Thursday, February 27, 2003

 
"PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT" JUST JUMPED THE SHARK.
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I'd been really enjoying the new Showtime show "Penn & Teller: Bullshit", and, in fact, I only subscribed to Showtime in order to see this show. But they argued so poorly for their thesis that laws outlawing public smoking are "bullshit" that it casts doubt on everything else they've said. Their first three episodes impressively debunked psychics, space aliens, and end-of-the-world prophesies. But on this episode, they smugly claim that second-hand smoke kills, at most, 2.5 non-smokers per 100,000 in the population (which they say is statistically insignificant), and they allude, without explanation or justification, to a Constitutional right to smoke in bars and restaurants, though I can't begin to imagine which part of the Constitution they might have in mind.

First of all, here in New York City, we have 8 million people. That's 80 times a hundred thousand, or 200 dead non-smokers. And there are an additional 8 million people in the New York metro area, many of whom come to New York every day. Penn and Teller dispute whether the rate of death is even this high, but even if there's only a one in a million chance that second hand smoke can ever kill someone, that's still 8 dead New York non-smokers, and perhaps more in the metro area. So, government is powerless to help these people, because there are too few of them? Between 8 and 200 needless deaths is the "statically insignificant" price we should--no, must--pay to allow people to annoy others with their cigarette smoke? Pshaw.

And even if no study can show any conclusive link between second hand smoke and death, why should non-smokers have to take any risk at all? We know that "first-hand" smoking kills hundreds of millions of people world-wide. Nobody disputes that. It's just common sense that there may also be some slight risk associated with second-hand smoke, even if that risk is too small to measure. Should developing children and pregnant women and people who are already at high risk for cancer, not to mention the rest of us, have to take the risk that the right study just hasn't been published yet?

And what's the argument against banning smoking? Well, according to the people on the show, we non-smokers (and also the many smokers who support the ban) are inflicting our behaviors on others. I mean, can you even imagine? The law doesn't tell people not to step outside for a smoke, nor that they shouldn't smoke in their homes and cars. But when I have to breathe your second-hand cigarette smoke, then you're the one inflicting your behavior on me. Even if it doesn't cause one death, why can't we, as a society, say that we don't like to cough, and we don't like our eyes to sting, and we don't like to get smoke in our hair and clothes? I remember a few months ago, an exchange between a "smoking rights" advocate and a smoking ban advocate on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, in which the smoking rights advocate asked, "Why shouldn't I be allowed to smoke wherever I want to?", and the smoking ban advocate asked in reply, "Why shouldn't I be allowed to masturbate wherever I want to?" Surely, no one thinks they have any more of a right to smoke in public than they do to masturbate in public. Do you really think you have some "right" to blow smoke in my face when I'm trying to eat? As the saying goes, "Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose." Why do you think the Constitution gives you a right to strike me with your cigarette smoke, any more than it gives you the right to strike me with your fist or a knife or a bullet?

The bottom line is that whether or not to allow this obnoxious behavior in public is a matter of public policy, not Constitutional jurisprudence, and it is exactly the sort of thing that should be decided by popularly elected legislatures, democratically representing their constituents. Here in New York City, the smoking ban is overwhelmingly popular. Out in "Marlboro Country" somewhere, say in Texas or New Orleans, such a ban might be unpopular, and if so, then they should have a different rule. The Constitution doesn't give you a right to smoke, nor me a right to be free from smoke. But the Constitution does give me the right to vote for those public officials who support the laws that I believe in, such as this public smoking ban.

This is The Official Record. 5:01 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/02/penn-teller-bullshit-just-jumped-shark.html


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