Smoking, pot, escorts, eating meat, drinking, being overweight, driving suv's, oh my.....

[The Straight Story]

And we thought people back in the day were prudes :)

All it seems we have done is find new reasons (outside of religion and such) to enforce laws telling people how they can live their one life on this planet.

Somehow we keep tying it not back to god and sin, but to money and how much something costs me or society in general.

So money was the real god all along.

Some laws were meant to be broken because they are fucking stupid and just plain wrong.

Freedom means putting up with shit you don't like so others can do them, and them having to put up with people like you even if they don't like you and what you do.

No way in hell I would live like the Amish (though at times, it does sound ok to me....), no way I would go into a bar where people were having sex on the floor - but if someone wants a bar like and people go - fine with me, cause I don't have to go, if people want to hire someone to have sex with em, ok - but I won't being doing so. You wanna have an SUV and buy more gas and pay more taxes so we got better roads and more revenues, well I can't stop ya.

Now though, as I have said many times in rants before :) it seems as though everyone is tied to everyone else. One could even argue that abortion and sex before marriage has a cost with it which affects my rates and we should regulate it all to hell (and teach abstinence only).

Here's a thought - mind your own business. Choice is something we should want more of, and not less.

Ya wanna regulate something, go after the government and big business who rob us blind and screw us over daily, then tell us that limiting are freedoms are good for us while expanding their own.

Now excuse me while I have a beer and a smoke, after having a cheeseburger from the grill.

[villager]

1. you got me thinkin' about breakin' out the cigars and whiskey, TSS!

;-)

[Journeyman]

2. Well said. . .

there's far too many people -- both sides of the spectrum -- who wish to dictate how people will live their lives. We'd all be better off if each person took care of the few cubic feet of flesh they possess and left everyone else to their own business.

[JeffR]

3. Now damn

that was like a neat shot of bourbon, with a bourbon chaser.

Nice to find something thoughtful to read tonight. Gawd knows there was nothing much to be found in General Discussion: Lunatics.

[The Straight Story]

5. GDL

It takes me a lot of drinking to go there, it is like the dungeon now - all crazy, all the time, and you can only post if you are off your meds for more than a week :)

[lonestarnot]

15. Well then you haven't looked hard enough.

[opihimoimoi]

4. Cause they make money doing it....telling ya what the hell to do an shit...

Its a bidness for gawds sake...

:smoke: :toast:

[The Straight Story]

6. Fear and control

Goes hand in hand - and we are so scared of everything nowadays that I wonder why people even bother to bitch about bush peddling fear of terrorists. I get more fear here than anywhere else :)

[opihimoimoi]

21. Fear has always been a tool....for the powerful....Galbraith's Condign Power

[nam78_two]

7. Except for extreme libertarians, I think most people on the left support some regulation

If we all drive our SUVs at our will and avoid making any changes to our lifestyle, there won't be much of an eco-system for us to live in. Of course, for a right winger, environmental concerns mean nothing, given how divorced they are from science. That is part of the reason we are in this mess in the first place. Environmental concerns have absolutely nothing to do with being prudish/religious etc. imo.
I think we can all cut back some in this country ( known for its conspicuous consumption of resources) to assure that we leave future generations a healthy eco-system.

Of course any form of environmental regulation will be strongly opposed by RW loons -explains why they voted for an idiot like Bush twice.

[Lorien]

8. Bingo. Add eating beef to that too.It's even more destructive to the

planet than driving an SUV. People don't like these facts at all. Neither do they accept the fact that smoking often causes illness and death. Traditionally liberals have embraced all manner of freedoms EXCEPT those that cause harm to others. Libertarians and extreme right wingers don't give a shit about who they harm; they want to sell their beef cattle, their oil, their big SUVs and their tobacco for as much cash as possible, and SCREW the future generations. It is all about money-to the OTHER side. To us it should be about looking out for the welfare of all instead of the indulgence and greed of a few.

[nam78_two]

12. Yep-pretty much

Exactly right :-/..

[truedelphi]

26. I see the other side of the beef argument

Where I live, the farmers are selling out to the vineyards.

Just drove by another three hundred acres, hacked down to below top soil level.

IN another week or two, the little stakes will go in, row after sterile row of them.


So the cows that used to be moseying around the field are gone, on their way to be slaughtered.

The birds now have no where to go. Ditto the field hares, the rabbits, badgers, woodchucks, voles, the owls, and hawks. No habitat for them.

A local sports writer was lamenting the hundred thousand deer we lose in the state each year due to loss of habitat.

Somepeople even chop down the forests on the hillsides to put in their crop of grapes. When a heavy rainy season hits, the soils will wash away.

I really find it hard to believe that cows are so bad for the environment. Seems to me the meadow grasses and the trees and the weeds brush etc contribute a lot of oxygen to the air. Probably a good 2,000 % more than the metal stakes and puny vines will contribute.

Yes I have heard that cows emit methane. But the other side of the equation is that to have a healthy herd of cows, you have to have the woodsy meadows and ggrasses. They have to offset the methane, a whole lot I'd say.

[The Straight Story]

10. *SOME* being the key here

When is enough enough?

[nam78_two]

11. Looks to me like we don't much at all the environmental front right now

I wouldn't worry about it just yet. When deforestation, habitat-loss, global climate change, vanishing species etc. are not huge problems anymore, maybe we can worry about too much regulation at least on the front.

Thanks to the roll-backs of the Bush years, we are going to fight hard to even have what regulation we had in place 8 years ago (regarding environmental concerns at least) :-/...

As for the morality stuff, yes that I agree that is nonsense. But the environment is a shared resource (at least in my view) and we are ravaging it right now and it is an issue no one likes to talk about.

[The Straight Story]

13. I think we agree a lot here

I was speaking more to the individual things than the corporate ones (deforestation and so on as you pointed out).

And once more, I am for some sensible stuff.

[nam78_two]

16. That is true

I agree about all forms of "morality" legslation...

Isn't it insane that marijuana laws have probably helped us get to the point where we have exceeded the prison stats of Nazi Germany :crazy:...?

Meanwhile in my neck of the woods (or at least close to it), real crime is rampant....it is nuts...

[catnhatnh]

20. Can I ask about your screen name???

For those of us of a certain age it looks like a Vietnam reference with multiple tours.

[nam78_two]

23. Heh-I have been asked that here many times

To answer your question, no-it is merely a part of my last name and the year I was born in ('78). I completely forget the reason for the "two". I have a lot of respect for 'Nam veterans (specially the ones I have met-most of them staunch anti-war people)-but that didn't strike me when I was picking a user name somehow -it seemed natural to take a few letters off my last name:) :hi:.

[catnhatnh]

25. Gotcha....

And I'm not one of those rascals either...but I mostly admire the ones I meet here.Thanks,Cat.

Editted to add: Born in '78-they let BABYS moderate here???Going back to my metamucil...

[Lorien]

18. You honestly belive, after seven years of BushCo that there's TOO MUCH

regulation? Do you know just what's being fed to you, what you are breathing, what you are drinking? BushCo has deregulated the shit out of the FDA, the EPA, and just about every government body ever created to protect Americans from those who would cause us all harm and death for a quick buck. Go down to the energy and environment forum if you think there's too much regulation. Read enough about what's really happening to the planet you depend upon for your survival and you'll feel a cold knot of fear in your stomach-your child-if you have one-has NO FUTURE on this current course. Read about what they allow to be done to your food supply and medications and you'll want to vomit. Read about peak oil and you'll wonder why the fuck ANYONE drives an SUV.

It's a simple choice: continue behaving like spoiled, self indulgent, greedy and ignorant children and destroy absolutely everything, or grow up, face facts, and make some changes in our lifestyle. We need to rein ourselves in and live SMARTER if we're going to have any kind of future at all. Sadly, too many people are too greedy and ignorant for us to allow self regulation in all things.

[MagickMuffin]

9. A Great Book for you "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do" by Peter McWilliams

http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/101.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_Nobody%27s_Business_If_You_Do

Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country (ISBN 0-931580-58-7) is a book by Peter McWilliams in which he presents the history of legislation against what he feels are victimless crimes, or crimes that are committed consensually, as well as arguments for their legalization.

The book is divided into five sections.

Part I gives a definition of victimless and consensual crime and outlines the difference between personal morality and governmentally-imposed morality.

Part II presents arguments against the criminalization of victimless crimes.

Part III gives a closer look into some of the individual activities which the author classifies as consensual crimes, such as prostitution and marijuana use, but which the majority of criminologists would classify as victimless.

Part IV, McWilliams gives historical examples of the treatment of consensual and victimless crimes, such as Prohibition, and Biblical examples.

Part V advises readers on what to do to change the laws. Throughout the book are approximately six hundred quotations by noted thinkers on both sides of his position (primarily supporters).



Unfortunately Peter is no longer with us. He died in June 14, 2000, choked to death on his own vomit when he was forced to switch from cannabis to Marinol in order to remain free on bond pending sentencing.

Such a loss and a waste of resources, all because he was a vocal critic of absurd laws in this country.:cry:

[catnhatnh]

24. What we need now is an author to write...

"It's Everyone's Business if They Don't (get Stopped)" The Absurdity of crimeless victims. We can start with Iraq and Katrina and run right up to the point where we examine which elements of our government are reading this post at this moment. Which is also kind of important.

[cloudythescribbler]

14. I think that first taxing SUVs in inverse proportion to their mileage, eventually requiring hydrogen

is reasonable and not 'prudish'. It is fine to regulate people's behavior that affects the future of the planet.

I am nauseated to think that Spitzer will likely resign over some whoring around -- and no one seems to realize what this means for democracy... Meanwhile, Bush never faces ANYTHING over all the shit he has done, including sponsoring torture ... To me this is a morally EVIL system of ethics.

[lonestarnot]

17. Why not in direct proportion to their mileage?

[cloudythescribbler]

19. ?The point is to tax them for their LOW mileage -- ie gas guzzling

am I missing something here?

[Beam Me Up]

22. Or, as we used to say:

"Everything not prohibited is mandatory."

[Prophet 451]

27. But surely there is a difference

Look, I smoke (in the privacy of my home), eat meat and occasionally drink but surely there is a point at which all things must be regulated for the good of the whole. Here (Britain), it's illegal to smoke in enclosed public spaces. That's a minor irritation but most are willing to compromise for the good of all. Personally, I think prostitution, properly regulated, should be legal but the key words there are properly regulated.