh off the slaughter of 54 million unborn children, or applaud the deliberate killing of a helpless person like Terry Schiavo, but will go running in an instant to Big Daddy for protection from second-hand smoke that might cut 2 minutes off their precious lifespans.
So Charles, are you OK if your neighbor plays loud music all night long and that music is so loud that it keeps you awake all night? If not, why not?
Paul, I’m sorry, I know you think your analogy is apt, and apparently insist that I do, too.
My example was a clear-cut one: an apartment owner who rents to smokers would, logically, rent to people who either like to smoke or don’t mind smelling it. It’s voluntary. Having to listen to somebody’s racket is not. I’m sure you can appreciate the difference.
Also, since I see you love consistency, I assume you would advocate banning all loud noise in public, as the San Rafael ordinance bans all smoking? That would have to include loud iPhones, car stereos, buskers, and noise emanating from public events, such as rock concerts and baseball games.
The issue here is how to draw lines that don’t create totally either/or situations. I’m willing to put up with some ambient noise as well as some smoke. Neither one will kill me. But a draconian measure like San Rafael’s is yet another example of big government’s inability to use discernment in its approach to public policy.
Charles, you said, “… an apartment owner who rents to smokers would, logically, rent to people who either like to smoke or don’t mind smelling it. It’s voluntary. Having to listen to somebody’s racket is not.” This is inconsistent. If you volunteer to allow smoke intrusion into your own home, then can you not also volunteer to allow the music to intrude?
Cities passed ordinances making the intrusion of loud music illegal because it interferes with the right of citizens to the peaceable enjoyment of their property. The analogy is apt. If I buy a condo, and there is a neighbor whose smoke comes into my home, they are interfering in my right to a smoke-free home. This seems pretty simple to me.
Again, the smoker can smoke, he just needs to take measure to insure his smoke doesn’t interfere with his neighbor.
Paul, you didn’t answer my question about banning all loud noise in public, so that must mean you accepted my analogizing it to banning all smoking in public.
That being the case, let’s go where your reasoning seems to be taking us: The San Rafael ordinance exempts private homes. Why? Smoke is no respecter of property lines, and can just as easily waft across imaginary lines of demarcation in a single-family home neighborhood as it can in a neighborhood of apartment buildings. Why the prejudice in favor of home owners who smoke over renters who smoke? The laws against noise pollution certainly embrace all, so why can’t laws against smoke pollution?
May I assume, then, that for the sake of consistency you would advocate that San Rafael eventually go whole hog and ban smoking everywhere?
Charles, it’s never good to assume something just because I didn’t answer the question. I was trying to get you to answer a simple question, “If you volunteer to allow smoke intrusion into your own home, then can you not also volunteer to allow the music to intrude?”
I’m for freedom to do things if they don’t interfere with another’s right to peaceful enjoyment of their own home. Why this concept is so hard for you to understand, I don’t know. Maybe you can explain it to me.
Let’s not muddy the waters until you at least answer this question. Then we can move on to other issues.
“If you volunteer to allow smoke intrusion into your own home, then can you not also volunteer to allow the music to intrude?”
Yes, of course you can. As they say in middle school, what part of volunteer do you not understand?
Answered your question, now please answer mine.
But if you don’t want the smoke into your home, why can’t you use the same method of refusing it as the music? This is the consistency I was talking about.
Paul, let’s try a little experiment. It will start with you honoring your own implied conditions for our discussion. I answered your question forthrightly with a polite request that you now answer mine. You studiously ignored that request and are now trying to start a Perry Mason-style interrogation.
I’ll be happy to answer your latest question when you do me the courtesy of answering mine. Once you’ve done so you can then ask me the follow-up question that you seem dying to ask. I’ll do the same for you. If we do this, we can go back and forth without it turning into a PaulScott or Charles Martel Master of the Universe demonstration.
PS: Have you been in Santa Monica long enough to know Denny Zane? I used to hang out with him back in the late 60s, then lost track of him for almost 40 years. I was surprised to see that he wound up in Santa Monica and became mayor for awhile, but not at all surprised to see that he was still mired in a tired socialist world view.
Charles, I know of Denny, but do not know him personally. What is your next question?
Paul, from No. 9 above: The San Rafael ordinance exempts private homes. Why? Smoke is no respecter of property lines, and can just as easily waft across imaginary lines of demarcation in a single-family home neighborhood as it can in a neighborhood of apartment buildings. Why the prejudice in favor of home owners who smoke over renters who smoke? The laws against noise pollution certainly embrace all, so why can’t laws against smoke pollution?
May I assume, then, that for the sake of consistency you would advocate that San Rafael eventually go whole hog and ban smoking everywhere?
PS: How long in Santa Monica? Born and raised there or from somewhere else? (I grew up near Pasadena and used to go to “Pacific Ocean Park”–now Santa Monica Pier–for kicks when I was a teen.)
I wasn’t there when they wrote the ordinance so I don’t know why they exempted private homes. I would surmise that there is very little drifting of smoke from a single family home into that of a home that does not share a common wall. That would be a good reason to exempt the single family home. The problem of smoke intrusion just isn’t there.
However, I’ve experienced smoke intrusion a lot in condos. A woman in my complex sold her unit at a loss and moved because her downstairs neighbor was a chain smoker and there was no protection for her. She tried buying multiple air purifiers but nothing worked. When you went into her home, the place reeked of tobacco smoke. The smoke affected 6 adjoining units on both sides and two floors above this guy. Everybody hated it, but we had no recourse.
Again I do not advocate banning smoking for all because not all smoke affects others. But when it does affect others, I’m very consistent in wanting it banned.
I moved here in early 98. I lived in Eugene before that (I know, that just makes SO much sense:~)
I hang out at Muscle Beach and play on the rings. Great place to live! I’m walking distance to the pier and Main St. I’ll go to my grave here. Don’t want to live anywhere else.
Well, your surmise is probably more accurate than not. Although I have to say that my next-door neighbor smokes weed in his garage just about every afternoon and the odor wafts over to my house. Can’t stand the acrid smell, and I certainly don’t want a contact high. I just close my screen door and live with it. Were he a heavy cigarette smoker, I’m sure I’d do the same. He’s a good man and his smoking habits, as the Marines would say, are not the hill I want to die on.
Regarding your love for Santa Monica, I certainly understand. There is almost nothing sweeter than finding the place you want to live and die in with no shred of uncertainty. I feel that way about Marin County. Eugene is a nice town—I venerate it because I’m an old track-and-field fan, so I love the way people there are into the sport. But if somebody were torturing me to make up my mind between there and Santa Monica, it would be a short session. The seashore would win hands down.
Muscle Beach? Great hangout! I take it you’re an observer of the passing scene, and there ain’t too many passing scenes in America as fascinating as the one you’ll see there.
Most condos and apartments house 4-12 units per building and have multiple buildings. I’m a smoker, and it always made sense to me that I would divvy up the BUILDINGS as smoking vs non-smoking, as a business owner.
But as usual they’ve gone for the overkill. Some smokers come over for a visit, and they’re more than willing to step outside to smoke. But to avoid breaking the law, they must be 20 feet away, minimum, from any non-smoking boundary? Next chance you get, walk around an apartment complex and scout out the regions within it that are more than 20 feet away from a building, playground, swimming pool, etc. In an apartment complex or set of condo units (with buildings even more closely packed together) where are such guests going to go? It violates all social norms that your guests can’t even step outside onto your patio for a smoke.
Suppose: In one evening, guests spend six hours at your place. Three are smokers, and four times that night they wish to step outside onto your patio and smoke a cigarette each. Is that really any worse a health risk than a double meat cheeseburger with a super-sized Coke and super-sized french fries? What about the 24-7 couch potato with the terrible diet who drops dead of a heart attack? Remember, they are claiming health risk as the determining factor. What about any of the other health risks?
I’m also bemused by the fact that owners of entertainment establishments won’t outlaw smoking in their own buildings, but they’ll gladly accept a government-imposed ban. They don’t want to lose the business customers unless EVERYONE would be forced to lose the business customers. Then they’re all for it.
It’s a principle thing for me, and my position is that the property owners ought to have full say either way. On the list of my concerns, this one is actually pretty low. Right there with mandatory seat belts. The principle is simply wrong, but I’m not going to get into a huff about it.
Mike D, I think much of the “science” behind second-hand smoke is bogus, like AGW. It gets repeated often enough that the credulous take it as gospel.
That isn’t to say that I don’t find heavy-duty smoke, like what you encounter in most Indian or Nevada casinos, off-putting. But there’s a huge difference between dislike and discomfort and the unproven idea that sniffing second-hand smoke makes you a candidate for cancer therapy.
I’ve hosted my share of friends who smoke and it would never occur to me to not make them comfortable by making my deck or backyard off limits as places where they can go enjoy a smoke. Sheesh, I’m sure I do some things that they wish I wouldn’t, but the point of life is not to impose my 13-year-old teenage girl demands on everybody.
Charles, T&F? Me, too. I moved there after HS and college in San Antonio. I’d run track, but not very well. I became a decent runner well after college. I moved to Eugene the year of Prefontaine’s death. As I write this, I’m looking at a poster of Pre hanging over my desk. He’s a true hero to me, having stood up to the powers that ran the AAU. He died much too early.
As for the rings, it’s become quite the community. Lots of gorgeous eye candy no matter your desires. It keeps this old man young, and the rings keep me strong.
Mike, I hope you understand that the reason behind the ban is to keep other people’s smoke out of their neighbor’s apartment or condo. Just like having your neighbor’s music intrude on the peaceable enjoyment of your own home is considered illegal when it is too loud or too late, smoke, which many doctors who study these things do believe causes cancer, should not intrude into your neighbor’s home.
As a person who values private property, I would assume this would be your position. Remember, the authorities will not get involved if the smoke doesn’t get into the neighbors house. All the smoker has to do is seal his place such that the smoke does not get out. This might be expensive, but it’s his addiction, not his neighbor’s.
I rented for many years, at a time when smoking was everywhere, and never had a problem with smoke intrusion from neighboring apartments.
I suspect that claims of a serious problem that requires a legal ban are almost entirely, well, blowing smoke.
pst314, maybe you didn’t read my previous posts, but your “suspicion” that there is no serious problem is clearly without merit. Not only did one of my neighbors sell her condo at a loss to escape the constant stench of smoke in her unit, but during testimony at our City Council meeting on the proposed smoking ban, there were numerous cases of people who had the same problem. This is clearly a large problem involving millions of people. Your cavalier attitude about the abrogation of property rights is astounding considering the constant harping of property rights and the rights of individuals of which I read on this forum.
To be clear, no one would have any issue with someone smoking in their own home if their smoke did not intrude into the home of their neighbor. You right wing zealots talk a good talk, but on this issue you are absolutely in the wrong. I hope you have a better response than what I’ve seen so far.
Paul, I was discussing people stepping outside to smoke. I’m entirely willing to concede that for poorly-constructured apartment buildings and condos, smoke and most any other air particulates can get transmitted from unit to unit. I’ve heard too many stories of that from too many people to not believe it.
My position on any sort of government-imposed ban on smoking outside, I’ve already stated. It’s overkill, draconian. And just plain stupid to boot.
“This is clearly a large problem involving millions of people.”
Your personal experiences don’t prove that “millions of people” are seriously affected.
Maybe there was something defective in the construction of that apartment building that caused smoke odors to penetrate walls, or maybe the smokers in question were doing something different than the neighbors I’ve had.
“Your cavalier attitude…You right wing zealots”
How about you calm down a bit?
pst314, you said, “I rented for many years, at a time when smoking was everywhere, and never had a problem with smoke intrusion from neighboring apartments.” So are you saying it’s OK for you to relate your personal experiences and infer that no one else is affected, but you have a problem with my contention that there are millions of people affected. I sat through dozens of people testifying about smoke intrusion at our City Council meeting. This is in one small city. It’s not that our city has substandard construction, it’s that smoke can travel through all manner of power plug, vents and leaks in most any building. Extrapolating to the whole population, it’s easy to conclude that there are millions affected.
The facts are clear, smoke from other’s units does intrude into the homes of people who don’t want that smoke in their homes. This law was designed to prevent it. If you think it’s OK for your smoke to leak into your neighbor’s home, then you clearly don’t care about private property rights.
I’m a left wing zealot and wear the badge proudly. From what I’ve read on this forum, virtually everyone is a zealot. If you aren’t one yourself, you’re not paying attention.
I’m going to add “right-wing zealot” to the litany of other things that leftists instinctively know about us conservatives:
–xenophobic
–uneducated
–racist
–violence loving
–hate homosexuals
–greedy
–miserly
–puritanical
–clannish
My yellow dog Democrat wife says that with the exception of all of the above descriptors, I fit the leftist concept of me quite well.
Okay, I’ll try again:
(1) I had many neighbors who smoked. Smoke did not penetrate the walls into my apartment. Smell of smoke did not penetrate. Smoke did not infiltrate through open windows. Therefore, I suspect that problems with smoke are associated with very poor construction coupled with very heavy smoking.
(2) Why should there be a total ban on smoking, if smoking in most locations causes no problem?
(3) Many problems are not nearly as urgent widespread as activists claim. As we all know, there are lots of activist organizations that falsify and distort evidence to advance their cause–sometimes for money, sometimes because they’re just fanatics. ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) was one I remember as being shameless in its distortions of the truth.
(4) I didn’t say anything that could legitimately show that I don’t care about actual smoke problems. I only questioned how common such problems are. Okay?
Sheesh.
Bookworm “I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it!”
I too hate it. It just smells foul to me. But, curiously, a few years ago I had reason to stop briefly in a cigar store which was permeated by the aroma of tobacco leaves. It was a bit pleasant, although I would not have wanted to smell it for very long. Funny, isn’t it, the contrast.
I feel a great deal of sympathy when I see people standing out in the cold, in alleys and etc, because of local laws that require that they stand at least 25 feet from any building entrance. If they were standing closer, I would only get the tiniest whiff when walking in and out of the building, and thus it seems rather unfair and unkind to enact such a draconian law. And then there are the bans on smoking anywhere in a public park. This was never a problem in the past, and yet it’s now completely banned. Sigh.
> it’s that smoke can travel through all manner of power plug, vents and leaks in most any building.
vents and leaks: shoddy construction.
plugs: perish the thought! try to apply a little logic. The smoke would have to enter through those GAPING plugholds, travel up or across through obstructions, then ENTER another plughole to get into the apartment or condo to offend the readily offended. I find this rather far-fetched. It’s not like we’re talking nerve gas here. ”Micrograms! Micorgrams!”
Typical liberal overkill (when you remove shoddy construction from the mix). I wouldn’t be so proud of being a left-wing zealot if it means this.
Again, I’m sympathetic to the problem of smoking inside apartments and condos.
The wife of one of my friends is allergic to cigarette smoke. My clothes are tucked away in drawers and behind closed closet doors in my house, where I smoke. Yet she can smell the smoke on my clothes even though I change before visiting.
It’s strange. I sit in a bar next to someone smoking and it doesn’t bother me in the least. (Nor does it bother me walking in through the door of the bar, nor when walking around in the bar prior to sitting down.) But I get on the elevator with someone who has just smoked, and within seconds I can smell it, and I don’t like it.
For those of you wondering why we need a system-wide ban, it’s because when there is a problem with smoke intrusion, we need a mechanism to stop it.
As for the comment about “shoddy construction”, if the building is tight enough that no smoke intrudes into the neighbor’s home, there is no problem and the smoker can smoke all he wants since his neighbor will never know. The law will only come into effect when there is intrusion.
Does this make sense?
I want to test left-wing zealot consistency here by returning to a question I asked Paul but which he studiously avoided answering:
Why not apply the same logic of his anti-smoking stance to that of ambient noise in public? If San Rafael can ban virtually all smoking in public, why can’t it also ban all irritating noise? Surely unwanted sounds are as much an impediment to the enjoyment of life as wafting cigarette smoke.
If so, may we ban loud car stereos? Buskers making music? Stadium sounds and outdoor music venue concerts? Loud cell phones? If not, why not?
This group of right-wing zealots is eager to know.
Charles, I wasn’t avoiding the question, I was just pressed for time and needed to stay focused on the smoking issue since you sounded like you kind of agreed with me on that and didn’t want to discuss it. But whatever…
On the noise, yes, I am in favor of noise ordinances. I HATE Harleys especially. Any vehicle that is louder than the minimum needed to function is intruding on my rights to peace and quiet. Loud stereos, too.
When you get to public events, there has to be compromise. You can’t, however, hold a massive concert till 3:00 in the morning in a location where hundreds or thousands or people are trying to sleep. There is a line that society needs to find and draw.
Does that help clarify?
BTW, we held an EV parade on Main St. in Santa Monica last year with 188 EVs. we measured the dB level before during and after. The levels dropped a good 30%. People were talking across the street with no problem. It was quite pleasant.
Oh, and the air was very clean. We measured that, too.
Goodness, Paul, what a perfectly delightful progressive paradise you’ve described! The quiet, pleasant, staid, reassuring whish of 188 EVs preserving the environment and Gaia’s loving peace!
Me? I love the sound of Harleys. Now, tell me, how is your old-lady desire for the sound of corn growing better than my desire to hear a Harley roar? By what uncontestable leftist reasoning is your view superior to mine?
PS: By the way, what are your favorite T&F events? Among others, I love the high jump and 1500 meters (used to run the 800 meters myself).
PaulScott: “if the building is tight enough that no smoke intrudes into the neighbor’s home, there is no problem and the smoker can smoke all he wants since his neighbor will never know. The law will only come into effect when there is intrusion.”
the quoted news article: “San Rafael officials approved the county’s toughest anti-tobacco ordinance to date on Monday, banning smoking from all apartments and condominiums…”
Not a ban on smoke intrusion. A ban on all smoking.
But a universal ban is supposed to be okay because it will be imposed “only if somebody finds out”? Where have we heard that sort of justification before? We all know that there are plenty of zealots who are eager to ban all activity they disapprove of. See a neighbor smoking in the parking lot? Get a little whiff in the hallway when your neighbor steps out to get the paper? Then call the police. It doesn’t matter if you’re being affected–much less harmed–in any substantial way, because you hate what they do and the law allows you to stop them from doing what you disapprove of. I’ve known lots of anti-smoking zealots who displayed that attitude.
Charles, the difference is that what I do does not interfere with your enjoyment of life, but what you do does interfere with mine, not to mention hundreds or thousands of others. On Sunday mornings, I like to read the paper while drinking coffee at a cafe on Main St. There are several thousand people along the mile long stretch of the street. It’s a pleasant place to be. Inevitably, someone with a loud Harley rumbles down the road and all conversation stops while they go by. Everyone dislikes it, but the police are prevented from doing anything about it by a state law changed by then governor Schwarzenegger, a Harley rider. These bikes have had their pipes altered to be even louder than stock, which are pretty damn loud to begin with.
Would you be OK if your neighbor played loud rock music full tilt all night long? If not, why not?
As for T&F, I’m a big fan of the middle distances. I marveled at the beauty of Mary Slaney running the 1500m. I also found the pole vault to be amazing to watch. But pretty much all of the events were interesting tome since I knew good performances no matter the event.
What was your 800m PR? I have a marathon PR of 2:58:23 and a half of 1:18:59 (my best race ever).
pst314, you have no proof that anyone would call the police on a neighbor if they couldn’t smell the smoke. You’re grasping at straws.
Please tell me how I could remedy the problem of my neighbor’s smoke coming into my home without this law.
Folks, I really and truly do not like the taste or smell of coffee. I’ve tried it, I’ve tried to develop a taste for it. I still don’t like it, but tolerate it for the sake of others whom I care about, such as my wife. When coffee is brewing nearby, and someones says to me, “Don’t you just love the smell of coffee brewing?” I just want to gag. Tea is even worse.
Since coffee interferes with my quality of life, I want to put the same bans on it that smoking has.
Who will stand with me on this?
PS says the money he gets from the government tax raping Americans isn’t interfering with American life. It’s just green cars for him. Just remember that kind of view, that is indicative of normal Leftist SOP.
PS makes the same mistakes as the Senators that chose to use violent and assassination to accomplish their Republican objectives in preserving their social status and latifundias. Killing Caesar only created a dictator in the form of his adopted son and successor, who coincidentally wiped the Senators out entirely and that generated two civil wars. Just because a certain social elite are afraid of losing power to other people, including the poverty stricken masses they have created, doesn’t mean they can just go around and do whatever they think is best to preserve their status quo. Because it won’t work. The more they try to squeeze the grape of juice, the harsher the blowback and vengeance will be.
If they think preserving their peace and quiet gives them license to enforce totalitarian control of their serfs and others who lack their money or political influence, they will eventually come to create an Octavian, an Augustus, someone who really is ruthless and will wipe them out in all the ways they had feared but loved to do to their neighbors. Nemesis will come sooner or later, for those who believe their lives are more important than anyone else’s.
This is all you guys have? Looks like I win this one.
“Please tell me how I could remedy the problem of my neighbor’s smoke coming into my home without this law.”
I wrote “Not a ban on smoke intrusion. A ban on all smoking” so a ban on intrusion would solve your problem. Do you have trouble with reading comprehension, or are you reading with intentional bad faith?
Strangely enough, for all that the Leftist alliance members talk about fairness and sticking up for the downtrodden classes, what they really are interested in is winning and smashing your face into the dirt for some petty social status justification.
Winning is very big with the tribal thinkers of the Left. To them, losing means being you, the Republicans and American patriots. And they are definitely not you.
“This is all you guys have? Looks like I win this one.”
The winnuh of this thread’s Black Knight Award! (“It’s just a flesh wound!”)
Be like Obama. He said “I win”.
One last comment: Isn’t it interesting that self-proclaimed left-wing zealot PaulScott enthusiastically likes having a law that by its wording outlaws an activity where that activity causes no harm? His excuse is “nobody will know”. And here I thought that “progressives” were against overly-broad laws as an infringement of freedom by the state. Funny, that.
pst314, Poor little boy, you’re just upset that I won the argument. Get over it, you can’t win them all.
pst314, I’ve been reading the biography of Steve Jobs in Spanish—it’s a slog, but the endeavor has considerably improved my comprehension.
I’m in the part of the book where Jobs’ famous “reality distortion field” is introduced as a major component of his psychology. The RDF, much like Orwell’s doublethink or Obama’s narcissism, allowed Jobs to think that he could do anything he desired and ignore anything that conflicted with his vision.
Of course outside observers perceived Jobs’ RFD as a manifestation of almost pathological immaturity.
One thing Jobs liked to do when entangled in his RDF was to declare himself the winner in various contests or situations, totally disregarding the fact that nobody else agreed with him or could see any objective proof that he had.
You may draw from this discussion any conclusions that you’d like, pst314.
“One thing Jobs liked to do when entangled in his RDF was to declare himself the winner in various contests or situations…You may draw from this discussion any conclusions that you’d like, pst314.”
A fascinating observation, and a moral example well worth repeating.
That reminds me of a much earlier book about the PC industry. The author, commenting on Steve Jobs’ legendary tendency to abuse employees, wrote that if Jobs had behaved that way to him he “would have taken a fire axe to him.” That certainly gives you a visceral impression of just how awful a person Jobs was.
> This is all you guys have? Looks like I win this one.
The advocate gets to be judge, jury, and executioner too, eh?
In the immortal phrasings of Al Gore, “The debate is over!”
When a person’s role model is a totalitarian wannabe like Obama, you get what you get there.
These kinds of people will say that the Hollywood director didn’t really rape the teenager in the pool. What do you expect from them? Did you think you lived in the same world as them?