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From: debray@sbcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: smoking, laws, society etc.
Message-ID: <386@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Jun-83 14:26:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: sbcs.386
Posted: Tue Jun 14 14:26:19 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jun-83 04:04:51 EDT
Lines: 63


Tim, arguing for the freedoms of smokers, says:

		" ... but the burden of proof always rest on the
	claimant, regardless of the issue. Here, the claimants
	are the	people who are	saying that their inconvenience	is
	sufficiently strong to deny other people their freedoms. The
	accused, the smokers, must in fairness be considered innocent of
	any such wrongdoing until a sufficiently large body of evidence
	appears. How else can we insure fairness?"

I have always correlated the "degree of civilization" of a society with the
freedoms that that society permits its members. I agree with Tim, therefore,
when he says that the burden of proof rests on the claimant regardless of
the issue.

However, since a society is essentially a group of individuals functioning
together, no society can afford to permit its members *absolute freedom* -
freedom to do absolutely anything. To ensure its own survival, a society
will constrain the freedoms of an individual so that they do not interfere
with the freedoms of other individuals.

In my opinion, that should work both ways: on the one hand, if society
permits me to do something, that something should not infringe on the
rights and freedoms of other people; on the other hand, if something I'm
doing doesn't infringe on anyone else's freedoms, I don't think anyone
should prevent me from doing it. And that covers everything - smoking,
drinking, sex, ...

The question, of course, is: how are we to decide whether the rights and
freedoms of one person are being violated by the actions of another? How
do we decide whether a person is "sufficiently strongly inconvenienced" (to
paraphrase from Tim's statement quoted above), whether a body of evidence is
"sufficiently large"? Can we insure fairness algorithmically?

In my opinion, the answer to that last question is: no. Therefore, to insure
fairness, we have to resort to an appeal to reasonable members of society
and hope we can reach some sort of a consensus.

On the issue of smoking, I think we've heard enough voices to conclude that
a not insignificant number of people are indeed bothered by cigarette smoke
(I'm appealing to your reason when I say "enough voices"). I think, therefore,
that *some* constraints should be present on smoking in the presence of
non-smokers, constraints that could be enforced by law. I think, though, that
banning smoking in public places altogether would be something of an overkill,
because the fact that someone is smoking in a public place need not imply,
ipso facto, that non-smokers are being bothered (e.g. there might not be
any non-smokers present close enough to be bothered by the fumes) - and I
think it's important that a person not be prevented from doing something
that doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights (to a reasonable degree!).
I think a better solution would be a law that required anyone smoking
in a public place to stop smoking if requested to. This, I think, would
maximize the rights of both smokers and non-smokers.

I myself am a non-smoker, but I sympathize with those who need to smoke (we
all have our pet vices: I need a game of rogue every evening after dinner!).
I've heard suggestions that smoking be banned altogether! That, I think, is
utter poppycock! If I should choose to smoke where I'm not bothering you,
who the hell are you to tell me what I ought to do?

Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
...philabs!sbcs!debray