Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Signs on the Bow River signalling the danger of the Weir are an encroachment on my freedom. Waste of my tax money to have some politician talking back and forth about the best way to make the most dangerous part of the Bow safer.
Attacking my freedom to make me wear a life preserver on water craft! I don't care if it will eventually cost the city tens of thousands of dollars to pull my lifeless corpse from the Weir, it's my God Given Right as a second generation Canadian to inconvenience countless other members of society because of my own stupidity and arrogance.
Give me the ability to smoke in my car filled with young, helpless children or give me death. Anything in between is anti-freedom, and I won't stand for it until someone violates my freedom and resuscitates me so that I can complain louder.
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I'm not going to get drawn into hyperbole.
I've never once claimed that I think its an infringement upon anyone's rights or liberties. Trying to keep kids out of smoke infested environments is a great and noble cause.
What I have been saying is that measures such as this are a drop in the bucket that solves no problem and provides little to no gain, and yes, thats a problem.
Further, I think that instead of 'drop in the bucket' legislation, what people should be more concerned about is clarifying the goal and then making strides towards meeting that goal.
What is the goal? Is it to protect children from second hand smoke inhalation?
To take Flash's analogy, if Gramps is running the carpool and puffing away, if the parents dont like it, maybe they should say something, you know, try parenting a little?
Or are they instead hoping that the possibility of a $1000 ding to his wallet is going to make Gramps quit and they can quietly hope they never have to say anything to him?
I'm not going to bemoan the loss of civil liberties in this case as I dont see that as the issue, rather, I see this as the removal of personal responsibilities.
If they're your kids and you want to smoke around them all the time knowing full well the health consequences then I see that as their personal responsibility as parents.
But I understand, its totally free and better than nothing so lets just legislate it so that parents dont learn anything about taking responsibility for their own actions. Because not until that time, when they'll voluntarily stop smoking around their kids all the time, not just in the car, will something have been accomplished to achieve the goal.