I assure you that while I consent to hearing loud music when I enter a bar that plays loud music, I do NOT ever consent to OTHER people smoking next to me.

Very high. It happened in the UK and Ireland.

Throwing a bottle at someone is assault.  Actually hitting them is battery.  Both of which are crimes.  Smoking is legal therefore simply lighting up is NOT forbidden.  Now if you want the government to declare smoking illegal, fine, but that is not what is being discussed here, we are talking about banning smoking in privately owned buildings.

You seem to be misunderstanding everything that I have said.  I too am talking about personal responsibility.  Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions, even victims in some situations.  If you knowingly put yourself in harms way then you share some of the blame if you are hurt.  If you go skydiving and end up getting killed who is to blame?  You have to accept the risk when you go up in the plane.  If you enter a bank that is being robbed then you are partly to blame if you get shot because you should have waited until the robbery was over.

But you chose to enter the bar.  You could have just stayed home if you didn't want to be around the cigarettes.  I'm not saying that there are no benefits to a smoke-free environment, I don't smoke and I prefer to be in places that don't allow smoking but that should the choice of the owner of the establishment NOT the government.

"That doesn't mean anything."

Maybe not to you but it does to me.

"I assure you that while I consent to hearing loud music when I enter a bar that plays loud music, I do NOT ever consent to OTHER people smoking next to me."

Then stay out of the smokey bar!  I avoid both smokey AND noisy bars (and I don't begrudge others the enjoyment they get from such an atmosphere)

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

That's just the point, this is America, not the UK or Ireland.  Smoking, however abhorrent, is legal here and some of us are fighting to assure that our federal government stays out of the lives of private citizens engaging in legal behavior in their PRIVATE establishments.  If smoking ever becomes legal then this will all be another issue.

You just said "smoking is legal therefore it should be legal, assult is illigal therefore it should be illigal"

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.

I can't overestimate the importance of clearly definining what it is you are arguing, I have provided a clear breakdown of what is at stake. Leuki went by point by point and gave his opinion on each of those... how come he is the only one?

If you think there are more issues at stake, state them. If you have an opinion on one of those that counters leuki, state it, clear communication is very important in debates.

And please, no strawmen arguments.

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.

Sorry, but I still maintain that the topic of this blog is whether our government has the right to dictate private, legal behabior even in public gathering place.  Therefore I don't  need to have an opinion about your 7 "issues".   I think you might want to start a new blog if you want to discuss these concepts.  (Believe me, I DO have an opinion on all of them.)

BTW, I looked up the smoking ban in Ireland and the UK and it's not as presented by Leuki.  Smoking has not been declared illegal, only the right to smoke in public gathering places.  This is just what some Americans are trying to prevent.  We want the government to either declare SMOKING to be illegal and therefore forbidden everywhere or to stop making rules that impinge on personal freedoms.  That's what all my comments are about.  Where's the strawman argument here?

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.

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

THAT is the strawman Taltamir was referring to. Some people keep changing the subject to declaring smoking per se illegal, although that subject never ever came up.

Taltamir is also right regarding the "it should be legal because it is legal" is a fallacy. In fact, it is a tautology, not an argument.

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?

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

I made my position clear regarding smoking in the presence of other people who don't want to be harmed by second-hand smoke. Whether or not you wish to discuss the same subject is up to you.

Slavery was once legal yet government started to dictate this "private, legal behaviour" even in public gathering places. Why would that be wrong?

I'd rather have two bucks stolen from me every hour than breath smoke for an hour. Does this mean, assuming I had the same weird privilege that smokers enjoy, that I have the right to nick two bucks from people on the street just because government shouldn't dictate private, legal behaviour?

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 believe the weather should be legal, too.