Just in time for the Fourth, individual freedom has dimmed a bit more, thanks to the state legislature of Georgia. Tomorrow, the state’s new smoking ban takes effect. With a few exceptions, the owners and patrons of restaurants and publicly accessible workplaces in Georgia will not be allowed to fashion their own smoking policies or accommodate conflicting preferences in a reasonable, consensual manner. Smoking will simply be prohibited.

The law’s paternalistic supporters assert that smoking bans in jurisdictions such as New York City and Massachusetts have not injured local dining and hospitality industries. The assertion is both absurd and beside the point. It’s absurd because if there is, as they say, pent-up demand among nonsmokers to go out to eat at smoke-free establishments, thus offsetting the potential loss of revenue from smokers now resigned to eat at home, there is an ample financial incentive for nonsmoking establishments to crop up without the law. Do lawmakers really know better than restauranteurs how to maximize their profits?

And it’s beside the point because what is primarily at stake here is freedom, not the financial health of restaurants. Personal freedom rests on a net formed of laws, provisions, court decisions, and customs. If the string representing the rights of restaurant owners to allow smoking begins to unravel, I as a nonsmoker will still feel the net slackening.