I won't even bother with this. All that matters is it's possible to avoid it and they don't.
How do you expect to catch criminal speeders without on a horse or bicycle? Why are we even talking about emissions in the first place?
I'll take that to mean you believe nonsmokers are superior to smokers.
This isn't an argument about equality, and there's absolutely no reason to try and twist words to do such. There are absolutely no words I use that could even be construed as implying that nonsmokers are superior to smokers, and the statement you made doesn't hold water. You can take it to mean that I do not believe smoking has anything to do with equality.
Your definition of "need" is different from mine. I don't think anything more can be said about this point. Finance shouldn't be your primary motivation for anything involving a moral argument.
My definition of 'need' is the same definition that is used in Merriam Websters:
A condition or situation in which something is required or wanted
I do not know why anything more can not be said when clearly it's nothing more than opinion and different word choice that you choose to carry on this argument. I'm far from using Finance to argue morality, the only reasoned I mentioned Finance is because there is no logical reason that a person would pass up a higher source of income just because they can not bike or walk to work. We argue about negative effects on secondhand smoke, not about the environment. If you would like to debate that, just start a new topic.
I completely agree, but that isn't relevent. What is relevent is that you shouldn't pass legislation simply because it does nothing beneficial.
I don't know how you obtain what is relevant or not from two sentences. We do not pass legislation simply because it does nothing beneficial, we pass legislation because there is scientific research backing the negative health effects on smoking. I've already told my views on the combustion levels. Please find something to dispute that.
From the British Medical Journal using the results of the American Cancer Society's database:
US courts have found various studies to be misleading in that they only used evidence which supported their claims: http://www.tobacco.o...0717osteen.html
Congrats, you've found experiments that were not done under the scientific method. You've found real people who work for bosses who form experiments to get certain outcomes. However, the last quote you posted I find pretty interesting, seems like that guy has made a living on manipulating the English language. Let me summarize the quote real quick, in a more casual vernacular.:
We have not had an experiment that has measured the amount of secondhand smoke someone gets in a lifetime, nor how much they are exposed to. Recall bias is a shot in the dark, I find it having very little to do with results. (Feel free to open a statistics book look up recall bias, it has more to do with opinion of the surveyed group than quantifiable fact) We can't prove that people who say they are nonsmokers had been smokers at some point in their life. MOST (Odd, Most? That means there are some) studies couldn't report a difference in health risks after exposure to secondhand smoke. Some implied (we've already seen that implications are not always drawn from fact) a reduction of risk. The statistics are skewed.
You still have yet to argue points about red-eye and discomfort. You have yet to argue points about difficulty of breathing. You have yet to argue points about smell.
You have agreed that there is absolutely nothing beneficial about a cigarette that cannot be replaced by something else. However, you have failed to dispute all negative points about cigarettes. The only thing you've done is post a couple of people finding faults with experiments involving lung cancer. For something with (as you agree) no benefits, and negative effects that have not been disputed, I see no reason as to why legislation should not be passed.
Edited by Bryan, 27 October 2009 - 12:45 PM.