Can the Michigan legislature ban urination in Michigan businesses? Part 2

Another update on a post from a couple of day ago: Heh: MI Bar owners who oppose smoking ban ban MI lawmakers.

I was attacked for the substance of that post and responded with this: Can the Michigan legislature ban urination in Michigan businesses? Dan Calebrese over at The Michigan View challenged my assertion that the legislature didn't have the right to pass the law, and did so by comparing it (IMO absurdly) to the right to urinate in public. Henry Payne got wind of my response, and that, along with another response against Dan by Jack McHugh (who correctly asserted that private property is just that) precipitated a response to the response by Dan: Not to further a pissing match, but . . .

I think we have a useful discussion going on among View contributors here, with my colleague Jack McHugh and Oakland U. BlogProf Chris Kobus taking me to task for my belief that the Legislature does, in fact, have the right to ban smoking in privately owned restaurants.

There are several points I want to make in response to recent comments from Chris and Jack, so let's get right to it:

- People keep asking me if I would be OK with the Legislature banning smoking in people's homes. Some Mackinac Center type on Facebook told me that if not, I am "inconsistent" and at any rate I apparently have statist tendencies that require therapy or something.

...- Just to be clear, my intentionally absurd example of urination referred to what someone might do in the dining room of a restaurant itself, the very same place we're talking about banning smoking. I didn't want to get too graphic with this example, but you guys keep asking me questions, so here we, er, go . . .

Let's say someone in the dining room of a restaurant walks right up to your table and pees on you. Let's say you complain to the manager or owner of the restaurant, who says, "This is my property and I allow people to pee wherever they want. If you don't like it, eat somewhere else." Let's say you call the cops and make a complaint against both the urinator and the indifferent owner. Do my doctrinaire free-market friends really think the owner has the right to take the position he took, and that no law can be passed that says otherwise?

- In fact, you don't have to use an example anywhere near as absurd as that one. Restaurants have to comply with public health codes, and are subject to inspections to ensure that they have done so.

Would Chris and Jack be OK with the following? A restaurant posts a sign on the front door that reads, "This restaurant is not subject to health or food safety inspections. This is private property and we keep our establishment the way we want. Don't like it? Eat somewhere else."

Would this represent a righteous invocation of the owner's rights as private businessman?

Dan goes on, but never answers, or even attempts to, my question to him that was the stuff of the very headline to the piece he was responding to. So let me ask again: can the Michigan legislature ban urination in Michigan businesses? Since Dan brings up safety inspections (which have morphed over time into revenue streams that manage lifestyles, healthcare and pensions of unionized government workers that inspect safety on the side and not very well), let me further my argument with this scenario: some douche in the MI legislature thinks it's a good idea to ban urination or defecation in any restaurant. After all, it's a public safety issue, they claim. They get up to the podium and assert that in their observations over the years, urinals tend to have a certain amount of splashback (due to fundamental laws governing fluid mechanics) especially at the hand holding the Johnson. So when you're done draining your main vein, you have urine on your hands. So you go to wash said hands but the first thing you touch is the knobs on the sink, which now have not only your urine on them, but those of other patrons as well. You finish washing your hands and immediately reach for those same knobs. Congrats, you now have urine on your hands from multiple people, and dried your hands with the hot air dispenser such that the clean water has been evaporated but the essence of the pee was preserved. You now grab for the bathroom door that undoubtedly has a ton of urine on it too, and are now a walking health hazard spreading urine and possibly fecal matter onto anything you touch. Thus, as the lawmaker's argument goes, urination (or defecation) of any kind in a place where you consume food must be banned for the public good. Except of course in casinos. Again, would Dan have a problem either with the law or with that argument for it? What say you, Dan?

Lastly, Henry called this a bar brawl (Bar brawl: Kobus fires back). And Dan, ironically, a pissing match. I think it's more like this though:

The only question is, which one is the monkey and which the idiot with the shaving cream on their face? Indeed there are far bigger fish to fry these days,no?