| luisgvm said: laws against smoking in public places is not worldwide. i live in Venezuela and a law of that matter was just recently aproved, like a couple of years ago, but that is not the worst, no one respect that law, and the government does not do anything either to make it work, everyone smoke wherever whenever they want, and thats why i have grown to hate people who smokes, not just because i am a pasive smoker, but because i am asthmatic as well. but not just them, the government as well of course for not doing absolutely nothing. people that smokes just dont care at all about others while they smoke, if they dont care about their health why should they anyway. so why should i care about their personal choice when they dont care about people like me with a health issue. i also support personal choice, but every choice comes with a collateral damage. and in other countries is worst, there is no real legislation against this kind of problem. you can find videos on the internet of children smoking, kids of like 10 years old. even with this kind of laws. cigarettes shouldnt exist really. sorry if i am being to radical lol. my brother smokes and i just hate him when he do it hahaha. |
Sure, the mileage varies from country to country. My point was that said policy exists (relatively recent in my country too), and I consider it to be enough to deal with the situation, from the judicial point of view. Now, if that kind of law can't be enforced for some reason, then certainly a ban wouldn't be possible either, rendering this discussion moot.
Why should you care about their personal rights ? Well, to me, it's a matter of principle. If you understand the importance of individual rights, then you can understand why it's important to defend them for everyone, regardless of how you feel about the choices themselves. Protecting the rights of others is by extension protecting your own as well. And if there ever comes a day when someone tries to ban something you like, you'll be glad to have as much people as you can on your side as possible. Besides this, I think you're being unfair when you generalize all smokers like that... There's always people who care, and people who don't, and I'm sure most of the time just letting someone know about your condition would earn you some sympathy, depending on the situation of course.
Regarding your comment about children, I don't think that's a valid excuse to ban something to everyone. Some children, in one way or another, are always going to get their hands on things they shouldn't, for various reasons... If that were enough excuse to ban something, then we would've to ban pretty much anything we don't want children to get, like alcohol, porn, guns, knives, adult media, etc... The only thing you can do is educate, restrict access to children in specific (and reasonable) ways, and implement safety precautions. You just can't control everything and everyone... Nor you should try, from my point of view...
I'm sorry to hear about your asthma and struggles with smokers though, and for the record, I actually had some respiratory issues myself when I was younger for years (bronchitis, I think...), to the point of using an inhaler many times and learning breathing exercises through the diaphragm (never got used to it though...). I know what is like to have a respiratory "crisis", even if I never got to the point of being asthmatic, thankfully. These issues somehow disappeared over the years while I grew up, and I think my years of swimming, recommended to me by doctors partially for this, were in part responsible. To those of you who haven't tried it, I would recommend it, previously discussed with your doctor of course.
