Freedom, smoking and priorities
Feb. 15th, 2006 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylOk, so let's go all political for a few moments and talk about the smoking ban.
Simon Jenkins, writing in today's Grauniad, states that the ban is illiberal and cites Mill in his defence: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant" [ My emphasis ]. Fair enough, but if you're going to play that game, you've got to be able to prove that the harm is restricted to the smoker for it to work. Jenkins claims that it's relatively easy to avoid smokey environments if you chose to do so, but is it? What if the only place you can find to work is a smokey pub or restaurant? Does the fact that you might smoke mean that you're automatically willing to spend your entire working day passively smoking without a care for the consequences?
The article ends with the question, "but if MPs cannot be trusted to defend citizens against central state intrusion into their social life, what can they be trusted to defend?" The bitter irony is that we already have our answer — precious little. After all, most of them knuckled under and voted for the profoundly illiberal, poorly justified, generally useless and certain-to-be vastly expensive identity card bill. And which of these two measures does Simon Jenkins chose to attack? Exactly.
Simon Jenkins, writing in today's Grauniad, states that the ban is illiberal and cites Mill in his defence: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant" [ My emphasis ]. Fair enough, but if you're going to play that game, you've got to be able to prove that the harm is restricted to the smoker for it to work. Jenkins claims that it's relatively easy to avoid smokey environments if you chose to do so, but is it? What if the only place you can find to work is a smokey pub or restaurant? Does the fact that you might smoke mean that you're automatically willing to spend your entire working day passively smoking without a care for the consequences?
The article ends with the question, "but if MPs cannot be trusted to defend citizens against central state intrusion into their social life, what can they be trusted to defend?" The bitter irony is that we already have our answer — precious little. After all, most of them knuckled under and voted for the profoundly illiberal, poorly justified, generally useless and certain-to-be vastly expensive identity card bill. And which of these two measures does Simon Jenkins chose to attack? Exactly.
