Posted on 01/11/2007 8:25:21 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Something has happened to freedom in modern America. There seems to be less of it, and we dont all seem to know how. There certainly has been a slight but undeniable Osauma Bin Ladin tax; levied against our individual rights, since the attacks of 9/11. However, the people keeping us down today arent from the Middle East, dont speak Farsi, unless they came by it from their family, and are not oppressing the masses in hopes of imposing Sharia.
They do it for the children. They do it because they care. Anything that might hurt an ordinary American gets reflexively banned, or at least self-righteously demonized. This has become the chic way for an American political figure or public intellectual to demonstrate how much more than the rest of us they care.
Caring, in and of itself, is of a noble virtue. No one likes a pouting little kid who walks around griping. I dont care!
Its just that there is a right and a wrong way to care.
The right way to care is painfully boring and requires an exhaustive weighing of the benefits versus the costs of an action before we go crusading athwart the windmills. One thing that not even Hans Guderian was a smart enough Nazi to ban was The Law of Unintended Consequences. Wise leaders and smart consumers of democratically elected governance understand this. Thats why I believe it was a good thing that the USEPA deliberated carefully before banning lead-based paint and gasoline.
This style of actually caring isnt in vogue. Meryl Streep couldnt stay awake long enough to do the analytical science necessary to decide whether or not banning Alar would help the planet. It was far more helpful to her lust for fame to testify ignorant before Congress. Perhaps she was merely doing as the Romans.
If The Republican Party ever wants a majority of Libertarians to view The Democrats as the Evil of Two Lessors, the GOP needs to stuff a plug in Mayor Bloomberg. His term in office has rendered a cogent argument on behalf of banning government bans. Jonah Goldberg presents an exhaustive list of one years catalog of Bloomberg Bans. Judging from Goldbergs article, its fortunate no has offered him the idea of preventing forest fires by banning oxygen.
The government at all levels should sparingly use its power to ban things. The Nanny State cant protect us all. The first time any of us get anywhere, some children are going to be left behind.
The consequences of stupidity can only be partially assuaged, and the temporary forestalling of natural consequence always comes at a price. A price that someone else, generally not engaged in stupid behavior, will usually wind up paying.
In our rush to ban the bad, we also lose our discriminatory capabilities that empower us to truly judge the good. The Elois are not protected, but rather fattened up some more for a future barbequing. When the Moorlocks have them over for dinner.
Government fiat will never permanently preserve us from individual consequence. It smacks of tyrannical overreach to even try. Our overly protective leaders, judges and legislators cannot ban negative outcomes. The only thing they seem to banish permanently is common sense.
Too funny....you guys are nuts!
I keep harping on this fact, but in banning the "bad", one also bans the "good". It is no longer an ethical or moral act if one is no longer free to choose.
As a smoker, I chose NOT to smoke in the house or in the car when my daughter was born. I chose to forego a pleasure for the sake of another human being in what was an ethical act.
Now that those things are banned by law, I can no longer CHOOSE to act ethically in that domain.
Responsibility is not just a consequence of free will, it is the same side of the coin.
ROFL
btt
You gotta see this.
Said it before. I'll say it again.
Common sense ain't common. Freedom ain't free.
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