quittin' smoking

[Jeremy David]

Your argument can't seriously be that it's the job of the victim to
avoid being victimized. If this is how you think then why have laws at
all?

re: why not other things like AIDS and the flu? Probably because
forcing involuntary smoking is the result of behavior that is already
criminal in many places, and behavior which is easily preventable. If
you can find a cure for the flu or AIDS that is as simple, then go for
it. I bet you can't, though.

On 3/14/06, Chris Rapier <rapier1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  Ah, but my comfort and that person's comfort aren't truly commensurate: my
> > comfort doesn't impose something on them, while their comfort-- which is
> > avoidable with a quick trip for them outside-- imposes carcinogens on me.
>
> Sorry, I don't buy it. Mostly because you are arguing to the extremes.
> The amount of exposure most patrons get at a club is highly unlikley
> to cause any sort of cancer. Of course the risk isn't zero but if they
> were trying to avoid risks they wouldn't be at a club in the first
> place. So I'm really not thinking that health concerns in this
> specific exmaple are valid for the vast majority of people - sure
> there will be outliers who are so dramatically affected by smoke that
> even incidental exposure can seriously harm them. Unfortunately, in
> the big scheme of things, they are outliers.
>
> Speaking of all of this really started making me think about public
> risk though. I'm wondering, if people are really concerned about
> health risk than why isn't anyone arguing for a forcible quarentine of
> people with the flu? Or AIDS? Or other communicable diseases. Its a
> much much much bigger health risk (3000 possibly killed by passive
> smoking and 75,000 killed by flu alone). Really, I'm not trying to
> present a ridiculous case here. I'm really just wondering why the
> *less* significant threat receives so much more attention than the
> *more* significant threat.
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