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Who Banned Common Sense?
Redstate.com ^ | 11 Jan 06 | By .cnI redruM

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 don’t 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 aren’t from the Middle East, don’t 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 don’t care!”

It’s 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. That’s 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 isn’t in vogue. Meryl Streep couldn’t 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 year’s catalog of Bloomberg Bans. Judging from Goldberg’s article, it’s 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 can’t 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.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: bans; nannystate; safetynazis; tyranny
we are killing ourselves from within, via overregulation.
1 posted on 01/11/2007 8:25:25 AM PST by .cnI redruM
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To: .cnI redruM; SquirrelKing
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
2 posted on 01/11/2007 8:29:56 AM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~™)
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To: martin_fierro

Too funny....you guys are nuts!


3 posted on 01/11/2007 8:30:47 AM PST by .cnI redruM (Free enterprise will pave the road to the stars!)
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To: .cnI redruM

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.


4 posted on 01/11/2007 8:35:37 AM PST by Philistone
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To: martin_fierro

ROFL


5 posted on 01/11/2007 8:37:21 AM PST by SquirrelKing
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To: martin_fierro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFuy7qzXEAU


6 posted on 01/11/2007 8:57:30 AM PST by showme_the_Glory (No more rhyming, and I mean it! ..Anybody want a peanut.....)
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To: .cnI redruM

btt


7 posted on 01/11/2007 8:58:20 AM PST by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: SquirrelKing; showme_the_Glory

You gotta see this.


8 posted on 01/11/2007 9:00:07 AM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~™)
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To: Philistone

Said it before. I'll say it again.

Common sense ain't common. Freedom ain't free.


9 posted on 01/11/2007 9:00:12 AM PST by wizr (Do what you love, your God given talent, and God will provide the rest.)
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To: .cnI redruM; Commonsense
Commonsense was still posting as of yesterday.
10 posted on 01/11/2007 9:07:08 AM PST by michigander (The Constitution only guarantees the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.)
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