Blagnet.net

Smoking ban prediction

As far as I am aware, the only friend or semi-close acquaintance of mine who opposes bans on smoking in “public” (i.e., private) businesses is Kelly. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my family did, because they are pretty libertarian, but it’s never come up. Then there’s the college libertarians, but I have zero non-Facebook contact with them anymore.

Anyway, everyone up here in Michigan and every scientist I’ve met thinks such fascist and tyrannical bans are just fine and dandy. They reproach both our state and city governments to no end because they haven’t passed such enlightened and beneficial legislation yet. This came up a number of times in the last week because we were interviewing and recruiting new students to our graduate program, and they are all from states with state-wide smoking bans in “public” (i.e., private) establishments, and they complained that the lack of such fascism in Michigan sucks and they aren’t used to it.

We all agreed with them and tried to assure them a state-wide ban would be passed soon. Except me, I never expressed anything close to agreement that such bans should be passed or enforced, only that there would be one passed this year and that I loathe cigarette smoke along with them. I really do sympathize with them. I would even go so far as to say that, as much as I stand up for principle in every case, even situations such as this in which my personal comfort and principled morals directly conflict with each other, I have very little, if any, sympathy for the bar proprietors who haven’t implemented some way to shield their customers from cigarette smoke voluntarily, be it by large and separated non-smoking sections or complete restaurant-wide smoking bans or something. That and finances are the only reasons I don’t go out more often. I personally think bars and restaurants are idiotic for not doing something to accommodate the large proportion of their customers who don’t smoke; they would be more frequent and longer-staying customers if this did happen. I don’t have any statistics to cite, but I personally think they are wrong and stupid to think that going to some considerable effort to shield their non-smoking customers from smoke would lose them money. I predict it would gain them money. It is extremely disappointing to this anarchist voluntarist that more voluntary accommodations for non-smokers haven’t arisen in this (extremely restricted and not so free) market. So when the inevitable and imminent smoking ban is passed in Michigan, I just won’t have much sympathy for the bar owners whose rights are thereby violated. My sense of right and justice is offended yet again by yet another coercive State policy, but my sympathy for the restaurateurs themselves is minimal.

The point of this post was to make a prediction: Despite the widespread desire for bans on smoking in “public” (i.e., private) places; despite the fact that these bans seem like they entail only benefit and no harm to anyone; and despite my nearly complete lack of sympathy for inconsiderate and short-sighted bar owners who haven’t introduced any voluntary protections from cigarette smoke, smoking bans will either cause, or will lead to, some major, costly, unintended consequences in the next 20 years. I make this prediction because I learn from history, and all coercive State measures lead to harmful, unintended consequences. I don’t even know what they will be, but I make this prediction very confidently.

I want all my friends, acquaintances, and other readers to remember this, print it out, copy and paste this post, and/or save the link, because in 2028 this web page and this post are still going to be here (unforeseen fascist censorship notwithstanding), and my prediction will have come true, and I am certainly not going to forget it, and I want to rub it in all of your smug, Statist faces.