Allow me to rant for a moment. I don’t know about you, but I am getting sick and tired of being told how to live my life. Seriously, can’t we wipe our own rear ends without the government telling us how to do it? Why can’t the government understand this?Consider these examples:
1. A recent “nutrition” bill sent to Obama for signature actually gives the federal government the power to ban bake sales in schools. BAKE SALES!! Why? Because we can’t have parents, i.e. the agents of obesity, trying to sell cookies and muffins to kids. Why, that could lead to cake with butter cream frosting! Oh, it’s true, cookies are nature’s gateway drug to brownies! And make no mistake, this was no accident -- this was their second attempt to smite the noble cookie.
2. During the Great Hampocalypse, the Swine Flu Plague of 2009, they actually told us how to cover our noses when we sneeze.
3. To keep us from wasting a minimal amount of electricity, they criminalized the elegant and timeless light bulb and offered instead these twisty things, filled with toxic substances. Talk about the epitome of government!
4. In August, Portland “authorities” shut down a lemonade stand run by a 7 year old girl because she failed to get a $120 temporary restaurant license. These are the same people who refused to work with the FBI to stop terrorists and are now whining that the FBI entrapped the man who tried to kill thousands of their citizens. I guess his permits were in order.
5. In Canada, they are trying to shut down an online carpool matching service on the grounds that it’s an illegal bus company because its drivers are not licensed like bus and tax drivers. And not to be outdone, Fayetteville, Arkansas, shut down a man who ran a free designated driver service on the weekends, because it’s safer to have drunks cruising the streets than it is to have a man running what could look like an unlicensed tax service. . . if you squint. . . and you’re inbred.
6. Tipper Gore wanted warning labels on records with dirty words. Others have wanted to ban books with the "wrong" ideas. Someone even slapped a warning label on the DVD release of Sesame Street!
Just what the heck is going on around here? From requiring helmets on bike riders to banning tasty food in New York City to the examples above, our government has gone crazy. It’s become a weapon for busybodies to use to force the rest of us to conform to their pathetic, petty little obsessions. And when it isn’t the busybodies, it’s the interest groups trying to stifle their competitors. Did you know that ObamaCare bans doctor-owned hospitals? Why? Because it can. Net Neutrality is about protecting huge multinational companies from the predatory practices of other huge multinational companies. Etc. etc. etc.
This is the problem with government: whenever an issue arises that someone can whine about, there is always some jack~ss politician willing to make a law to sooth their tantrum. This needs to stop!
Let he who is without stupidity cast the first vote, but the rest of you shut the heck up and stop trying to tell the rest of us how to live. Go about your own lives and stop trying to control mine. If you don’t then be warned that maybe I’ll get into this game too. And trust me, you won’t like that; I can come up with all kinds of ideas to make your lives a living hell. . . all for your own safety of course.
Thoughts? Anything you would ban in retaliation for the good of average folks?
Gee, Andrew, I was just learning to relax about no longer having to think for myself. Now you've ruined my day.
ReplyDeleteSorry Lawhawk, although the government would love for you not to think for yourself. Trust Uncle Sam, he has a wonderful plan for your life. . . every aspect of it.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite bumper sticker says "Your life is not my fault, my life is not your business." That's pretty much all I have to say about the issue. Well, except for LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!!! or maybe HANDS OFF MY JUNK!!!
ReplyDeleteAndrew, great rant! Notice that all these rules are forced on us by liberals, yet conservatives are always the ones who are accused of trying to control society.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget about the low-flush toilet. It is against federal law to build a toilet that uses more than a few gallons of water to flush. But you can stand there and flush ten times to your heart's content. How did we save any water there? Even the notion of "saving" water is ridiculous. What's more renewable than water? It's insanity. Liberals are truly insane. It's the only explanation for their behavior.
Tam, LOL! Yet another phrase enters the lexicon! I am with you 100%, just let me live my life. I really am sick of the government telling me how to live every aspect of my life. What ever happened to personal freedom?
ReplyDeleteI love it when an attorney says "mind your own business!" ;D
ReplyDeleteseriously, there was a guy with an on-line identity of "Old Tom" whose tag line was "stay off my lawn." That says it all for me. No? o.k. let's try this:
Due to the strain on taxpayers, anyone collecting welfare MUST undergo voluntary sterilization to prevent future victims. No? o.k. I'll stop then
Pitts, Thanks! This was just one of those things that built up over time and had to come out -- the government needs to stop making my choices for me!
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the low flush toilets, I forgot about those. But seriously, as you say, what is more renewable than water? Most of the planet is water. They sun and earth together make more clean water every second of every day. And if that's not enough, we can actually make our own out of sea water. I understand when people have moved into the desert, that it's hard to get water in the desert, but I've lived in places where I never once watered the jungle that was my lawn because so much water fell from the sky.... and yet, I was forced to buy a low-flow toilet when I did some renovations. Seriously?!
You're right about liberals v. conservatives. Some conservatives want to do the same things, but by and large, controlling the lives of others is a liberal domain... and yet we are the ones who are accused of trying to control people. That's ridiculous.
And don't get me started on liberalism being a mental problem. Liberalism fails utterly to understand that the world is not static. In other words, they see the world as frozen, and they assume that you can simply move things around and everything will turn out as expected. It NEVER dawns on them that people/nature will react and what they expected to happen won't happen.
Jed, I love the "stay off my lawn" refrain! That does say it all.
ReplyDeleteOn sterilization, oh we can't do that, that wouldn't be right. We don't have the right to control people's lives.... except in ways we want to control them. ** rolls eyes **
When you start down this path of telling others how to live, it doesn't take long before you end up at places people don't want to be. But few people seem to understand that.
And it's obscene to me that we should be arguing about what choices the government should allow us and which ones it shouldn't. What ever happened to freedom? AND, when did the government ever show that it was better at running anything than we are at running our own lives? The government is the last organization that should be teaching us anything -- it's bankrupt, inefficient, incompetent, corrupt and backwards.
(P.S. There's that attorney thing again! LOL! I'm the good kind of attorney, trust me! ;-))
If we could get a bill preventing the faces of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Gloria Allred from ever reaching our television screens, I would be supremely happy.
ReplyDeleteTJ - You can't "sterilize", that's too permanent. But you could make birth control mandatory for anyone living on "Public Assistance". I am all for mandatory birth control for any females of child bearing years (11 yrs to verifiable menopause) living on public assistance.
ReplyDeleteAlso - I can just see it now...Speakeasies for donuts and cupcakes.
Writer X, Now that is one limitation on our freedoms that I can fully get behind!
ReplyDeleteDid you see they killed the tax deal today? LOL! I am really enjoying this.
Bev, Now, now, some freedoms are sacrosanct to the liberal mind. And having children on public assistance is one them. So is the right of approved speech, the right to a living wage but nothing more, the right to a trial by your peers unless you've committed the wrong kind of crime, etc. etc. Ug.
ReplyDeleteAs for cookies, I hate to say it, but I can honestly see some places getting to the point of needing speakeasies for cookies. "With diabetes costing the public treasury so much.... we need to control what people do to keep costs down. And cookies are so middle class. We should ban anything that isn't tofu."
Of course, in other places, you will hear the refrain, "you can have my cookies when you pry them from my cold dead hand!" :-)
Call me a cookie clinger!
Did someone say donuts??
ReplyDeleteTam, I love that bumper sticker! I remember a similar one that said "Your mortgage is not my problem." 'Course, the government MADE it my problem. UGH.
It's amazing to me the things we let the government get away with doing to us!
CrispyRice, I also saw one that said "Honk if I'm paying your mortgage" It made me laugh a snide, sarcastic little laugh before it made me cry.
ReplyDeleteCrispy, The problem is that too many people want the government to do these things, and too many more just don't pay attention or care.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of what Walter Williams used to talk about regarding boiling frogs. He said that if you toss a frog into hot water, it will jump out. But if you slowly turn up the water, it will let you boil it without ever realizing what is going on. Our government treats us like the frog, always adding a little here and a little there to meet whatever the current crisis is. Soon we're swallowed up.
LOL, Tam!
ReplyDeleteTam, "It made me laugh a snide, sarcastic little laugh before it made me cry." -- LOL!
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain! :-(
I saw this 40 ft. billboard on Manhattan Self Storage today right off the FDR in lower Manhattan -
ReplyDelete"If you store your stuff out of the city, it may come back to you Republican"
Well, it made ME chuckle...
But they can't even leave our actual stuff alone!
Bev, I honestly don't know what to make of that, except that liberals must see New York City like it's some kind of fortress, the last place on earth on where you can be a liberal.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I like to think that all must stuff is Republican! :-)
Andrew, the phrase "shoot yourself in the foot" comes to mind with today's blocking of the tax bill. The Dems seem to be doing that on an hourly basis.
ReplyDeleteWriter X, Very true! :-)
ReplyDeleteThey seem determined to fight with each other. And all they are going to achieve is (1) upping the level of hate within their party, (2) anger the public that they are trying to hurt the economy, and (3) get a worse deal than they would have gotten if they'd just accepted what Obama got them! I am so glad I'm not a Democrat!
i think you know how i feel about washington's meddling in my life, and i think, like tam, HANDS OFF MY JUNK! wraps things up.
ReplyDeletebut if i were pressed to meddle, i would ban one plan for congress and one for the country. whatever they do for "our good" should be good enough for them as well.
so let it be written, so let it be done!
Patti, I do indeed know your stance on Washington and I share it!
ReplyDeleteThat is a great idea about making Congress subject to the same rules as the rest of us. You can bet that ObamaCare would have been very different if they had to follow the same rules!
Ban any one in the government, on welfare, on a government pension, or on unemployment from voting in the primaries or general election.
ReplyDeleteJoel, I love that one! Could you imagine the screams? But it would be so worth it. And I'll bet you it would change our government almost overnight. . . for the better.
ReplyDeleteGreat rant Andrew!
ReplyDeleteAmen Joel!
I would ban, Tofu, whining, Oh hell! …it’d be easier just to ban liberalism.
I saw a funny bumper sticker on Palins show, “Vegetarian, An Old Indian Word For Poor Hunter.”
Thanks Stan! It felt goood, let me tell you! I can't believe they want to ban bake sales. Unbelievable!
ReplyDeleteGreat bumper sticker! :-)
Banning liberalism would be great. I'd be in favor of it. That would make the world a much better place.
Andrew - Regarding your P.S.-- I know you are. Bev- I was being facetious about the sterilization, of course. That said, I hate being told "it's not the kid's fault (of course it isn't) for every person's bad choices, and I have a "moral" as well as legal obligation to pay the freight for their medical care. One of the life lessons that was drummed into me by my father was "thou shalt not get married and start a family until thou art able to support them."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the people involved here probably would forget to use their birth control, but that is a practical rather than philosophical problem.
I think we should ban chairs in all government buildings. Just because it would annoy politicians.
ReplyDeleteJB - That's a great idea! No chairs. Hey it worked for Queen Victoria. She'd would make her ministers stand during meetings, so they'd get to the point faster. Smart Queen
ReplyDeleteJed, I don't buy that argument either. I agree it's not the kid's fault, but that doesn't mean I am obligated to support the person who put the kid into that situation. And if I am, then I want some say in fixing this situation. I want the kid taken away from the irresponsible parent and adopted to people who aren't idiots.
ReplyDeleteJB, I love that idea. Not only does it discourage them from staying in Washington too long, but it also discourages laziness while they're there. Good thinking!
ReplyDeleteBev, I never knew that! What a great idea! :-)
ReplyDeletemy brother is still ticked off about seatbelts. and m'cycle helmets.
ReplyDeleteI remember standing up in the backseat - my aunt used to hav a box in the middle of the front seat to sit on....
Banning in retaliation - College Education Departments. UNIONS! a moratorium on lib clergy seminaries.
I liked the voting limitations and the welfare birth control!
(eerie - the "word verification" is [1] actually a WORD, and [2] the word is SPINE -lol-]
rlaWTX, I agree completely -- we need to ban education departments. That is the root of most evil in our school systems today.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I'm intrigued by the British idea to certify some former soldiers as teachers. I think the idea of letting in people who have some form of teaching/instructional experience in other fields might breathe a lot of life into schools!
I always wear a seatbelt, but I don't like being told I have to. I don't like helmet laws. I don't have a motorcycle, but I used to love riding a bike and I never once thought I needed a helmet.
In terms of car safety, when I was very young, my parents actually had a swing that hung from one door to the other in the back seat of their car and I used to ride in that. Today, they would arrested for doing that.