~

Mouse, they’ll do the same thing you do every time you start talking.

Yes, I would prefer to let the net result of people using their time, abilities, money, property, etc., freely (i.e. “the market”) find ways to improve our standard of living. There are situations where government involvement is necessary to protect the rights of one group against another or to successfully protect the country, but my political views default to protecting freedom by defending the rights of Americans to interact and trade freely.

No, I am not disdainful of worker safety. As someone who has had people working for him, I worked very hard to make sure that my soldiers, both American and Iraqi, had good food and proper equipment and that they had the best possible training to be as safe as possible in all the situations that soldiers are likely to encounter.

A ban on smoking would certainly seem to grant a level playing field, no?

All the others – I think I’ve said about all there is to say about the smoking ban in my earlier post.

BTW – were you guys aware of Grumpy’s no smoking section?

My stand on payday lending is not incompatible, because there is nothing nannystate about restoring a level playing field, which is all I’m asking for.

So, am I correct in assuming that those who’d let me open my bar-inal (thanks, Lumen!) are generally disdainful of health regs and worker safety, in general? You’d prefer to let the market sort it out, yes?

Feel free to open up any sort of bar you’d like.

That said, I’m hardly hijacking this post. You just need to get over yourself.

Also, Brian and Tabor… FOCUS, stay on topic.

~

And Brian, you realize that you’re being sophomoric, insulting, and just plain lame by hijacking this post to whine about Eileen, yes?

Eileen’s comments remind why I quit reading vbdems. Her sophomoric, insulting and just plain lame style was too much to put up with. The only posts at that place worth reading were David’s on conservation.

Glad to see you supporting freedom and personal responsibility. You might wish to review your previous post and then explain why your views on payday lending support nanny state interventionism. I must admit that I fail understand how you can hold such disparate views.

You asked me to show you. I just did. More paragraphs with more rhetoric doesn’t change it. You applaud public opinion when you agree with it and think legislators should listen, but when the public disagrees with you, you want legislators to ignore the public and listen to you.

What part of ‘representative republic’ is unclear?

First, that is one paragraph out of a rather long explanation of why HB 3202 is bad policy, and an explanation of what better policy would be based upon.

But more importantly, the 2002 vote was to DENY government additional powers, that whole ‘consent of the governed’ thing. The government has only those powers given to it by the people. The people said “No” and the Assembly went ahead and did it anyway.

There is no comparison between the people forbidding government from doing something, and then the government going ahead and doing it anyway, and government assuming new powers to trample the rights of people because the majority finds it convenient to do so.

http://taborvasenate.com/Transportation.html

“Elected representatives have a duty to carry out the will of their constituency. In November of 2002, the citizens of Hampton Rotes voted by nearly a two to one margin to reject raising the region’s sales tax to pay for the same “package” of highway projects that HB 3202 is created to fund. The will of the people as expressed at the ballot box should never be ignored by their elected representatives. The voters said “NO!” loud and clear and Senator Blevins joined with other RINOs in our General Assembly to ignore the will of the people and to create new taxes, new fees, and add new tolls to pay for the same poorly planned “packet” of new highways his constituency already rejected – with good reason.”

Please point to where I said the HRTA was bad because the majority opposed it. You’re thinking of someone else. I oppose the HRTA because it is bad policy in numerous ways.

My political positions are rarely linked to my feelings, in any case. I rely on reason. I don’t smoke, second hand smoke riggers asthma attacks for me. I have to take antihistamines and inhaled steroids just to make a brief visit at Vivian’s Drinking Liberally gatherings. If I were guided by self interest or emotion, I would be on the other side.

The unfettered rule of the majority is one of the worst dangers we face. The framers of our Constitution recognized that and provided for republican forms of government for the nation and the States (See Article one section 9) That is why I oppose trampling anyone’s rights based on the convenience of the mob.

Even when I’m part of the mob.

The deal about banning smoking is that people with different habits, practices, and interests should be able to do their thing in their own space without interference from the nanny state. Smoking is unhealthy, smelly, and generally unattractive in my opinion, but I would prefer to protect the right of smokers to smoke in the interest of protecting my own right to do what I do with what is mine.

Telling a business how to operate DOES bother me, but . . . .

As Kaine pointed out at the news conference — this is also for employees of the restaurants. And don’t say “they can go work elsewhere.” Can you name another place of employment that would allow smoking and then, when an employee complained, would be told: “If you don’t like it, go work somewhere else?” Not to mention the fact that there are many times when smokers don’t respect non-smokers and you are enveloped by the smoke anyway.

What is the deal about banning smoking anyway? We need to allow this for others for what reason? It’s not like we are banning oxygen or rest rooms; the ban is for spewing poisonous smoke into the air where it can affect others.

Supermajorities in the Old South also approved of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Politicians pandered to them too.

Being the majority is not the same thing as being in the right. We live in a representative republic largely to protect us from the tyranny of the majority.

If you are merely making a prediction of what politicians will do, OK, but if you think that is an excuse for doing it, you need a course in remedial Constitution.

Maybe the legislators and restaurant association think they are helping the small business owners, but I know of a number of individual restaurant owners here in Richmond that have gone smoke-free. They have done fine, as have the owners that have decided to allow smoking.

As for competing with the franchises and corporate restaurants, whatever happened to embracing the niche markets as a way of competing. The franchises tend to cater to the lowest common denominator in trying to pull in customers. Go the other way emphasize that you allow smoking, or that you don’t. Use the market in your favor rather than trying to strap everyone down with legislation.

That sentence could be used for a lot of what the government currently provides or what others want the government to provide.

How ironic!