Posted on 01/25/2005 4:37:42 PM PST by Cornpone
Dear Freepers,
I'm getting old and perhaps a little wacky but as I look back over my life I continue to try and understand how my country hasn't quite turned out the way my mother and father brought me up to believe it should be and what it was I was always raised to defend. So I've started making a list of those things that just seem to represent a betrayal of what I always thought America is about...freedom. Its a short list, I'm still working on it and I know many, if not most, will not agree with everything on it. But I'm sure everyone has something to add to it...like the state of medical care in this country which I haven't even begun to think about. Anyway, they are simple things that individually don't amount to much. But, taken together they represent a fundamental change in our culture if you think about it. Please help me add to this list. I don't know what I will do with it. Perhaps I'll just go nail it on the doors of Congress..not likely. I'd rather nail it on the doors of the White House except we can't really go there anymore...another freedom lost.
• Mandatory motorcycle helmet laws
• Mandatory automobile seatbelt laws
• Mandatory boating lifejacket laws
• Increasing erosion of property rights
• Increasing regulation of alcohol consumption, tobacco use and firearms possession
• Virtual elimination of the right to self defense
• Denial of the right to carry a weapon for self defense
• Hate crime laws that ridiculously imply that the murder of one human being is more heinous than the murder of another based on some politically motivated criteria
• Encroachment on the constitutional right to assembly
• Increasing attempts to limit our constitutional right to free speech through hate speech laws that seek to dampen dissident opinions
• Increasing restrictions on demonstrations of personal faith with a bias against Christians
• Increasing restrictions on hunting
• Increasing restrictions on fishing
• Increasing restrictions on the traditional use of fireworks
• Increasing restrictions on traditional methods of outdoor cooking
• Increasing restrictions on water rights and usage
• Increasing government incursion and attempts to regulate the possession of domestic animals which in all cases don’t happen to be ‘pets’
• Unfair taxation to fund social practices abhorrent to most Americans
• Government advocacy of socially deviant lifestyles
• Government attempts to redefine millennia-old family relationships and bonds, i.e., gay marriage
• Affirmative action laws and policies that unjustly punish and deny opportunity to current generations based on the shortcomings of generations long past
• Ridiculous product liability judgments that seek to limit access and deny choice through judicial activism rather than legislative debate
Add your thoughts to the list please.
God Bless our Forefathers and God Bless You
You're absolutely right. I have freedom of choice covered in several points and we should all have the freedom to be responsible for our choices. I love to BBQ but soon that will be illegal in many places. I can't live without red meat...I guess I'll die soon because if many have their way that will be denied also...
Freedom to work -- and to send your children to work, if they are uninterested in schooling but talented in cabinetry or dependable bike couriers or truly awesome pianists.
Thanks. I think I may have that covered in the erosion of property rights but I'll consider it some more. Its an issue close to my heart.
Dear Cornpone: Good news. All you loss of "freedoms" is a little circus going on between your ears. The events you list probably have not really occured and don't be expecting to go to Heaven, cause crybabies automatically go to the other place.
>>Increasing restrictions on traditional methods of outdoor cooking
This one baffled me--most of the others I could see where you were going with them. What methods do you mean? Asking because I really haven't a clue. Pig roasts or something similar?
Charcoal grilling. Illegal in many places in Europe and recently considered for outlawing in some parts of the States...like parts of California.
Really? Wow, didn't know that. Guess my little Weber will become pretty useless if they decide to do that in my neck of libbie CA. Nothing tastes like charcoal grilling.
Just one more reason to move the heck outta dodge...
Bad news to you. All the issues I've identified have already come to be realized. I think the failure to recognize reality is perhaps a circus occurring in front of someone's blind eyes...wake up or you will find yourself where crybabies go...you'll be crying all the way.
I seem to remember talk of banning charcoal somewhere. I am not sure where or when this was.
I remember driving around WSU during the burn season (whenever that normally is/was for the farmers in the Palouse). Always kind of freaked me out to be honest--I used to work for the Park Service in the summers, so I'd see a big smoke plume and get worked up thinking "Oh crap, Forest Fire". Then I'd remember, "oh it must be burn season for the farmers, never mind".
"They'll take my Weber Smokey Joe from my cold, dead hands"
;-)
Examples please.
How about messing with the minds of our children by advocating and encouraging the tolerance and experimentation of homosexual life styles in government schools, which is abhorent to the tax paying parents of those children?
Where in the constitution is the need for a rally permit noted.
Do you mean the federal constitution?
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