Monday, March 20, 2017

ZAPped by Second-hand smoke?

I recently saw someone making the claim that "second-hand smoke" violates the Zero Aggression Principle.

If someone doesn't want you to smoke on their property, and you do anyway, you are violating their property rights. Your smoke leaves your personal bubble to intrude on the property of the property owner. That may or may not be "aggression", but it is archation, and as such would violate my expanded understanding of the ZAP (Zero Archation Principle). You would be doing something you have no right to do.

Otherwise, on someone else's property or out "in public", the person who feels violated by the smoke is free to walk away. Just like- as someone else pointed out- they are free to flee a nasty fart. They are free to request the smoker stop, wait, or move-- but if the smoker doesn't, it is up to the complainer to get away from the smoke.

If you try to pass "laws" forbidding smoking on someone else's property when that property owner would rather allow it, you are violating their property rights. If you are not on your own property and try to use force (including "laws") to stop someone from smoking, you are violating the ZAP.

I don't enjoy being around cigarette smoke, but sometimes it is worth it to be in places or around people I want to be around. And it's my choice, and I can choose to avoid those people and places if I decide it isn't worth it. I can even make "hard choices" about difficult trade-offs and potential penalties if it is that important to avoid smoke. I can't understand militant anti-smokers. Yes, I know smoke makes some people sick. I understand it's not healthy. Being a smoke-nazi is not healthy, either.


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