• 14 Posts
  • 185 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Ahh I think you mean like the old idea of smoking break rooms

    Yes pretty much. This was discussed and rejected in the UK when the smoking bans came in, however other places in Europe implemented indoor smoking just fine. As vaping is a lesser harm than smoking, and in particular vapors don’t linger like smoke does, it should be easier to implement. But UK politicians wants to maintain a hardline ban in spite of any rational reasoning.

    I dont think your analogy of driving a car fits

    It was just the first thing that came to mind, which is why I threw in cycling as well. Cycling is often done for recreation rather than utility, but does still carry risk to others nearby. Cars also pollute, though, which is a similar harm to smoking, yet people are against outright banning combustion vehicles. It generally boils down to “I do it, and I shouldn’t be banned, but I don’t do that other thing so that should be banned.”

    For the record I don’t even smoke, in fact tobacco smoke makes me feel sick. But I don’t think people should be outright prohibited, not when a reasonable compromise can be reached.


  • I’m all for more study into the long term effects, and don’t think that vaping is completely harmless or that it necessarily has positive effects. However nothing is truly harmless, and many people are considered well within their rights to do things that have the potential to cause harm to themselves - or even others. Driving, for example, carries a significant risk, and even cycling could create a situation where you crash into another person and injur them.

    I just think that allowing vaping rooms indoors would be a better solution for everyone. People who vape get to keep warm, while people who want to breathe unrestricted air could find themselves better off because the vapers are indoors and out their way.













  • Also, in my view the EU is quite undemocratic. The separate Council, Commission and Parliament are an affront. Especially the fact that the Parliament, which represents the electorate, does not have the power to introduce legislation.

    You do realise that the entire structure of the EU was primarily dreamt up by British legal experts? It’s quite literally one of the best, most robust and most competent systems of governance in the world.

    Yes, Parliament can’t introduce legislation by themselves, but that’s because we don’t want populists like Farage, Boris or Trump to do that. They’re charismatic, but not actually competent. That’s why talented legal experts in the European Commission (who are each appointed by elected governments of member states, the UK had 6 iirc), people who actually know how law works, write the laws. The elected MEP’s vote on the laws.

    However even here we’re missing the fact that the European Parliament (EP) do have a say in the legislation. The EC writes an “Impact Assessment” with rough draft of the law they’re thinking of writing (which anyone can comment on), then this is presented before Parliament who propose and discuss amendments. So it’s completely disingenuous to imply that the elected EP is somehow beholden to the “unelected” (but chosen for competency by elected member governments) EC bureaucrats.

    And all that skips around what starts the EC’s initial proposal. Aside from occassionally writing laws off their own backs, the EC responds to requests from:

    • The European Council (heads of state or government of each EU country)
    • The Council of the European Union (government ministers from each EU country)
    • The European Parliament (directly elected by EU citizens)
    • Citizens themselves, following a successful European Citizens’ Initiative

    That’s right, not only can Parliament demand new legislation (they just have to get the big boy lawyers to write it for them), but individual citizens can directly!

    Parliament has the final say in whether or not legislation is implemented. That’s completely democratic. What you call “an affront” is actually competent people writing effective legislation. Rather than bullshit like the Rwanda deal which states the UK will accept vulnerable refugees from Rwanda in exchange for the small boat migrants to Rwanda (all paid for by the UK taxpayer), or the general ineptitude of no legislation at all and a Hard Brexit causing issues like sewage being dumped in our rivers since water companies now face restrictions on importing treatment chemicals from the EU.


  • William Rees-Mogg wrote 3 books in the 90s, I forget the 3rd one but the other two were called “(The Best Time To Buy Is When There Is) Blood In The Streets” and “The Sovereign Individual”. The latter describes a Sovereign as someone who earns more than $200k per year (90s money, so more like £500k today) and uses their wealth and influence to live above the laws of any nation. This is the kind of “sovereignty” his son Jacob Rees-Mogg campaigned for, he’s literally laughing at all his supporters while he’s doing it.