Why does it have to be all-or-nothing? What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned smoking or non-smoking section? Why aren’t landlords, owners, workers, and customers allowed to determine where they want to be on the “Smoke Scale”?

Next in line is trans-fats (already in NYC), then perhaps corn-syrupy sodas and refined starches…mmm whole wheat pizza with tofu and wheatgrass juice for all!

And they still let people talk on cell phones while driving (one of the few liberty-curbings I would actually support – crosses the line from your freedom to noodle with phone into my freedom from horrific auto-crash death).

-Dave P

There are so many gaps with your viewpoint that it is difficult to determine where to start. Moreover, to refute your points requires understanding of economics too detailed for me to elaborate upon in a short rebuttal to you comment. Read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt if you genuinely wish to test your meddlesome theories. They are more dangerous to our freedom and economy than you currently comprehend.

Otherwise, I will reply with a few bulleted points.

• I agree that our medical system in the U.S. is being driven further into the ditch each day with socialism — which by the hour violates the basic rights to consent, which are rooted in property rights. The collective votes to confiscate resources from others for their own pet “noble” causes. They confiscate the fruits of others labor, laying claim to whichever percentage deemed appropriate. That labor is converted into dollars, which they take. That is wrong.

• You want to restrict the use of past labor / dollars that were converted into establishments where some choose to work, eat and drink . You believe it is your job to prevent them from having free use of their own property — you are claiming their property is really yours — and society’s and not theirs. A slippery slope always justified with good intentions, but as you correctly note, it is a road paved to hell using your argument (to the 100th power) through all big government initiatives.

• Correct! You shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s health care. Perhaps if your rights to your property were respected on this issue, others would take better care of their health. Perhaps more would avoid potentially unhealthy environments. Moreover, socialized health care only breaks the system further – it goes hand in hand with socialism.

• Summed up: Two wrongs don’t make a right. In fact, in your case, it opens the door to even worse violations.

• I don’t care about profits or no profits in New York, and I was clear in my post that I think the suit is missing the real point: I care about someone using their own property as they see fit without busy bodies confiscating portions of that property by restricting its use based on their own beliefs when the property is being used in ways that don’t bother anyone not choosing to enter said property. Moreover, there is no constitutional right to an environment of your own liking when you go out to eat or drink – or do anything, be it smoking or smoke free – because it is anti liberty / freedom. The owner decides. Go elsewhere if you don’t like it, or open your own.

• Free markets without all the absurd restrictions already placed on them would not have half the problems interventionists like yourself champion to fix by restricting more freedom and liberty.

• Society, in all its collective stupidity, provides legislation that protects the status quo at the expense of newness and innovation from competition.
• So many improvements in working conditions are a direct consequence of wealth and competition, not legislation.
• When legislation forced a correction, many times it boxed out a market determined solution to the problem, often creating expensive barriers.
• In the process, this has redirected tens of billions of dollars in directions they otherwise never would have gone.
• It is very likely that without all the collectivization of so many rights and so much property (in the form of dollars or otherwise), you’d find those few workers who don’t want to work in a smoky eatery or bar would find what they want, and the same goes for those looking for a meal or drink.

My answer is not complete, but I don’t have any more time to waste on it.

A lot of the attempts to overturn OSHA regulations were based on the same argument, too. Society has determined that the health of the worker is more important than the greed of the employer.

I’d have no trouble with a restaurant permitting smoking, if all workers were required to wear SCBAs (self-contained breathing apparatus).

Strange, though. In New York City, when they enacted the smoking ban, restaurant and bar revenues went up. A lot of people don’t go out to eat because of the stench.

Why should I have to pay for the medical care of some low-wage worker stuck working in a restaurant who gets sick from the smoke and then winds up getting cared for at government expense? That’s em>my property rights.

Don’t dump the medical expenses of smokers and their victims on me. Once you stop doing that, then we’ll talk about “property rights.”

The doctor’s legal team has recently filed a motion which details that all five of the prosecution witnesses lied about their diagnosis and need for the medications during the criminal trial. The new evidence consists of these individuals own statements in civil proceedings which contradicts the statements these individuals made in their trial testimony.

In addition to this new information, the doctor’s legal team uncovered that the prosecution and witnesses mischaracterized the plea agreements/deals they received for their testimony in front of the jury.

The new evidence also shows that the patients were receiving the same medications that the doctor was prescribing from other physicians prior to Dr. Rottschaefer assuming their care, during the time Dr. Rottschaefer cared for them, and even today. To add to this issue, the evidence shows that the patients were getting stronger dosages of these medications from these other physicians who were not their PCP. Neither Dr. Rottschaefer or the other physicians would have been aware of these patients deceptions due to privacy of information and such.

see posts:

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=News%20Briefs&action=getComplete&ref=6772

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/east/s_470417.html

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=News%20Feature&action=getComplete&ref=6603

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=Main%20Feature&action=getComplete&ref=6202

The doctor’s legal team has recently filed a motion which details that all five of the prosecution witnesses lied about their diagnosis and need for the medications during the criminal trial. The new evidence consists of these individuals own statements in civil proceedings which contradicts the statements these individuals made in their trial testimony.

In addition to this new information, the doctor’s legal team uncovered that the prosecution and witnesses mischaracterized the plea agreements/deals they received for their testimony in front of the jury.

The new evidence also shows that the patients were receiving the same medications that the doctor was prescribing from other physicians prior to Dr. Rottschaefer assuming their care, during the time Dr. Rottschaefer cared for them, and even today. To add to this issue, the evidence shows that the patients were getting stronger dosages of these medications from these other physicians who were not their PCP. Neither Dr. Rottschaefer or the other physicians would have been aware of these patients deceptions due to privacy of information and such.

see posts:

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=News%20Briefs&action=getComplete&ref=6772

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/east/s_470417.html

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=News%20Feature&action=getComplete&ref=6603

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=Main%20Feature&action=getComplete&ref=6202

The doctor’s legal team has recently filed a motion which details that all five of the prosecution witnesses lied about their diagnosis and need for the medications during the criminal trial. The new evidence consists of these individuals own statements in civil proceedings which contradicts the statements these individuals made in their trial testimony.

In addition to this new information, the doctor’s legal team uncovered that the prosecution and witnesses mischaracterized the plea agreements/deals they received for their testimony in front of the jury.

The new evidence also shows that the patients were receiving the same medications that the doctor was prescribing from other physicians prior to Dr. Rottschaefer assuming their care, during the time Dr. Rottschaefer cared for them, and even today. To add to this issue, the evidence shows that the patients were getting stronger dosages of these medications from these other physicians who were not their PCP. Neither Dr. Rottschaefer or the other physicians would have been aware of these patients deceptions due to privacy of information and such.

see posts:

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=News%20Briefs&action=getComplete&ref=6772

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/east/s_470417.html

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=News%20Feature&action=getComplete&ref=6603

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.cfm?type=Main%20Feature&action=getComplete&ref=6202

Another example of this type of occurrence can be seen in the U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan’s handling of US vs. B.L. Rottschaefer. During the initial trial and news reports, Ms. Buchanan and her office portrayed the case as a sex for drugs case which ostracized the doctor and his family within the public and medical community. Ms. Buchanan even went on record after the trial to reporters that:

“This prosecution of a medical doctor, who illegally prescribed powerful, addictive narcotics to patients in return for sexual favors, demonstrates our commitment to aggressively prosecute any health care provider who abuses a position of public trust.”

See source: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/news/s_183703.html

Later, after handwritten proof that the prosecution’s lead witness contradicted her testimony over 20 times about what she had accused the doctor of, Ms. Buchanan’s office publicly tried to re-frame the case as “medical malpractice” through telling reporters “The jury found there was no legitimate reason to prescribe the drugs, and that’s what they convicted him of.”

See Source: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_428255.html

As for the lead witness who lied at a grand jury and in trial, Ms. Buchanan commented that “When is the witness more credible — under oath in a federal trial, or trying to convince a boyfriend she wasn’t having sex outside their relationship?”

I’m sure Captain Frank Schiralli and Lt. Commander Richard Steward Jr. wish that Ms. Buchanan used similar logic for their cases. Yet in Captain Schiralli’s case, Ms. Buchanan commented that ” As Frank Schiralli’s sentence demonstrates, lying to a grand jury is a serious offense with real consequences. ”

See Source: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_422070.html
See Source: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/paw/pr/2005_december/2005_12_22_2.html

As for the lead witness (who was facing multiple felony drug distribution charge), she received a plea agreement signed by Ms. Buchanan herself and probation.

Guess Ms. Buchanan failed to read the portion of the letters where the lead witness volunteered to her boyfriend that she had sex with another man for $50.

See Source: http://www.cpmission.com/main/painpolitics/rottschaefer.html

No problem though, Ms. Buchanan’s still holding on to the conviction.

Another example of this type of occurrence can be seen in the U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan’s handling of US vs. B.L. Rottschaefer. During the initial trial and news reports, Ms. Buchanan and her office portrayed the case as a sex for drugs case which ostracized the doctor and his family within the public and medical community. Ms. Buchanan even went on record after the trial to reporters that:

“This prosecution of a medical doctor, who illegally prescribed powerful, addictive narcotics to patients in return for sexual favors, demonstrates our commitment to aggressively prosecute any health care provider who abuses a position of public trust.”

See source: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/news/s_183703.html

Later, after handwritten proof that the prosecution’s lead witness contradicted her testimony over 20 times about what she had accused the doctor of, Ms. Buchanan’s office publicly tried to re-frame the case as “medical malpractice” through telling reporters “The jury found there was no legitimate reason to prescribe the drugs, and that’s what they convicted him of.”

See Source: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_428255.html

As for the lead witness who lied at a grand jury and in trial, Ms. Buchanan commented that “When is the witness more credible — under oath in a federal trial, or trying to convince a boyfriend she wasn’t having sex outside their relationship?”

I’m sure Captain Frank Schiralli and Lt. Commander Richard Steward Jr. wish that Ms. Buchanan used similar logic for their cases. Yet in Captain Schiralli’s case, Ms. Buchanan commented that ” As Frank Schiralli’s sentence demonstrates, lying to a grand jury is a serious offense with real consequences. ”

See Source: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_422070.html
See Source: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/paw/pr/2005_december/2005_12_22_2.html

As for the lead witness (who was facing multiple felony drug distribution charge), she received a plea agreement signed by Ms. Buchanan herself and probation.

Guess Ms. Buchanan failed to read the portion of the letters where the lead witness volunteered to her boyfriend that she had sex with another man for $50.

See Source: http://www.cpmission.com/main/painpolitics/rottschaefer.html

No problem though, Ms. Buchanan’s still holding on to the conviction.

http://www.painreliefnetwork.org/bernard_rottschaefer_.html