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The "For Your Own Good" Police Are Coming...After You
Capitalism Magazine ^ | Mar 27, 2002 | Walter Williams

Posted on 03/31/2002 11:31:40 AM PST by The Raven

By turning away from rule of law and constitutional government, Americans are following in the footsteps of the decent Germans, who during the 1920s and '30s built the Trojan Horse that enabled Hitler to take over.
The "For Your Own Good" Police Are Coming...After You
By Walter Williams
(March 27, 2002)

[CAPITALISMMAGAZINE.COM] Most Americans were pleased with the legislative attack on cigarette smokers, not to mention confiscatory tobacco taxes. We reveled in the EPA's dishonest study concluding that second-hand smoke causes cancer. And, by the way, I'd like to hear whether the Food & Drug Administration would sanction pharmaceutical companies employing EPA's research methods to test drug safety -- and if not, why not?

The real reason for the attack on smokers is that many people are offended by the tobacco odor. Unfortunately, in their quest to eliminate tobacco fumes, Americans are willing to trade away constitutional principles and rule of law.

Tyrants are never satisfied. They've lined up new victims. Surgeon General David Satcher has provided them with ammunition by describing obesity as America's No. 1 killer, costing 300,000 lives annually. As a result of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses, it's costing us billions upon billions of health dollars. That means, according to John Banzhaf of George Washington University School of Law and other tyrants, America's food industry is to blame and liable. New York University Professor Marion Nestle agrees, saying that the food industry "can't behave like cigarette companies. ... Yet there's a lot of people who benefit from people being fat and sick, and the whole setup is designed to make people eat more. So the response to the food industry should be very similar to what happened with the tobacco companies."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is one of the Washington lobbies that wants to control what we eat. These tyrants not only propose taxes on what they deem as non-nutritious foods, they've also proposed a 5 percent tax on new television sets and video equipment, and a $65 tax on each new car or an extra penny per gallon of gas. You might ask why tax these items? CSPI Nazis see watching television and videos, and riding instead of walking, as contributing to obesity. And, as they see it, just as tobacco companies were responsible for people smoking, television manufacturers are responsible for people being couch potatoes, automobile companies are responsible for people riding instead of walking and the food industry is responsible for people eating too much.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has joined these tyrants. No reasonable person advocates drunk driving, but MADD has another agenda. It wishes to outlaw driving even after having one drink. It has successfully pushed Congress to lower the blood/alcohol level for a drunk-driving arrest to .08 percent. But its true agenda was revealed by Steve Simon, chairman of the Minnesota State DUI Task Force, when he said: "If .08 percent is good, ..05 percent is better. That's where we're headed. It doesn't mean that we should get there all at once. But ultimately it should be .02 percent."

That's the way Nazis work -- incrementally. If they had demanded Congress make the blood/alcohol .02, they wouldn't have gotten anything -- not even .08 percent. I wouldn't be surprised if their ultimate agenda is alcohol prohibition.

The Center for Consumer Freedom keeps up-to-date information on these and other tyrants. You might say, "What's the fuss, Williams? These people will never get away with controlling what we eat and drink!" Think again. In the '60s, when the anti-smoking zealots were simply asking for smoking and non-smoking sections on airplanes, no one would have ever anticipated today's tobacco taxes, laws and regulations.

Most evil done in the world is done in the name of promoting this or that good. By turning away from rule of law and constitutional government, Americans are following in the footsteps of the decent Germans, who during the 1920s and '30s built the Trojan Horse that enabled Hitler to take over.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: pufflist; walterwilliamslist
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To: biffalobull
My pet peeve is air bags. I've always had a problem with safety devices that can decapitate you. Also, as an emergency worker, I just love trying to pry people out of cars when the air bag hasn't gone off. You haven't lived until you've tried to get a foot pinned between the gas pedal and the drive train hump disengaged while looking at a broken tib-fib sticking through the skin and knowing that a GD air bag with enough power to take your head clean off is cocked and loaded.
41 posted on 03/31/2002 5:25:45 PM PST by Richard Kimball
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To: maxwell
Nope make that yer rusty Ford pickup with the "GUN CONTROL IS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT" sticker, man...

My favorite is still "Honk if you've never seen an UZI fired out a car window"

42 posted on 03/31/2002 5:27:35 PM PST by Richard Kimball
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To: Wolfie
Or maybe some sort of multi-billion dollar Drug War.

Won't happen. Too far fetched.

43 posted on 03/31/2002 5:32:02 PM PST by AUgrad
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Comment #44 Removed by Moderator

To: NMC EXP
"“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -- C.S. Lewis Smart men, Williams and Lewis. Regards J.R. 8 posted on 3/31/02 12:51 PM Pacific by NMC EXP Just hoping that EVERYONE gets a chance to reads this, say, 10 TIMES.
45 posted on 03/31/2002 7:13:01 PM PST by conserve-it
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To: Hostage
Free people are free to make mistakes, or not. That the nature of freedom.

Socialists would prefer to enslave us all "for our own good".

Just don't forget, we right wingers are armed to the teeth, and we can all hit what we aim at at 400+ yards.

Push us too far, and socialist would be nanny tyrants will find out for themselves.

46 posted on 03/31/2002 7:18:11 PM PST by Travis McGee
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To: FF578
See number 46, it goes for you as well.

So you want to make a .05 alcohol rate a felony, to take away 2nd amd and voting rights forever?

You seem to have forgotten that ultimately, the Bill of Rights is backed up by the 2nd amendment.

Push us too far, and you will learn all about it.

(+)


47 posted on 03/31/2002 7:22:10 PM PST by Travis McGee
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To: Richard Kimball
KEEP HONKING, I'M RELOADING
48 posted on 03/31/2002 7:24:10 PM PST by Travis McGee
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To: Travis McGee
I'm with you on this, except that 400 yards is a little far for me, unless I buy a scope too. But thats OK, a lot of the time you are closer than 400 yards. Bump for the 2nd ammendment being there to preserve the other nine.
49 posted on 03/31/2002 7:26:06 PM PST by KC_for_Freedom
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To: The Raven
THE BIGGEST THREAT to America is the public health lobbies. They are the WORST of the WORST.
50 posted on 03/31/2002 7:28:36 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
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To: FF578
You don't have a right to drive even after having one drink.

That's asenine. People who have only had a beer or two pose no threat to me on the road. The dangerous drivers are the control freaks, who insist on following the artifically low speed limits, when everyone else is going with the free flow of traffic.

51 posted on 03/31/2002 7:33:58 PM PST by Mulder
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To: Wolfie
Or maybe some sort of multi-billion dollar Drug War.

Your tax $$$ being used "for your own good"!!!

52 posted on 03/31/2002 7:40:00 PM PST by southern rock
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To: FF578
You don't have a right to drive even after having one drink. Just having a Blood Alcohol level of only .05% increases your risk of an accident 4 times.

Yeah, and 76.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot. What are the stats for accidents involving cell phones, changing the radio station, not getting a good night's sleep, the kids screaming in the back seat, that sausage and egg biscuit the driver is trying to manipulate and eat while driving, etc., etc., etc. They targeted smokers first, now for your own good, they are targeting obesity. Maybe next, you will be required to keep a record of how many hours of sleep you had before driving. Or maybe if your kids are fussing, the government will mandate that they be put on ritalin before you can drive with them in the car. Maybe they will outlaw radios or CD players in vehicles.How much of your freedom are you willing to let the government control so that you can feel safer?

As for the second hand tobacco smoke, you don't have a right to breath tobacco smoke in my face. Ever.

Well, you are right about that, but did we really need the government to enforce common courtesy? Many restaurants have chosen to accomodate smokers by installing separate ventillation systems with high-speed fans. The government came out with 'statistics' about second-hand smoke that may as well have been made up on the spot considering that they began with a goal and worked backwards. This research has since been trashed and is now considered nothing more than junk science.

53 posted on 03/31/2002 8:04:46 PM PST by bjcintennessee
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To: KC_for_Freedom
A .38 revolver can kill an elephant, fired just so.
54 posted on 03/31/2002 8:05:32 PM PST by Travis McGee
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To: bjcintennessee,Mulder,FF578,wardaddy,pocat,Squantos,harpseal
Here's the true agenda of the nanny-tyrants:

First Offense DUI's [.05%] need to be made into a felony. That will ensure that the libertarian scum who gets a DUI can't vote again, can't own a gun again, and has a long prison sentence to think about what he has done. 28 posted on 3/31/02 2:11 PM Pacific by FF578

55 posted on 03/31/2002 8:10:50 PM PST by Travis McGee
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To: Travis McGee
Here's the true agenda of the nanny-tyrants:

"First Offense DUI's [.05%] need to be made into a felony. That will ensure that the libertarian scum who gets a DUI can't vote again, can't own a gun again, and has a long prison sentence to think about what he has done. 28 posted on 3/31/02 2:11 PM Pacific by FF578"

If the tyrants had their way, we'd all be felons, rotting away in some Siberian-like prison.

Of course, that sort of policy would have some consequences. Logical people would soon realize that if virtually everything under the sun is a "felony", they may as well commit as many "felonies" as possible after committing the first one, since the outcome (decades in prison) will be the same.

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what form those "felonies" will manifest themselves as.

56 posted on 03/31/2002 8:25:18 PM PST by Mulder
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To: Mulder
Ten million deer rifles for starters.
57 posted on 03/31/2002 8:29:39 PM PST by Travis McGee
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To: The Raven
This is Mr. Williams doing his "Mr. Hyde" thing. I like it a lot better when he's being the brilliant "Dr. Jekyll", eviscerating educrat and reparations cranks. Sad that he's a 'tiner. "Nicotine, runnin' all aroun' my brain."
58 posted on 03/31/2002 8:34:23 PM PST by 185JHP
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To: FF578, Travis McGee, Squantos,harpseal, all
To: FF578

Hey dude/dudette, I'm not particularly sensitive to the Randians/Objectivist crowd myself but with all due respect you are a numba one cuckoo. Why give the Feds or Locals more ammo to come for our guns....hell they are loaded for bear already. Only violent felons should forfeit gun rights and then only temporarily after completing lengthy parole perhaps.

You keep talking like that and what are YOU gonna do when the JBTs come for yours.

Geez.

59 posted on 03/31/2002 8:35:59 PM PST by wardaddy
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To: Travis Mcgee
Well now seems you were mining for idiots and struck gold buddy ! That kind of thinking is damn scary...........

DUI's suck and folks who don't know their die hard socialist's are even more of a hazard to our society IMHO..........I'm sure Hitler thought he was doing the right thing too............in his own demented mind.

Stay Safe !

60 posted on 03/31/2002 8:37:13 PM PST by Squantos
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