Posted on 11/19/2003 5:12:42 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Harm is a 2-way street
Posted: November 19, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
The largest losers of America's anti-tobacco crusade aren't tobacco companies and smokers, it's the American people who are incrementally giving up private property rights. You say, "Hold it, Williams, I agree that people have the right to smoke and harm themselves, but they don't have the right to harm others with those noxious tobacco fumes!" Let's look at it, because harm is a two-way street.
If you're allergic to tobacco smoke, or just find its odor unpleasant, and I smoke in your presence, I harm and annoy you. However, if I'm prohibited from smoking a cigarette in your presence, I'm harmed because of a denial of what I find a pleasurable experience.
There's an obvious conflict. One of us is harmed. How can it be resolved? There are several ways. You might consider the harm I suffer trivial compared to yours. You could organize a sufficiently large number of people and lobby lawmakers to enact smoking bans in bars, restaurants and workplaces. Alternatively, I might consider the harm you suffer trivial, and organize a bunch of people and lobby lawmakers to mandate that smoking be permitted in bars, restaurants and workplaces.
Let's think about this for a moment. If you owned a restaurant, and did not allow smoking, wouldn't you find it offensive if a law were enacted requiring you to permit smoking? I'm guessing you'd deem such a law tyranny. After all, you'd probably conclude, it's your restaurant and, if you don't want smoking, it's your right. Similarly, I'd deem it just as offensive if smoking were allowed in my restaurant and a law were enacted banning smoking in restaurants.
The totalitarian method to resolve the conflict is through political power and guns. In other words, the group with the greatest power to organize government's brute force decides whether there'll be smoking or no smoking in restaurants. Totalitarians might justify their actions by claiming that bars, restaurants and workplaces deal with the public, and thus the public should decide how they'll be used. That's nonsense. Just because an establishment deals with the public doesn't make it public property.
The liberty-oriented method to resolve conflict is through the institution of private property. In fact, conflict resolution is one of the primary functions of private property, namely it decides who gets to decide how what property is used in what way. Put another way: Who may harm whom in what ways? In a nutshell, private property rights have to do with rights held by an owner to keep, acquire and use property in ways so long as he doesn't interfere with similar rights held by another. Private property rights also include the right to exclude others from use of property.
Under the liberty-oriented method of private property, as a means to conflict resolution, we'd ask the question of ownership. If the owner wishes his restaurant to be smoke-free, it is his right. Whether a smoker is harmed or inconvenienced by not being allowed to smoke in his restaurant is irrelevant. Similarly, if a restaurant owner wishes to permit smoking, it is his right, and whether a nonsmoker is harmed or annoyed is also irrelevant. In the interest of minimizing possible harm either way, it might be appropriate for restaurant owners, by way of a sign or other notice, to inform prospective customers of their respective smoking policy. That way, customers can decide whether to enter upon the premises.
In today's America, the successful anti-tobacco campaign has become a template for conflict resolution through the forceful imposition of wills through the political system. It's part of a continuing trend of attacks on private property rights. Private property rights are the bulwark for liberty, and should be jealously guarded and not be sacrificed for the sake of expediency.
Better a constitutional amendment than a "substantial effects" or "general welfare" sophistry.
I do not give anyone carte blanche to speak for me; but Williams comes about as close as you can get to generally voicing my views on the subjects and issues of the day. He is one of the few really consistent voices on our side. He stands like a rock for traditional values in the field of interaction between the citizen and his Government.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
As I have posted elsewhere, I believe that the "Civil Rights movement" was largely a bad thing, and have taken particular exception to some of the non-public accommodation sections. (See, for example, "Civil Rights" vs. A Free Society.) I also would oppose the public accommodation sections of the Civil Rights Acts, for the same reason that you indicate, but honesty requires me to point out that the public accommodation concept goes way back in the Law--back to the days when travellers in rural England had the choice of one inn in a small town or the elements.
Because there are some aspects of the resulting concepts still involved in the question of how and to what extent places of public accommodation should be regulated, I have not included that concept in my attack on the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s. It really is not the same thing as legislation taking away the individual's right to decide whom he would hire, or to whom he would sell his property.
William Flax
The former, of course.
I'm not sure how Williams would characterize himself on the political spectrum, but this whole thing kind of reminds me why I don't consider myself a Libertarian: I believe in things like zoning laws and other limits on behavior which could be considered as restricting one's absolute freedom, such as in your example. The need for much of this, in my opinion, is due to the fact that decency and civility have withered away to such a degree we now need laws to enforce decent or civil behavior.
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