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 dont 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
Taxation is a loss of freedom. It's money you are no longer free to spend.
"Their is not greater tyranny than to force a man to pay for something he does not want simply because you think it is good for him" -- Robert A. Heinlein.
Indeed. And you'll notice that we've lowered the top tax bracket from 70% under JFK down to almost half that today.
Thanks to the 3 federal income tax cuts under President Bush so far, a family of four earning $40,000 per year only pays fourty-eight Dollars ($48) in annual federal income taxes now (a Tax Freedom Day of January 1).
The estate tax is now dead, again thanks to President Bush. No longer do families have to sell their father's farm simply to pay their estate tax bill.
The double-tax on dividends is almost completely gone now, too.
Thus, we are moving in the correct direction on the tax issue, just as we are gaining back our gun rights, gold rights, voting rights, Internet rights, etc.
Nevertheless, the manufacturers lost some freedom to decide what kind of cars they will manufacture. And the rest of us suffer because of it.
But governments still collect about as much as they always did. Inflation continually drives us into upper brackets. Tax codes are so complex that it is meaningless to cite one statistic in marginal income tax rates.
The best way to gauge how much they tax us is to look at how much they spend.
Only if the population hasn't grown, and only if there hasn't been any inflation.
Maybe a few horny judges think nudity is the same thing as free speech but most sober people don't think so.
Try to own a modern produced howitzer, tank or attack helicopter. In 1890-1933 you had EVERY right to own every weapon the US Army and Navy had.
Of course, today, you can go to jail for selling a stock if you had information that the public didn't have. It doesn't do you much good to be able to trade stocks if you aren't free to use information.
Yes, giving people the right to discriminate may bring back segregated lunch counters in some towns, but society and the free market has ways to deal with that.
But, as you say, it is much more important that people have the right to choose their associations because it is one of the best ways that free people can manage evil. And it is the best mechanism for the free market to maintain efficiency. A man should not have to worry about being sued because he has too many white males employed on his engineering staff.
Yeah, but it didn't apply to everyone.
Real men don't whine.
I don't think so. This nation has been down that road before. We can study the results.
No thank you.
Real men don't whine.
the complete and total elimination of the 4th,5th,9th and 10th amendments to the constitution
number of gun control laws in 1792 when the constitution was ratified 0 number of gun control laws in 2005
20,000 any questions?
BTTT!!!!!!
Got a challenge for you get some guns and put them in the trunk of your car then drive through the city o f chicago and let me know when you do so i can call the police and you can see first hand how free you are to carry guns through citys that have outlawed them.
I don't have the freedom to discriminate against homosexuals even though I have every moral and health reason to do so.
I don't worry about responsibility Al Gore said he'd take care of me.
I am 27 and I agree we are losing our freedoms.
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