Smoking and Pumping Gas

And now the plot thickens. As if this topic wasn't a relevant enough social issue, we now have, Attention citizens! You will enforce this no-smoking law! The mayor of NYC actually expects citizens to enforce this. This is a whole other can of worms.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I think this is the worst advice a Mayor could give. What happens when somebody is smoking, and some citizen attempts to "enforce" the law, and gets beat up or injured, or even just brutally ridiculed and slandered? Is the city responsible for tasking that citizen with "enforcement" duties, putting them in harm's way without training, etc., etc.? I think they are. I see many lawsuits in the future of this bad advice.

reply to post by getreadyalready

My thoughts exactly. To repeat from the other thread, this new NYC law and their stance on it doesn't seem to me to be a law encouraging Nazi-like snitching—it's more a statement saying, "Okay okay we'll pass the law to get some people to shut up about it but we're not going to enforce it because it's a ridiculous law and if you want to enforce it your on your own. You guys duke it out." They're throwing their hands up in the argument and letting the people enforce what they fought for. However, as you say, are giving bad advice in the end. Some will not think of the danger, but here again, it becomes their personal choice and responsibility. And some will get hurt and others will escalate it and take it to court. Slippery slopes all around.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


You might be right, and in that case they deserve the lawsuits. Why does the government always feel the need to pander to the squeekiest minority, instead of attempting to reflect the sentiments of their entire constituency? They should never have passed the law in the first place if they felt it would be unpopular or impossible to enforce. They should have spoken up and said the law would be unpopular or impossible to enforce, and refused to push it through.

Politicians have this stupid misconception that we always know what we want. That just isn't true, what we want is strong leadership that will speak the truth to us. Sometimes the population has ideas that just won't work, or sometimes a small group of people makes an idea look popular through their actions, when in reality the majority thinks it is ridiculous, but they are not speaking up about it, because they are too busy working and living.

I sure would love to see a politician come out and speak the truth one day. Tell us stuff we don't want to hear, or shoot down a special interest group or lobby and speak up for the silent majority. That would be presidential material.

reply to post by getreadyalready

getreadyalready for president! Some of these groups are tenacious—they have enough good arguments behind them to keep them fueled—they never give up. NYC was one of the first places to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. People got used to that idea, went out on the sidewalk, and smoked. Then the anti-smoking groups went after the sidewalks. It never ends. It's beyond annoying to think that the loud minorities get the most action and attention all the time, but the flip side of that is that they are after all the ones who organize and stick to it too.