Rather than fighting it out in the legislature...

[Kat Kanning]

I really loved Dada's idea of working with the people who were promoting the smoking ban to find a way to get the goals of both groups achieved.  Fighting it out in the legislature only kills it for a season.  Dada's suggestion can make a lasting change.  This would only work in some cases...I don't think you're going to find a middle ground with the Feds nor groups with entrenched personal profit motive like the teacher's unions.  But there will be cases like this smoking ban where it is possible that there's a voluntary solution to the problem, that wont involve one side winning/one side losing. 

Some questions:

1.  What can we do to help the smoking ban people achieve their goals using a voluntary method, rather than them using legislation to fix the problem?
2.  What other bills have come up recently, or are upcoming could have voluntary solutions?
3.  How else can we promote voluntary solutions as opposed to coercive methods of change?

[Friday]

I don't want to help the smoking ban people achieve their goals!  I want to preserve the few smoking-allowed restaurants and bars that remain in New Hampshire.  If I wanted nothing but oxygen bars, I would have stayed in California.

[Kat Kanning]

No, I mean their goals of less people getting lung cancer, or things like that.  Maybe one thing we could do is help them pick out what's really important and see how it can be accomplished better w/o government involvement.  Hasn't anti-smoking education been wildly successful?

[Lloyd Danforth]

Aparently not.  I live in a predominately Black neighborhood.  15 years ago I would never see younger people around here, now all teens seem to be smoking.  I know 'Kools' became popular with many of them some years ago, so, that might be what got it going.

[dawn]

3.  How else can we promote voluntary solutions as opposed to coercive methods of change?

This may not exactly match up, but I've been thinking about something similar to this regarding disasters (storms, fires, death of parent of youngsters, etc.). What do you think about setting up some kind of volunteer action to reach out to these people and help them directly - without government assistance?

I've also tried to come up with ideas about how to help keep people off other government assistance. Things like any kind of welfare, medicaid, medicare, going into nursing homes (often because they can't take care of the yard or drive or things like that), etc. How can we help these people (or ourselves!) maintain their independence?

[FrankChodorov]

3.  How else can we promote voluntary solutions as opposed to coercive methods of change?

This may not exactly match up, but I've been thinking about something similar to this regarding disasters (storms, fires, death of parent of youngsters, etc.). What do you think about setting up some kind of volunteer action to reach out to these people and help them directly - without government assistance?

I've also tried to come up with ideas about how to help keep people off other government assistance. Things like any kind of welfare, medicaid, medicare, going into nursing homes (often because they can't take care of the yard or drive or things like that), etc. How can we help these people (or ourselves!) maintain their independence?

what you are describing are essentially "mutual aid societies"...

the insurance company State Farm was set-up as a mutualist insurance company...many were set-up to give death benefits to widowers and children.

we have one here in Concord called "Odd Fellows" home

http://www.ioof.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid

Mutual aid in anarchism

In political economy, mutual aid is a term which describes a principle central to libertarian socialism or anarchism, and is used to signify the economic concept of voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit.

As a concept it was developed and advanced by Proudhon and also by the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin. Mutualism was a fundamental concept in the invention of labor insurance systems and thus trade unions, and has been also used in cooperatives. In his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Kropotkin explored the utility of cooperation as a survival mechanism for animals, in order to counteract the conception of evolution as a fierce competition for survival between individuals that provided a rationalization for the theories of Social Darwinism. His observations of indigenous peoples in Siberia guided him to conclude that not all human societies were so competitive as Europe's.

In another of his books, The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. Kropotkin's thesis was based on the premise that scarcity was unnecessary, and it was possible to produce enough wealth to satisfy the needs of everybody by working only five hours a day during adult life (leaving the rest of the day to satisfy desires for luxuries, if so desired), but that flawed economic systems had led to inefficient allocation of resources which prevented this bounty from being achieved.

[Fluff and Stuff]

Aparently not.  I live in a predominately Black neighborhood.  15 years ago I would never see younger people around here, now all teens seem to be smoking.  I know 'Kools' became popular with many of them some years ago, so, that might be what got it going.

That's interesting.  Few black people even smoke.  Like 6 of the 50 black people I know smoke.

[Pat McCotter]

Odd Fellows Home in Concord is now the Presidential Oaks.

"Presidential Oaks, known as the New Hampshire Odd Fellows Home since 1883, is a non-profit health care facility that has been providing caring services to seniors for over 120 years."

[Incrementalist]

Aparently not.  I live in a predominately Black neighborhood.  15 years ago I would never see younger people around here, now all teens seem to be smoking.  I know 'Kools' became popular with many of them some years ago, so, that might be what got it going.

That's interesting.  Few black people even smoke.  Like 6 of the 50 black people I know smoke.

That's 12%.  The national median is 10%, if I'm not mistaken.

[FTL_Ian]

I think Dada's approach is brilliant.  I wonder if he'll get a response.

[Kat Kanning]

I was just asking Russell the other day what the Oddfellows was...

[frisco]

I don't think there can be a win for all on the subject of smoking.  I also don't think it's particularly healthy for our culture to promote hatred of any given minority.

I will say though, if the anti's were to run a truthful campaign - saying only that some find the smell objectionable - I would have some respect for them.

[Dave Ridley]

ian wrote:

<<I think Dada's approach is brilliant.  I wonder if he'll get a response. >>

lol i'm just responding to this so i can have an excuse to copy your compliment.

However I did get immediate responses from both the margarita's guy and one of the key anti smoking ladies and they both just tried to change my mind and didn't seem to have any real interest in the idea.  It was worth a try but I guess they are more focused on force initation than I thought, to the detriment of their ultimate goal.

I sent them an email back basically saying ok I guess we will have to continue fighting each other instead of smoke.

But I hope the work-out-a-deal apporach can be put to use again with some other organization more friendly to voluntary solutions.

[FTL_Ian]

Will you post their responses?

[FrankChodorov]

I was just asking Russell the other day what the Oddfellows was...

I recently read a book called "From Mutual Aid to Welfare State: How Fraternal Societies Fought Poverty and Taught Character" by David T. Beito

he also co-authored a very good book called "Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society" which is  publish by the Independent Institute and has a chapter written by Georgist, Fred Foldvary.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/hl677.cfm

excerpt:
Mutual aid was one of the cornerstones of social welfare in the United States until the early 20th century. The fraternal society was a leading example. The statistical record of fraternalism was impressive. A conservative estimate is that one-third of adult American males belonged to lodges in 1910. A fraternal analogue existed for virtually every major service of the modern welfare state including orphanages, hospitals, job exchanges, homes for the elderly, and scholarship programs.

But societies also gave benefits that were much less quantifiable. By joining a lodge, an initiate adopted, at least implicitly, a set of survival values.

Societies dedicated themselves to the advancement of mutualism, self-reliance, business training, thrift, leadership skills, self-government, self-control, and good moral character. These values, which can fit under the rubric of social capital, reflected a kind of fraternal consensus that cut across such seemingly intractable divisions as race, sex, and income.