In Which I Become Angry About Idiotic Pseudo-Libertarian Garbage (or, Damian Tells Smokers to Shut Up)

Thanks to people who like to buy papers and leave them behind, I find myself reading the Journal-Gazette nearly every day I work. Between huge walls of text about FWCS petition color coordination and pithy defenses of Matt Kelty on the opinion page, they occasionally print yet another whiny letter about the Ft. Wayne smoking ban. Beyond the BS arguments about the ban "reducing business", there's a lot of flap about "smoker's rights", always phrased as either "the gummint's takin' my/business owners' rights, yours'll be next!!1" or "why shouldn't I be allowed to smoke in public?"

To this, I still ask, why is it that smokers have some inherent right to smoke inside a building, but non-smokers like myself don't have a right to not breathe poison? And no, the arguemtn of "well, you should just go somewhere that doesn't allow smoking" is and has always been a load of utter horseshit. Why shouldn't the smokers go outside? Why shouldn't the smokers go somewhere else? Why do their "rights" trump mine?

The answer? They don't. Smokers, you're making a choice to harm yourself, so you can at least have the courtesy to not harm us. Your rights do not trump ours.