Quote:
Originally Posted by Knalus
You have a very broad idea of what your "rights" are. Too broad if you ask me.
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No, I have a pretty narrow definition of my rights. I should be able to do whatever I want, provided it doesn't force someone else to take the negative consequences. I don't think it gets much more succinct than that.
In this case, by smoking in a car with kids, you force those kids to take the negative consequences of that behavior. If I rumble down the street in the middle of the night so that people's windows rattle and they wake up, again my behaviour is having a deleterious effect on those I inconvenience. If I assert my right to talk loudly on my cell phone during a movie, again I am infringing on other's rights.
It isn't always easy to determine what to do when individual rights conflict, but the idea that "nobody can tell me what to do!" is not only incorrect, it is infantile. There are authorities that can and will tell you what to do, and if they didn't exist, you would lose the "tyranny" of limited government in favour of the tyranny of unlimited individuals.