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
Not really true. When you give more freedom to people who don't respect the law and the freedom of others, we are all less free. Today the Democrats want to give voting rights to felons.
Putting a tyrant or a criminal in jail gives freedom to the rest of us. Women feel free to walk at night if they aren't worried about rapists. Iraqis have more liberty with Saddam in jail.
But before 1941, we didn't have rationing so we had more freedom before. Look, we are talking about long-term trends. Rationing was just an historical blip.
Good. Let's hope they grow some stones and don't cave in this time.
Like I said I really don't understand it well enough to comment on it specifically. Its 132 pages of difficult reading. However, I'm generally against government attempts to gain more authority to intrude into people's lives. At the same time, the government and our laws haven't caught up with the 'electronic era.' For example, as someone who has seen criminals commonly carrying around a bag full of cell phones so they can compartmentalize and disguise their criminal acts, it makes sense to me to authorize a wire tap against the individual and not a specific phone. I've also seen a lot of cases where restriction on computer records matching have enabled an awful lot of fraud at taxpayer expense. An example of that is you're not supposed to be able to get a government small business loan if you are in default on a government student loan but in the past, because they couldn't match records, it happened all the time...and we just got fleeced again. I don't know if the Patriot Act has changed that or not.
I have avgue memories of Clinton trying to pass a similar act to the Patriot and it getting flamed down by the Republicans.
Could be wrong though.
If you have a Federal Firearms License. It used to easy to get one. I understand it is very difficult today.
The big innovation was the invention of the web browser.
In 1920, it was illegal for men to buy beer.
The 18th was an infringement of numerous unemumerated individual rights, nullified by juries until repealed.
In the 1930's, gold was illegal to own ($100 limit).
Yet another unconstitutional prohibition on our right to own property of any type.
In the 1940's, our military was racially segregated and the government mandated at gunpoint how many ounces of sugar you could have in your pantry.
Jim Crow in the military, and out, was unconstituional.
Sugar was rationed under war powers.
In the 1950's, Blacks were being beaten by policemen, hosed by firemen, bitten by sheriffs' dogs, as well as prevented from even *registering* to vote by Jim Crow laws.
None of these practices could even remotely be considered Constitutional.
In the 1960's, it was *legal* to pay women less than men for the same job.
It still is, if there is a difference in job performance.
In the 1970's, it was illegal to drive more than 55 miles per hour.
Another unconstitutional 'law'.
In the 1980's, it was illegal to use the Internet for profit.
It was?
In the 1990's, it was illegal in most states to carry a concealed handgun. Up until 2004, it was illegal to have a folding stock, flash hider, and 30 round clip in your assault rifle.
You seem to think that anything Fed/State or local authorities declare to be the 'law' is Constitutional. -- Why is that?
Today, none of those restrictions on our freedom apply.
They never did 'apply', with the exception of rationing during wartime.
And how do you know that? When an election is stolen, is it officially tallied as "stolen"? How do you measure election fraud?
Instead, look at what is happening. In southwestern states, officials tell cops that they cannot even inquire about the immigration status of a suspect. Cops are forbidden to call the INS. In California, the lieutenant governor had been a member of a group that wants to eject all non-hispanics from the state. Don't tell me they aren't affecting our politicians.
In Washington DC, the mayor was a convicted crack addict who, when he got out, later won election to the city council. Don't tell me that city isn't corrupt.
You see only serfdom in a a land of extraordinary freedom.
The trouble is, the people who are getting more freedom are criminals, wasters, greedy lawyers, politicians and perverts. The people who have less freedom are the ones who produce goods and the ones who create jobs, the people who provide medical care.
Things aren't much better. Even when the KKK was lynching blacks, they only hung a few hundred of them total. Today that's the typical summer crime carnage in Washington DC. And of course today in a lot of big cities most people are not allowed to carry weapons, only the criminals carry weapons and people are not nearly as free to walk at night as they were in 1950.
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."
And today in New York City, the white residents have learned never to make eye contact with black men in the subway. But are the blacks better off now?
"Congress shall make no law" meant what it said, but did not mean that only Congress was so restricted.
Why not? That's what it says, "Congress", not the states.
Art VI, and the rest of my comment explains "why not". -- Did you bother to try to understand them?
The 10th made clear that States were also prohibited powers, among them the power to infringe on peoples RKBA's.
After the civil war, southern States were denying freed slaves the RKBA's, under the pretense that the BOR's did not apply. The 14th was ratified to end that controversy.
Oh, geez. The definite article 'the' to modify blacks. Not 'blacks', not 'black people', not 'black Americans'. No. It's "the" blacks.
Whatever, man.
Real men don't whine.
But public transport is where we are most likely to need them. Ask any inner city dweller who has been mugged.
Southhack appears to be applauding the one step forward while ignoring the two steps back.
Not in America.
In other words, a businessman doesn't have human rights? Used to be they were allowed to reject employees or clients for any reason. Now they can't. We've lost that freedom.
Excuse me. I meant to say, "the Negroes".
Oh, I'm more than convinced you did. Yes, sirree!
Real men don't whine.
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