Michael Long
1 min readJun 29, 2020

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As someone else mentioned, what we have here is a variant of the second-hand smoke problem. You, as an individual, are free to decide if you want to smoke.

Unfortunately, doing so in a enclosed space can infringe upon the rights and choices and health of everyone else around you.

Hence society as a whole has rules in place about just where and how a smoker may indulge themselves.

Or as stated by Thomas Jefferson, “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

Though a more modern translation might be, "Your freedom to act ends the second your fist hits my nose."

Freedom and rights are always in tension, your rights verses those of others.

have no problem with people who think differently… but I would like them to at least consider the fact that their actions could quite literally kill someone.

And that person just might not be some random stranger.

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Michael Long
Michael Long

Written by Michael Long

I write about Apple, Swift, and SwiftUI in particular, and technology in general. I'm also a Lead iOS Engineer at InRhythm, a modern digital consulting firm.

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