Sitrep: 1x Arms (2wts), 1x Cardio, 1x Abs, 1x Walk (10min), 15 min Stretching/Qigong
There's been an interesting discussion on the bulletin board today. It was sparked by a news article that CA has banned smoking in cars with children in them.
I haven't really gotten into the discussion because I've been thinking about it all day. I'm less and less inclined to support government mandates restricting personal actions. It seems to me that the more our government, whether it begins on the state level and moves national, or vice versa, tells us what we can do, the less personal responsibility we take for our own actions. We become more and more childlike, emotional, and out of control.
The ban on smoking seemed harmless enough to me. Yes, it causes cancer. Yes, it's a disgusing, foul smelling habit (in my opinion!). But what right do I have to tell someone that they can't smoke? What right does anyone have to tell anyone else that? Yes, second-hand smoke causes cancer. There are many things that cause cancer. We can't ban them all. Do I think there should be some restrictions? Yes. I firmly believe we should educate on the dangers of smoking. Have smoke-free environments. But not total bans.
And then to move that ban into someone's personal space like their car. It will be their home next. And no, I'm not getting all Orwellian. It's going to happen "for the good of the children". It's the phrase that wells emotions, that gets people to agree. It's not a far step from the car to the house. And then where? Obesity will be next. After all, smoking was contributing to the rising cost of health care. [Which keeps rising, by the way, even though the numbers of people smoking has decreased as dramatically as the costs of health care have been going up.] How do we get people to stop being fat? Why, we fine them if they feed their children the "wrong" kinds of food. Then it will move to everyone, not just children. There will be sin taxes on fast food, junk food, etc., just like on alcohol and smoking. Television, cable, computers, games, books...all will be regulated so we don't spend too much time sitting and getting fat. How about government mandated exercise periods?
And after we tackle that? What bad habit will we need to be saved from then? How about our decaying morals. "For the good of the children" they need to be taught the right morals. The only way (in a lot of people's minds) to have morals is to go to church. And by church, in my experience, they are usually referring to Christianity.
We are already on the slippery slope of the government "saving us from ourselves". We are ceding control over the most fundamental of things - how we live our lives, how we raise our children - to the government. To other people.
When did personal responsibility, common sense and individual liberty give way to the supremacy of society's rights and governmental regulation?
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Archibald Stuart, December 23, 1791.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford, vol. 5, p. 409 (1895).
"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts."
EDMUND BURKE, letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, April 3, 1777.—The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 2, p. 199 (1899).
Some quotes from John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" (which I find to be fascinating reading, and available online):
"But in each person’s own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by others; but he, himself, is the final judge. All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good." Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Vol. XXV, Part 2. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001.
"A theory of “social rights,” the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language—being nothing short of this—that it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them; for the moment an opinion which I consider noxious, passes any one’s lips, it invades all the “social rights” attributed to me... "
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Vol. XXV, Part 2. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001.
