In 2002, a statewide poll conducted by Harstad Strategic Research for anti-smoking groups found widespread support for smoking bans.
Among 602 registered voters, 66 percent favored and 29 percent opposed such bans, according to the poll.
So, if a majority of people found noisy children a nuisance the government would ban children? Just because its a majority don't make them right. Remember, in the 19th century a majority of southerners thought slavery was the right and decent way to do things. We all know better but they were a majority.
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny. Edmund Burke
If it means the banning of smoking in bars, clubs and restaurants, then it is justified on the basis that by smoking in those places, you are harming (or at the very least annoying) other people through second-hand smoke. Thereby, you are violating their right to clean air.
However, banning smoking all up is wholly unjustified, because it assumes a paternalistic role for government. As responisble, rational adults, we each have a right to make our own decisions, and deal with the consequences, even if we are harming ourselves.
Similarly, this logic should apply to any lawmaking, and irrationality and emotions should not feature. Therefore, there is no basis for banning drug use (so long as it harms only the person taking the drug).
The golden rule of liberalism is: All actions should be permitted that do not violate any one else's freedoms.
The problem nowadays is moralism. That is, people who like to tell other people how best to live their lives, be happy, what to do and what not to do. These people (often fundamentalist Christians), are the worst kind of paternalists because they have a dogmatic conception of right and wrong.
As for the tyranny of the majority, we don't live in a true democracy so you don't have to worry about it! Majoritariansim would be a real problem if you lived in a true, participatory democracy (like Ancient Athens). That would be 'mob-rule'. However, representative 'democracy' is actually an oligarchy; rule by few. Soverignty lies in the people, but the people do not rule. The people 'authorise' rulers on their behalf. According to James Madison (one of the writers of the Federalist Papers), the advantage of a representative republic is “the total exclusion of the people, in their collective form, from any share in the work of government”.
All up, when you think of what the majority actually is like, just think how stupid the average person is. Then realise that half the people are stupider than that.
Thats' my two cents.