I'm not denying that the founders were Christian, their level of devotion to the faith is a different story though. Also they a good number of them were definitely dedicated to complete freedom of religion. It is an undisputed fact that many founders were Freemasons (And just because I already brought up other conspiracies here I'd like to make clear, I don't see any evidence to make me support any conspiracy theory involving the Masons.) and the Freemason's doctrines completely support freedom of all religions.

Also you are correct to cite the religious policies of those colonies but you also have to remember Pennsylvania and Rhode Island which were formed on the basis of freedom of religion and were some of the friendliest places to non-Christian groups, such as Jews, at the time.

like Draug to answer my question which assumes that the research can prove things on way or another, but i'm not going to get into a statistics war quoting various reports by different people, if he wants to dredge up some report which i have no way to disprove i'm not going to spend my time finding counter reports...

Research can prove anything you want to prove if you are going cherrypick it. That's what the illiterati are for.

However, you then can engage your grey matter and begin to rank the value of individual research, based on the power of the study - the methodology, the size of the study, the reproducability in other research, the presence or absence of confounding factors, the presence or absence of vested interests...etc

You can then start looking at meta-analyses which begin to weight research. Eventually you find that one theory has more evidence than the other and is considered to be the consensus of contemporary thinking and thus is supposed to hold most sway with healthcare policymaker

"Quoting state constitutions is irrelevant. The US constitution gave those rights to the states. Many states were founded on various Christian principles but the US was not.
"

Since the United States was founded as an association of states, it is not irrelevant. And what of the Quebec Act? Why were the colonists so perturbed about Catholics gaining rights if their desire to form an independent country was motivated by 'religious freedom'?

"You can then start looking at meta-analyses which begin to weight research. Eventually you find that one theory has more evidence than the other and is considered to be the consensus of contemporary thinking and thus is supposed to hold most sway with healthcare policymaker"

i agree. And i guess when it comes to health science the policy makers can be better trusted than (say) crime policy - which is much harder to do scientific study on and for which policy is much more political/culturally influenced.


"Trying to equate a legal activity for private individuals with an illegal activity"
indeed - however i deem harming others (smoking in public) as illegal, while harming yourself (smoking at home) as a perfectly defend-able freedom.

"equating a business's allowing its patrons to engage in an activity to the business actually encouraging an illegal activity is both an invalid analogy and an attempt at trolling."

Businesses facilitating an illegal activity should also be discouraged. However businesses inflicting damage to the bodies of their employees should be illegal (and i take it as given that not all people have a high level of job mobility)

Draug - would you advocate health insurance companies be in charge of medical advice?

I wasn't saying research proved anything. You're the one arguing secondhand smoke is a hazard so it's on you to prove it.

@Orathaic - Of course not. Physicians should be the ones recommend procedures and patients make the informed decisions.

"I wasn't saying research proved anything. You're the one arguing secondhand smoke is a hazard so it's on you to prove it. "

Warsprite was so kind as to put these links up on the previous page:

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/report/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/secondhand_smoke/index.htm

Jesus Draugnar, are you playing devil's advocate or something?

i am saying that, as far as i'm aware it is the general scientific consensus, if you choose to dispute the scientific consensus you can, but i'm not willing to waste my time debating that with you.

As scagga points out, (and warspite links) medical advice is that second hand smoke causes cancer.

I don't infact have anything to prove. Never-the-less, you come up with the idea that the research isn't conclusive, and based on that you state it's wrong to assume second hand smoke(SHS) is damaging - have you heard of the precautionary principle?

given the two choices, assume SHS is safe and allow people die, or assume SHS is dangerous and legislate - are you not will to accept that given either assumption the action is right.

My question again, IF second hand smoke causes cancer, should smoking be banned in the workplace?

Also Putin, the reason the colonists were mad about the Quebec Act is not that Catholics got religious freedom it is that the rights weren't extended to the colonies. It was a slap in the face that the citizens of Quebec, who had formally been subjects of France, had been given that level of freedom, while the colonists who had fought for the territory were not awarded. They were also mad that it granted Quebec western lands won in the French Indian War.

Ok. Here are some that show the risk is greatly exaggerated and the studies used by the Surgeon General were scientifically unsound.

http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/iarc.htm
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/second_hand_smoke_lung_cancer.html

The colonists already had 'that freedom' - meaning the power to establish their own church. The colonists had the biggest 'Pope day' they ever had in 1774 - in which they paraded around and hanged an effigy of the Pope. Alexander Hamilton warned that the Quebec Act would attract Catholics from throughout Europe to immigrate to the territory and eventually destroy America. The Continental Congress wrote a statement to the people of Britain stating the following:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Address_to_the_People_of_Great_Britain

"Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world.
This being a state of facts, let us beseech you to consider to what end they lead. Admit that the Ministry, by the powers of Britain and the aid of our Roman Catholic neighbors, should be able to carry the point of taxation, and reduce us to a state of perfect humiliation and slavery. Such an enterprise would doubtless make some addition to your national debt which already presses down your liberties and fills you with pensioners and placement We presume, also, that your commerce will somewhat be diminished. However, suppose you should prove victorious, in what condition will you then be? What advantages or what laurels will you reap from such a conquest ? May not a Ministry with the same armies enslave you? It may be said you will cease to pay them; but remember, the taxes from America, the wealth, and we may add the men, and particularly the Roman Catholics of this vast continent, will then be in the power of your enemies; nor will you have any reason to expect that after making slaves of us, many among us should refuse to assist in reducing you to the same abject state."

This is also worth reading.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/04/how-anticatholicism-helped-fue.html
http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0122.htm

But irregardless of the dangers, employees can choose to find other work and patrons chose another business.

And again, I go to businesses that either have very good nonsmoking areas or are completely smoke free.

i'm not caring to introduce any policy which protects the public, they DO have a free choice to avoid smokey rooms, however if we're talking about a bar where the staff have to sever drinks they are not choosing to be exposed to this risk, they are being employed to.

And my point about employee mobility is simple that most employees can't simply choose to find other work.

*most employees who are working in the food/drink service industry

"Ok. Here are some that show the risk is greatly exaggerated and the studies used by the Surgeon General were scientifically unsound.

http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/iarc.htm
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/second_hand_smoke_lung_cancer.html "

Your first link has very little content. It is essentially an article from 1998 on a non-scientific website that makes a reference to an unknown study funded by IARC with an interpretation by a journalist.

I counter the first link with this:
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol83/volume83.pdf

This is a pdf document that describes the conclusions of the analysis of the results of data from >50 studies on the subject and concludes that second-hand smoke is carcinogenic and increases the chances that people will develop cancer.
It is from the same organisation that the initial link is talking about. The main problems I find with the first link I have given are:

1) Your link is based on one study - the one I have given in response is based on >50
2) Your link is second-hand (lol), we don't have access to the actual source and cannot verify that the study even exists.
3) The site you got that information from talks about the therapeutic effects of smoking and actually is disputing many other harmful effects of smoking....emphysema, COPD, negative effects on life expectancy...I conclude that I find the source you have linked from to be offensive to knowledge.

Regarding the second link:
1) It is an opinion piece, not a study of any sort
2) The author admits: "I am neither an oncologist nor a chemical toxicologist"
3) He is only discrediting one paper based on how they did their statistical analysis, not anything at all to do with other papers that come to the same conclusion.
Therefore I conclude that the second link has no weight.

Can you come up with a good source or are you going to keep linking these terrible things as 'evidence'?

Seriously Draugnar I hope for your own good you don't believe the crap you're linking here.

Bull. Plenty of jobs in nonsmoking establishments. NKY has a lot of nonsmoking places right next to smoking ones and many of those restaurants have reported improved business since going nonsmoking.

OK, I have ben mostly playing devil's advocate/troll. But I do disagree that the employees can't find other work and that the market can't regulate itself. Consumers control the market and have already shown that nonsmoking businesses can not only survive, but thrive.

"I conclude that I find the source you have linked from to be offensive to knowledge."

ROFL +1 Scagga.

@scagga - > means more than. So >50 means more than 50. Just so you know.

"@scagga - > means more than. So >50 means more than 50. Just so you know. "

What kind of pitiful point-scoring are you playing at? If you read the link I gave you it says in section 5.2 (lung cancer):

"More than 50 studies of involuntary smoking and lung cancer risk in never-smokers, especially spouses of smokers, have been published during the last 25 years. These studies have been carried out in many countries. Most showed an increased risk, especially for persons with higher exposures. To evaluate the information collectively, in particular from those studies with a limited number of cases, meta-analyses have
been conducted in which the relative risk estimates from the individual studies are pooled together. These meta-analyses show that there is a statistically significant and consistent association between lung cancer risk in spouses of smokers and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke from the spouse who smokes. The excess risk is of the order of 20% for women and 30% for men and remains after controlling for some potential sources of bias and confounding. The excess risk increases with increasing exposure. Furthermore, other
published meta-analyses of lung cancer in never-smokers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke at the workplace have found a statistically significant increase in risk of 12–19%. This evidence is sufficient to conclude that involuntary smoking is a cause of lung cancer in never-smokers. The magnitudes of the observed risks are reasonably consistent with predictions based on studies of active smoking in many populations."

I said I was trolling and, being on my Droid, I didn't read all the way through them. I actually do believe that second hand smoke can contribute to cancer but argue the most the government should do is make the business pay hazard pay the same as any other industry where health and life is at higher risk. That would still give the business owner their right to choose, encourage them to change, and compensate employees for the added risk.

One final note: Does anyone disagree that the bartender or wait staff *didn't* know what they were getting into? They made a choice and now they (or someone who thinks they know better than the rest of us) want to change the terms of there employment?

*their

People shouldn't have to limit their job prospects because of other people's unhealthy and obnoxious habits.

Draugnar: "I said I was trolling"

To be honest Draugnar, I can't see a difference in the quality between your trolling and non-trolling posts.

You wasted my time back there.

If I am the consumer of a service in a service industry and someone chooses to enter that industry, yes they should choose between limiting their choices or putting up with my habits. I pay their fucking paycheck with my presence and purchases.

And TSA agents should be forced to lift your 90 pound bag or seek employment elsewhere, right? Customers can go fuck themselves.

i didn't say anything about the market not regulating itself. Consumers can choose to avoid places which have no non-smoking area.

i never said anything to the contrary, however going beyond the job mobility claim (which i can't verify) - no employer should be allowed put their employee at risk without sufficient compensation -> unless labour laws require medical treatment for the injured party; no employer should be allowed to expose their staff to unwanted second hand smoke.

FYI: this is how out of touch your 'ideal' is with common european practice: http://www.epha.org/a/1941 (not to say your ideal is wrong or immoral, just that it differs greatly from cultural norms in Europe, i don't know how much the US differs in this respect)

@Draug: you said "[I] argue the most the government should do is make the business pay hazard pay the same as any other industry where health and life is at higher risk"

damn it! you just met me half way! i hate you so much!!