Why are we on moral overdrive and when does it end?
Recently, in Sweden, a lawyer got annoyed at his neighbour's smoking habit, and so managed to ban said neighbour's right to smoke in HIS OWN garden. We're outlawing smoking pretty much anywhere in the name of health and 'common sense': smoking is bad for you - make it illegal.
I understand and agree with the point that people don't want to be injured due to secondary smoking, and so it makes perfect sense to ban smoking from public indoors areas such as libraries and museums, as well as to legalise the right for restaurant owners, etc, to ban smoking in their restaurants, bars, cafés and so forth. It is however absolutely ludicrous to institute a full smoking ban everywhere (except people's homes). There is (was) obviously a demand for non smoking restaurants, as well as non-smoking-pretty-much-anythings, and this could've been achieved without a ban.
Because smokers also have rights. The right to own a restaurant and let their customers smoke, for instance.
The worst pro-ban argument is the one that pities those who work in bars and restaurants. All the poor waiters dying from secondary smoking. Boohoo. It's a job hazard, and if you're looking for those there are many places to start before you get to bartenders suffering from smoking customers. If you're stupid enough to become a bartender when you hate smoke, then frankly I don't give a shit about you. But these days, I suppose, the idea is that anyone should work anywhere without discrimination. Asthmatics must be able to work in bars - lets ban smoking!
But my point with all this isn't specifically about smoking. It's about a society going nuts with completely misplaced moral preaching. About a society where the legislators know better than the public. About a society robbed of freedom for the 'greater good' of its inhabitants.
We are headed backwards again.
Pax.
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