You are cofusing regulation with laws.  The government overly regulating private business is moving towards socialism where the government controls just about everything.  The goverment making a law against something like murder or smoking would NOT be socialism because it is not about the government trying to exert control over private industry but governing the people.  Murder is not banned it is illegal, smoking however is legal.

And this is where a free market could have affected some change.  If someone had bothered to take the risk of opening a smoke-free bar maybe they would have seen non-smokers flock to the bar and thus cause other bars to follow suit.  That is how the free market is supposed to work, not the government forcing regulations on private industry.

Nope.  A democracy is mob rule, the power of the majority rules all.  A representative republic is where an elite is elected by the people to make decisions in the best interest of the people, to represent them, but not to always agree with the people who elected them.

But it is legal and this entire discussion hasn't been about whether or not we think smoking should be illegal, it has been about whether we agree with government telling privately owned businesses whether or not they can allow legal activity to occur within their establishment.

If you think smoking should be illegal that is a completely different subject.

Sure they are open to the public and the public (and employees) have the right not to enter the establishment.  That is where the personal respoinsibilty comes into play.  If you don't want to be around the smoky environment, don't.

Please provide and example of a harmful action that is legal.  You can't cite things like murder because that is already illegal.

And if you want to talk about making cigarettes illegal that is a topic for another discussion.  We are talking about adding regulations to private businesses to curb legal activities within their establishments.

You know from experience that it works on a small scale.  Once you start expanding it to include the entire population of the United States it will become too unweildy.  The United States government having administrative control over things like health care really bothers me, I mean just look at how well they have done with our educational system.

This is how the US government was originally set up but over the years they decided to open up the Senate to a popular vote and then they allowed a popular vote to decide on the electoral votes for the President.  We are certainaly much closer to a democracy today then ever before (this isn't necessarily a good thing).  It's like Ben Franklin said when asked by a woman what kind of government our founders created: "We gave you a Republic madam, if you can keep it."  If you ask me, we have NOT kept it.

Which is exactly what the issues are about. Also the topic is weather or not it should be legal, saying that it should be legal because it is legal is a fallacy.

Throwing bottles is legal.

Throwing bottles at people is assault.

Hitting the air is legal too.

Hitting people is battery.

Smoking at people should be illegal.

Why do people keep treating smoking as if smokers should be a privileged class to whom somehow the principle that they must not harm others does not apply? Why not assign that privilege at bottle-throwers?

Perhaps bottle-throwing should be legal, including throwing bottles at other people?

That's interesting.  So, assuming that both are legal, then how is one different from the other?  The loud music could harm your hearing, so why is it not banned?  Is it only an issue because you see it as an issue?  What makes consent of one harm different than the other?  Both do harm and both can be avoided.

Why not?  Was it illegal to ban smoking from the private institution?  Currently, in the US, the owner of the establishment has a CHOICE.  And, there are plenty of Restaurants and bars that have banned it on their own for their own interests.  But, say, you are a bar owner in a remote part of Michigan and all your clients smoke and so do you and all your staff (which I actually have a real life example of), then why should you be forced to ban smoking in an establishment that all are consenting adults?

"I don't really care what you "maintain"

And guess what, I don't really have much respect for your opinions either.  Quantity of responses doesn't necessarily equal quality.

"When and where did I say that smoking was illegal in the UK and Ireland?"

Right here.

namgreb: "If enough scientific data exists showing a link between second hand or slipstream smoke and serious health issues then our government needs to do what we pay it for and pass a law criminalizing this behavior. ... Now what do you think the chances are of that ever happening?"

Leauki: "Very high.  It happened in the UK and Ireland."

Do you even bother to read what others are saying on this site?  I'm not a smoker, hate to be exposed to any smoke, would be happy if smoking were illegal, but - in the US it is NOT illegal.  And as long as it's legal I want my government to stay out of my PRIVATE smoking behavior!  Don't you realize that the real topic of this blog has nothing to do with smoking, that's just an example of the issue.  The real concern here is that the US government is inexorably inculcating itself into the private life of it's citizens.  Our personal freedoms are being slowly eroded and some of us are very worried.  I really don't understand why you, as an Irishman, are so inflamed by the political affairs of the US.

I don't know how often I have to repeat these points. Maybe one last time will be good. After that I will simply refer to this post.

1. There are plenty of pubs that don't play loud music. But there was no single pub in Dublin that prohibited smoking.

2. The music is played by the land lord to entertain the patrons. It is NOT brought in by patrons. If I go to a pub that plays music, I chose to hear music. But I _assure_ you (and I guess you will just have to believe me), that I ever ever went to a pub to breath smoke.

3. All issues are only issues because someone sees them as an issue.

If smoking next to other people (and thus harming them) must be legal because smoking is legal, then so must shooting people (and thus harming them) be legal because shooting guns per se is legal.

And there lies your disconnect with us talking about US law- in the US there ARE bars and restaurants that are smoke free by choice.  So, as a consumer, you have the choice to either go to one that does or does not have smoking in it. 

You may need to re-read the original post.  The issue that is being discussed is whether the government should be allowed to ban a legal substance from privately owned businesses.  There is a difference between a law and a regulation.

You and Taltamir really need to re-read the original post:

It's right there in the second paragraph.  The entire discussion here has been about why the government should be allowed to ban a LEGAL substance from being used in privately owned businesses.  This is NOT a tautology, it is NOT a falacy, it is the discusion that we are having.

But this discussion is NOT about whether smoking should be illegal or not.  If you want to have that discussion start another blog.  This discussion is about whether the government should be allowed to ban legal substances from being used within privately owned businesses.  Stop trying to change the subject.

No they didn't.  It was legal and then it was deemed illegal.  It was never legal and regulated on private businesses.

Your position may be clear but it is NOT what the original subject of this blog was about.  Please stop trying to hijack this blog.

Was there a law prohibiting bars from opening if they didn't allow smoking?  If not then it wasn't a fault in the law that caused your problem but a lack of the market to fulfill a desire from the public.  If you saw an opening in the market you should have opened your own smoke free bar.  Problem solved without the government needing to get involved.

And the land lord chose to allow smoking in their establishment, you knew this ahead of time therefore you were accepting the risk of inhaling smoke by entering the bar.  If you didn't want to inhale the smoke you should have gone elsewhere for your drinks.

Hey now, just because you think you need to keep explaining again and again doesn't mean the discussion is going downhill.  People aren't buying what you're saying.  It doesn't mean your wrong but you haven't proven you're right either no matter how strongly you feel you are.  You've made a lot of good points but most of them boil down to opinion which is the crux of the matter.  It is all about opinions.  It is all about what kind of power we want the US government to have.  It is all about what US citizens believe should be legal or not.

Hah!  There we have it!  Leauki, we have been talking about PRIVATE establishments all along.  You just have some disconnect between PRIVATE and PRIVATE BUSINESS and there should be no legal difference.  Maybe it is just your acquaintence with European law.  That is just not the American way.  That is what those of us who don't want to lose our basic freedoms and original form of government to change are fighting here.

It is when people refuse to address those points.

If I have to explain to one more person that smoking and smoking next to other people are not the same thing and that opposition to the second does not mean opposition to the first, I'll concede. While I can see that there is a point in discussing whether smoking in private establishments should be legal or illegal I see no point at all in continuing to discuss that I wasn't talking about prohibiting smoking per se.

Yes, but before the newcomers the issue was the subject itself, not the question of how often I can remind people that _I_ didn't propose making smoking illegal per se.

Smoking privately is not the same as smoking in a private establishment just like throwing bottles at noone is not the same as throwing bottles at people in a private establishment.

The "American way" is that your right to do X ends where it violates my right not to have X done to me. Why smokers are an exception I don't understand.

European law is MUCH more liberal than American law with regard to smoking. As I said before, in Germany smoking was only recently made illegal in hospitals and I believe it was only last year that selling cigarettes to under-18s was made illegal.

My acquaintance with European law would make me not recognise smoking as a problem at all. It was exposure to the American attitude that there might be something wrong with smoking that made me even think about this.

McDonalds was the first restaurant chain to prohibit smoking on its grounds in Germany, if I remember correctly.

This has nothing to do with American law or European law and everything with the basic principle that NOONE, not even a smoker, has the right to harm other people.

It doesn't matter whether a business owner allows it or not because they never had the right to harm others to begin with.

Can _anybody_ explain why smokers should be treated differently from other people? Why do they have this weird privilege, where they are allowed to harm other people and where an attempt to prohibit that becomes an issue of "private establishment" vs "privately"? The same principle doesn't seem to apply to thieves of small amount of money, whom I find less annoying than smokers.

My house is neither a public place (like a bar or "public house" as we call them) nor a place of business (and my guests are not employees).

If the guests bring kids, I obviously shouldn't smoke near them because I have no right to harm the kids, not even (in fact ESPECIALLY NOT) if they are my guests.