PhilosophyMan Loc: Washington state.

Why do people h**e free spirits, the philosophers, and the people who ask the stupid questions? Someone has to ask them, if you are too much of a coward to, don’t insult those who do. Conformity is losing liberty if you think about it, and in modern day America, we don’t have many liberties left. Free spirits are amateur philosophers with great and exciting futures, in my mind at least.

what do you think?

rich278

I agree for the most part, but what do you mean when you say we don't have many liberties left?

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

Well, these lovely folks that I many times identify with aren't known for being able to color inside the lines. They run with scissors, probably for the most part responsibly, but they are seen as a threat to "modern convention." Change, regardless of whether it is something "good" or "bad" has a way of making people dig their heels in. One of my three boys had terrible anger management issues, even at 8 years of age. After one particularly rocky afternoon, I looked him in the eye, and gently said "don't you get tired of being angry? wouldn't you like to try "happy" for a change?" His reply -- "well, happy doesn't feel right. I'm comfortable with being angry." Sigh.

You know, it's easy to become complacent, being enveloped in that nice warm, fuzzy feeling. People resent having the boat rocked. It's human nature. Being challenged about their entrenched opinions and philosophies makes people angry. It makes people defensive, because many times (in my opinion anyway) the inference is there that they must have missed the boat somehow, that their thinking is flawed.

Conformity, losing liberty? I'm not so sure about that. When you conform, at least to some degree, there are fewer consequences, and therefore more choices. The best example of this that I can give is from my days at the clinic. People who choose to take their meds. It gives an opportunity, a great deal of the time (not always unfortunately) for them to lead happier lives, free of the consequences to a large degree of the things that they know will happen if they go off their meds. Off meds, out of control, all choices are off the table because they are no longer capable of keeping themselves or anyone else safe from their actions. I realize this example is extremely simplistic, that there are shades of grey I hadn't considered. Perhaps, you have. Your thoughts?

Loki Loc: Georgia

What do you mean by "stupid questions?" No honest question, when asked sincerely, is stupid. I would say to your other statement that you have it backwards: Philosophers are amateur free spirits.

rich278

I see no reason to "h**e" free spirits, but you have not answered my question about what liberties we have lost.

vernon

you cant smoke

you cant get a drink larger than 16oz

police brutality is running wild

nsa

more regulations than you can count.

they are working over time to take your gun

your health care is being stolen from us

rich278

You can't blow smoke in other people face, that's not a liberty in my book. You can buy 2 16 oz drinks. Police brutality is nothing new. NSA is a product of Homeland Security, seems to be working. More what regulations, sounds like a catch all. Nobody has come for my guns. Health care will be expanded to cover more people, how can that be bad? 56000 people die in the US because they have no health care.

Loki Loc: Georgia

As a virulent non-smoker, I have trouble with seeing smoking restrictions as a loss of liberty. I applaud those restrictions in public buildings and restaurants, but I see trying to apply these same restrictions to places like bars and outdoor areas as overk**l. This is the problem with government, there is never enough. You wanted an example of over-regulation? Your "expanded health care." which is not that much of an expansion. Congress, in it's usual pass the buck fashion, produced a 2000 odd page health care law, written actually by bureaucrats and factotums. After v****g for legislation that was never even read by a single member who v**ed for it, and which was passed without allowing a single Republican Amendment to the bill no one had read, it was turned over to the Bureaucracy, who proceeded to turn an incomprehensible 2000 plus page piece of legislation into a 14,000 plus page piece of even more indecipherable Bureaucratese Gobbledygook, hereinafter and forthwith to be referred to in either non-written (oral) or written (non-oral) reference frames as "Obamacare." Congress has abdicated it's responsibility and left governance to unelected, unaccountable and more often than not unqualified and unfireable bureaucrats, undoubtedely so they can get on with the serious business of getting re-elected, so they can get re-elected to get re-elected to save the country from career politicians.
They have not come for your guns. Yet. Do you even own any? Gun laws are enforced by the BATFE which has turned into this Administration's personal Gestapo. although the abuses were, in all fairness, worse under Clinton/Reno. If you wish, I will provide a list of this agency's abuses, many times far more egregious and serious than the people they prosecute. I am having an awful lot of trouble, however, finding a single instance of an agent being disciplined, even in the rare instances where such behavior is noted. Concerning the NSA, their catchall version of security is a violation of the 4th Amendment. Do you recall the words of Ben Franklin, who said "Those who would trade Essential Liberty for a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Before anyone nitpicks this quote, Franklin made it more than once, and worded it slightly differently several times). Your chances of being a victim of a terrorist attack are about the same as getting struck by lightning while being eaten by a shark.
I do not know where you got the figure of 56,000 people dying because they lacked health care. It is not my intent to dispute this figure, although some documentation might be nice. How many of those people would have died with healthcare? How many with irreversible health problems brought on by inheritance or poor lifestyle choices? Is this figure like one I saw which gave a huge number of "victims" of "gun violence." Appalling, until you realized that not only murders, but self defense, suicide and accidents were counted in a misleading way to suggest they were all murders. Two gang bangers getting k**led in a dope deal gone bad counted the same as self defense, which is legal in all fifty states. The actual number of murders was about one fourth of what they implied through duplicitous wording. Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.

vernon

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

rich278

Right off the bat my healthcare was deemed hoyle by the Conservative Supreme Court.
As fart as smoking goes they could raise the taxes to $50 a pack. the 56000 number was all over the News and internet. The Heath care bill got so big because the Democrats didn't have the v**es to pass a single payer system like the rest of the industrialized world. If you can writ a better one the President has said over and over he will be glad to read it. And yes I am a gun owner why would I have said they didn't come for my guns yet. Ben Franklin also put in the Consitution that the US will always have a Post Office but the Republicans are trying to close it, because it's union labor.

Loki Loc: Georgia

Ben Franklin was the first Postmaster General. He had little to do with putting anything in the Constitution about it. Healthcare got so big because it was turned over to the Bureaucracy. If the Democrats had the v**es for Obamacare, they had them for Single Payer. Where did you get the idea one law requires more v**es than another? Every Democrat v**ed for Obamacare. Every Republican v**ed against it. The Democrats rammed it through both Houses of Congress because they CONTROLLED both of them, plus the White House. They had the v**es for wh**ever they wanted. Your Healthcare argument is fantasy. The President has said all sorts of things that ain't so. He might read a bill, but will never sign it. As far as the 56,000 figure being all over the news and internet, on which planet?

Comment Loc: California

You are not forced to take meds but, when a directive is mandated by the gov. that is when it become tyrannical and freedom of choice is unlawful.

Searching Loc: Rural Southwest VA

Nope, you're not, but when you make the choice not to take them, you lose all veto power in your life because society isn't really thrilled with actions committed by folks who need those medications in order to "stay" being productive and happy citizens. I'm honestly not trying to be tedious here. I know you must be referencing in your mind those directives mandated by the government that you see as tyrannical. I'm interested in hearing what they are. Seriously. I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to see it from your perspective. For me, that's what it's all about -- a little like philosophyman, trading ideas, rolling them around a bit to see what feels comfortable, and for me, seeing if there's something I missed. Hey, I'm 66 and I have been discovering that there are all sorts of things that I have missed!!

Comment Loc: California

Society has no business telling me what is happiness and healthy so that I must contribute to society. Sounds like pure c*******m to me. There are millions of laws on the books. Each and every one regulates behavior relative to the environment a person is in. In the first 4 months of this yr. there were 16,000 laws, rules and regulation issued that were targeted to modify behavior. Most of these laws and regulations will not apply to everyone equally and therefore, the public will not be aware unless they try to start a business or a youngster trying to set up a lemonade stand, for example. Congress, including all levels of gov, are promulgating laws, rules and regulations every day that refines, reduces and eliminates freedom of choice. Yes, I miss most of it but I am aware that it is out there.

vernon

rich i dont smoke but i defend a persons right to smoke.and you just dont want anyone to have rights you dont agree with .sorry thats not the it works