Yes, rationing is now gone...and we are MORE free today because of that fact.
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
Yes, rationing is now gone...and we are MORE free today because of that fact.
Lawsuit (tort) reform is being handled this very year by Republicans in Congress. Medical liability is first up on that list.
There's our problem right there. People think the "common good" is a Constitutional test.
How do you feel about the Patriot act?
We can freely carry assault rifles. I do. We can still own machine guns. I do. We can still carry weapons on our own aircraft. I do. And commercial pilots can once again pack heat, too (yet another baby step in the right direction).
According to testimony at a House committee, the decline of domestic resource development is getting serious:
"During the 1990's while the rest of the US economy was booming, there was a serious decline in U.S. mining activity, a decline that continues today with some of the trends and impacts illustrated below:
"Since 1996, there has been a 73% decline in new claims.
Exploration expenditures have continued to steadily decrease and grassroots exploration has virtually disappeared in the U.S. More money is consistently being spent on overseas projects.
Mid-size producers and “juniors”, generally where most exploration investment dollars come from, have chosen to invest overseas rather than in comparatively equal opportunities in the US."
George Bush doesn't control the courts and the lawyers. He barely controls the low level beauracrats in his own administration. What will happen after we get another Democrat in the white house? When Hillary takes over?
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/archives/108/testimony/anncarpenter.htm
"Didn't make much difference."
Yeah, that whole "Internet Revolution" thing will never catch on... < /sarcasm >
Trading stocks on-line, selling books on-line, international auctions on-line, gambling on-line, porn on-line, doing your taxes on-line, news on-line, message forums on-line, corporate catalogs on-line, selling programming services on-line, on-line ads, email, et al...
Didn't do us much good?! Oh brother... What, like you've never even performed your own Google search??
Maybe it depends on what freedoms you hold dear. Certainly there is more freedom to engage in debauchery. Sodomy is not only legal now, but public schools are touting it to kids as an alternative lifestyle. But every single day we are losing the freedom to avoid these people.
Illegal aliens haven't stolen many elections recently; overall voter fraud is down substantially (yet more steps in the right direction). The Daley Machine may still influence Chicago, but it isn't swaying national elections any longer.
No, the real problem here is that *your* mind is enslaved. You see only serfdom in a a land of extraordinary freedom.
Until you free your mind from such artificial negativism, you'll remain self-enslaved no matter what progress we make in further expanding our freedoms.
Government advocacy of socially deviant lifestyles
To which Kleon asked:
How does this interfere with your freedoms?
It interferes because
(1) government shouldn't promote any "lifestyle",
(2) government will push degenerate behavior onto our children, and I want them OUT of that forum, and
(3) a society that can't value the family will lose the strength the family unit bestows on the society of which it is a necessary part.
Clear?
Damn, man! What's your malfunction? What I hold dear?
Look it, my grandfathers were saddled with gun laws that forbade black people from owning any firearm. Where they could go was restricted. Their manner of speech was controlled. You take a 50 year old black man who had to address a 10 year old white kid as "sir" or "ma'am" while they can turn right around and call this man "boy."
I could go on and on, but it would be lost on you.
My goodness!
Real men don't whine.
Where have *you* lost your freedom to walk away?
Ever. Much less "every single day?"
"Nearly 40 years ago, there were about 26 makers of all types of vaccines. [See the figure.] The number fell to 17 by 1980. Now, the number of vaccine makers supplying the United States has dropped to only four. There is only a single manufacturer of the vaccines for eight diseases. There are only two major makers of flu vaccines. When there are so few producers of each vaccine, problems at a single plant can create shortages.
In recent years, the United States has come to depend on overseas vaccine plants to provide an increasing share of the supply. One company, the Chiron Corporation, prepared 46 million doses — almost half of the anticipated supply for the United States — at its plant in Liverpool, England. However, this year’s production run was rejected for import by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because of contamination problems."
But we have plenty of people making beer!
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba493/
Indeed. He's donned such mental blinders that he sees no expansions of freedom (Voting Rights Act, anyone?!), only perceived losses of liberty (apparently we "serfs" are forbidden from taking explosives and firearms onto public transport, Oh My!).
...And yet, contrary to your earlier hyperbole-drenched rant, vaccines are still being made.
Hmmm...
Quite honestly I don't understand it well enough to comment. However, when the government arrested Ted Kaczynski they listed among the bomb making materials found in his shack, sodium chloride or what they identified as NaCl, common table talt. That doesn't make me feel too comfortable.
How about the freedom to refuse to associate with them in business? The Boy Scouts were told they had hire homosexual scoutmasters. A lady in Chicago was fined by the city for advertising for a Christian live-in handyman. Churches are told they cannot reject employees who are homosexual.
Many people here have stuck up for the Patriot Act.
Personally I am not keen on it at all but as I am not currently living in the States I am powerless to do much about it.
All I say to people that support it is:
Would you support it if Bill Clinton was responsible for it?
One of my favorites with regard to lost freedoms that I haven't seen posted in this thread is "window-dressing" security.
As a comical aside to terrorism posted in another thread, the cinemas in my area have the 16-year-old ushers requesting to peer in customer bags for "security" purposes as they enter the movie. I simply say, "No thank you!" and brush past the acne-prone beanpoles. Like I'm going to allow a child to tell me I can't carry my legal and very utilitarian Benchmade Mini-AFCK around?
Now, that's a silly plan that is NOT based on law and I simply won't comply. It's yet another outrageous private-sector rule designed to help people "feel" safer when no additional safety exists. It also makes for harried planning when you must determine where your pocketknife (or sidearm, cellular phone, flashlight, etc.) is acceptable, and where it's not. The pathetic part of the story is that you would not believe the number of full-grown adults who queue-up for this degrading treatment!
The REAL challenge is when legislation is enacted to make these kind of inspections legal and common in our country. Where will it all end?
~ Blue Jays ~
Contrary to your hyperbolistic nonsense, you can do business with whomever you please. If you want to refuse to accept a job offer from a gay man, you are free to do so for that very reason. Corporations and organizations, however, may be under some different restrictions, but those are *not* applicable to the freedoms of individual humans.
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