banana: I don't see why you Libertarians are getting all bent out of shape about this. The writing is on the wall for smokers, and the establishments that cater to them...and it has been for some time now.
It's the same as an argument that if you kill an old person, you should not be held liable because he/she was going to die soon anyway.
It is not the smoking that libertarians defend but the property rights and the right to free association and the right to voluntary contract and the right to own one's body.
If I want to let my smoking friends congreagate in my private house and smoke and eat food at the same time, how does it justify an invasion, robbery and kidnapping by the government's thugs?
Plenty of people smoke, drink, use drugs etc. There was "the writing on the wall" for drinkers, smokers, drug users, owners of gold, etc. - all things that the government tried to nanny people out of. That writing - as well as plenty of smokers - will still be there long after you and I die of old age.
Socialists have been issuing smug comments about "writings on the wall" ever since they got that crazy idea that human nature can be changed by them. The market, money, marriage, family, raising children by the parents - all were supposed to be naturally gone soon, so some mass killing and stealing and enslaving to speed up the "natural" process was not a big sin when done or condeoned by them.
Your defense of smoking in establishments is similar to arguing that bar owners should be able to choose to build their new buildings with asbestos if they want to.
Why shouldn't they? As long as it is disclosed and they find construction workers willing to work with asbestos and the employees willing to work around asbestos and the customers willing to visit such a building and there is no asbestos contamination to public space and other people's properties, why should anyone care?
Most of the asbestos scare is a junk science propagated by lawyers anyway.
miko
