More Anti-Smoking Nannying From the Post-Gazette

On February 27, the Post-Gazette ran another in a line of editorials expressing support for a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. I am on record as challenging such bans as misguided, smug, elitist and, ultimately, dangerous. But the Post-Gazette keeps hammering on it, so I figured I could, too. So I wrote yet another letter to the editor.

They didn't publish it. Which is fair enough. It is too long. And it is nasty, basically accusing the editorial board of being disingenuous.

But the paper ran yet another editorial on the topic today. So rather than just let my bleatings languish, I thought I might lay out the letter to the editor here, end then opine some more on the new editorial. Yeah, it's an obsession of mine. But here goes:

I understand that it is the Post-Gazette's prerogative to continue weighing in on proposals to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, but I am shocked that the paper continues to submarine its own credibility with arguments that can best be described as farcical. And at worst dishonest.

The latest misdirection comes in Monday's editorial, "A Dying Tradition," in which the Post-Gazette argues that a smoking ban recently past in England"is more evidence that sensible anti-smoking laws are gaining because the vast majority of the people want them." Then the editorial points to numerous places in the United States with similar bans. That is, people elsewhere are passing bans, which amounts to a trend. Which points to enlightenment. Which points to justification.

Really? One wonders what other issues the Post-Gazette suggests leaving up to voters in other jurisdictions. There currently appears to be a trend, starting in South Dakota, for a ban on abortions. How many other states will have to sign on for the Post-Gazette recommends joining the herd? It might be a trend, after all. And what about England, a nation with notoriously slippery laws on journalism that regularly allow aggrieved people to sue newspapers for libel? I mean, if we are looking to England for guidance on legislation.

But of course we are not. The Post-Gazette is simply cherry-picking laws that it likes and trying to convince readers that such legislation amounts to an enlightened position. In the case of laws that the Post-Gazette doesn't like? Well, this is a democracy. Why should voters here care what voters in South Dakota are doing? Indeed.

What is more disturbing is that this kind of intellectual misdirection has come to define the paper's position on smoking. A few months ago the paper ran an editorial that argued a different reason for passing the ban-the safety of bartenders and waiters. It supported that position with hyperbole that bordered on the absurd, arguing that allowing smoking in bars forced such workers to "flirt with death," as if service workers are dropping like so many emphysemic flies. Rubbish. I challenged the paper to look into the issue to see if it could support that claim-to provide a list of bartenders so afflicted. It never ran that list. And it never posted a correction or clarification.

So one of several things is happening: Either the paper is purposely misguiding readers, it is taking the claims of one side of a controversial issue at face value, or it is so arrogant that it expects readers to accept anti-smoking arguments without supporting them. None of these speaks well of the journalistic enterprise that purports to be Pittsburgh's paper of record.

It is not enough to say that smoking is not good for you. We all know that. It is an entirely different thing to claim that the state should use its monopoly on violence to bring people into line with the Post-Gazette's vision of moral and physical purity.

There is a less coercive solution, of course. The editorial urges Pennsylvanians to "exercise their right not to have tobacco smoke blown in their faces in public." I agree. Except I think they should exercise that right by patronizing the growing list of establishments that have gone smoke-free voluntarily. That's not good enough for the social engineers at the Post-Gazette, of course. I would ask why, but it doesn't seem they are taking questions on the issue.

Sam MacDonald, a non-smoker, lives in Swissvale.

In the new editorial, the paper takes a new line: Congress made a boo-boo by exempting itself from the law: You can still light up in the Capitol Building. Seems strange, I admit. But that's not the only place you can light up. There are all sorts of exemptions for the ban. One of them allows for smoking in cigar bars. Yep. Cigar bars. Where upper-class guys puff away on expensive leaves from the Dominican Republic while sipping their favorite single-malt. Seems kind of elitist, no? As long as you are the kind of guy who can afford single malt, feel free to light one up and relax with your friends after work. But wait. If you want to relax with your friends at the sports bar with a Bud Light and some tobacco from North Carolina? Hell no. What about the waitress? And all the healthcare costs. Pig! Smoke at home! Until we ban that, too. Now please, someone get me a hookah so I can relax. (Hookahs are commonly exempted from the smoking ban, too.)

This, of course, is bullshit. Congress does not own the bars in question. Nor does the Post Gazette's editorial board. Look, all sorts of dangerous things go on in bars. (Duh.) Ever been to one? People get drunk there. Have sex with people they wouldn't otherwise. Say nasty things about their friends and families. But see, those things are not illegal.

"But it hurts the bartenders." Well, which ones? I am still waiting for the list of names from the Post-Gazette. If, in fact, working in a smoke-filled bar amounts to "flirting with death," there ought to be a trail of corpses. There is not such a trail. Or the Post-Gazette is unwilling to tell us about it. Why might they be unwilling? I don't know. They won't explain. Is it at all possible that they used misleading hyperbole to support their personal preferences? You be the judge...

But to be honest, I don't really care if there is a trail. There are a lot of dangerous jobs in the world. And a lot of them are needlessly dangerous. I mean, wouldn't NASCAR be safer if we made them use restrictor plates that limited the cars to, say, 25 miles per hour? All the "strategy" of the sport would still be in place. Only it would be safer for the employees--the drivers.

And what about logging? It's almost always one of the most dangerous professions in America. Why not ban hand-felling? Automated technologies exist. Huge machines. If we are not going to allow bartenders to make the decision to engage in a "dangerous" profession, why should we allow loggers to do so? Why don't we ban chainsaws? It's for their own good. And it would save lives. Guaranteed. And none of this crap about "public health." If you are interested, you can go to OSHA and get a list of fatal logging accidents. Again, I am not aware of such a list for dead bartenders.

People are grown ups. And they don't need the nannies at the Post-Gazette to tell them otherwise.

I mean, fewer and fewer people are smoking. The people pushing for "smoke free Pennsylvania" maintain an ever-growing list of places that are going smoke-free voluntarily. Great. I am all for it. And I suspect that within a decade or so the majority of places will have taken that option.

So why the sanctimony and doom saying from the Post-Gazette? It's really kind of creepy. What else do you think they want to control? There are already a bunch of people squawking about obesity.

Look out.

Comments

[Amos the Poker Cat]

Being a generally right of center cranky libertarian, I agree with you.

I also know you are spitting in the wind.

Before anyone tars me as one of the evil smokers from WaterWorld, the only grandparent of mine that did not live into his 90's was my maternal grandfather. He lost a lung during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and lived to smoke 4 packs a day. With only one working lung, death from emphasiema was only a matter of time.

I have seen more and more anti-smoking laws spread from California, to Boulder, to most recently Akron. CA has just raised the ante once again by banning outdoor smoking in Calabasas.

If it helps to you vent by tilting at windmills, please do so. The few times I have seen this actually put to a public vote by referendum (always preferable to just passing a law), it usually wins with just over 60% of the vote. Over 60% usually is concidered a landslide.