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Not necessarily a good thing. When it's done as a convenience instead of for a valid reason, it means many innocent lives are destroyed.
They may or may not be good things - but they are freedoms.
I'm pretty ambivilent on both actually - we have had no death penalty since 1965 - with the last person being executed in 1964 - which I must admit as child I don't remember. The abolition was for murder - you could still be executed for "high treason" and a couple of other things until 1998 - though no one was. Occasionally you get calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty - but not very often.
We have had legalised abortion since 1967 - so again I can't really remember what it was like before. There are certainly no big political or religious debates about it. It was introduced for reasons of public health - too many women died or were injured having "back street" abortions.
going back and overruling about 100years of legislation would be a good start. govts are notoriously quick at creating rules for non-problems.
a good example is all the climate legislation they want to pass. that is a non-problem.
you then get people talking about an 'obesity epidemic' and politicians start proposing everything from banning transfats, to monitoring salt content of fast food, to wanting to tax sugar etc. in a free country, you wanna get fat? go ahead. it's your life, your body just don't expect other people to fit the bill for your medical.
the the govts of the world got together to discuss the swine flu epidemic. again, another minor problem which was not helped by govt largesse.
recreational drugs, another non problem actually made worse by govt action.
financial regulaions which encouraged investor apathy just ask anyone who invested with madoff.
I want to take these in order because the implications of some of them are just absurd:
1. Climate change legislation. Am I to take it your one of the crowd that thinks that the 9 out of 10 scientists who are warming us about global warming are just making the whole thing up? Global warming is a distinct problem that is believed to be real by all but a few nutbar scientists. I personally have observed that winters are shorter in the state in which I have spent virtually my whole life and summers are warmer. Seriously, my greatest fear about global warming is that by the time we finally are able to discount nutcases and get a consensus to take action it may be too late.
2. Bad foods with sugar and salt. Definitely a problem. I'm not sure its worth regulating that or not.
3. Swine flu epidemic. Apparently, you have little interest in contagious disease. You are probably one of the generation that has grown up in this "vaccine protected world" and you don't appreciate the good its done because you don't see it. The current swine flu virus was much like the Spanish Flu virus of 1919 which killed 500,000 Americans (more than the number of soldiers killed in World War I). I can tell you that for medical reasons (not bureaucratic redtape) producing a vaccine is a slow process and that when the vaccine was produced, the U.S. Public Health Service got it distributed as rapidly as it could. Hundreds of lives were saved right here in the USA by seeing that the vaccine was given to the many people who took it.
4. Recreational drugs. I don't think the "war on drugs" has been effective. However, I believe that when something is made illegal and penalties are enforced against those who break the law it tends to reduce the occurrence of certain activities. I don't want my kids using or becoming addicted to drugs. I'm not certain what the best way to stop it is.
5. Financial regulations "encouraging investor apathy". I suppose you think that we'd be less likely to have financial crises without regulation? Not true. Government involvement in the economy has reduced both the occurrence of business cycles and their severity during the last 100 years. I doubt that the majority view among the people Madoff swindled would be for the government to eliminate all regulations on securities and investments. Its more likely they would want more regulation.
Perhaps, if you did any reading about history you'd come to understand why government is involved in these areas. It was a response to serious problems that others refused to address. It certainly was not a "conspiracy to take away your freedom".
1. Climate change legislation. Am I to take it your one of the crowd that thinks that the 9 out of 10 scientists who are warming us about global warming are just making the whole thing up? Global warming is a distinct problem that is believed to be real by all but a few nutbar scientists. I personally have observed that winters are shorter in the state in which I have spent virtually my whole life and summers are warmer. Seriously, my greatest fear about global warming is that by the time we finally are able to discount nutcases and get a consensus to take action it may be too late.
That is such a simplistic argument; the debate is much larger and involves many very smart people on both sides. Demonization does not make your case any stronger.
You feel warmer now because we were in a cooling period from 1940-1975 or so, this is after we warmed from 1910-1940 or so. Look back in the 70's, many of the environmentalists were blaming man for cooling and calling for extreme action such as putting ash on the ice caps to help warm the earth. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html Once we started warming they had to change their tactics.
Just because people are great at demonizing the other side does not mean they are right.
It also does not mean they were wrong. My opinion on global warming is that the release of man made CO2 and other greenhouse gasses have increased a natural rate of warming, if not counteracted a normal cooling due to sunspot cycling, and this rate will increase in the next couple of decades. This will lead to a rapid melting of the land locked glaciers on Greenland and parts of Antarctica that were thought to be stable. This warming, like so many other natural cycles, is exponential and is subject to very rapid change once the change has started. I think, contrary to many scientists, that we will see large sea level changes in the next decade. We will not have to wait for another century for areas within 3 meters of high tide to become flooded.
This will be a great opportunity for the worlds civilizations to give up the luxury of war and start building places for the displaced populations to live and work. Or probably not.
It also does not mean they were wrong. My opinion on global warming is that the release of man made CO2 and other greenhouse gasses have increased a natural rate of warming, if not counteracted a normal cooling due to sunspot cycling, and this rate will increase in the next couple of decades. This will lead to a rapid melting of the land locked glaciers on Greenland and parts of Antarctica that were thought to be stable. This warming, like so many other natural cycles, is exponential and is subject to very rapid change once the change has started. I think, contrary to many scientists, that we will see large sea level changes in the next decade. We will not have to wait for another century for areas within 3 meters of high tide to become flooded.
This will be a great opportunity for the worlds civilizations to give up the luxury of war and start building places for the displaced populations to live and work. Or probably not.
Exactly, it means the debate should continue and not have one highly politically driven side call the debate closed.
Yes, you spell out the argument based on the models very well, I have heard the fear based argument before.
I rarely see people give a good answer as to why CO2 has increased after the warming when you look at historical cycles.
It is the zeal for power and control by so many in your movement that worries me. I enjoy looking into the history of movements and not just accepting what is being said at face value. I am skeptical until proven otherwise.
Information such as this should cause one to question what they hear. Home
If you're like me, you lack the expertise to analyze the global warming data. When that happens, how do you judge the truth? A large part of such an evaluation is to examine the motives of the people who spend their money presenting each side of the argument. Who is trying to convince us that global warming is a man-made threat that we can remedy, and why? Who is trying to confince us otherwise, and why? Which group do you trust the motives of?
If you're like me, you lack the expertise to analyze the global warming data. When that happens, how do you judge the truth? A large part of such an evaluation is to examine the motives of the people who spend their money presenting each side of the argument. Who is trying to convince us that global warming is a man-made threat that we can remedy, and why? Who is trying to confince us otherwise, and why? Which group do you trust the motives of?
Well the freest countries are the one you can do anything without government interference. There are different categories of freedom like economic and migration freedom or civil liberties and so on.
In terms of economic freedom, there was a time when I believe this was true, but I think it is generally decreasing. Some say hong kong or singapore are more free market than usa.
The freest countries are not probably that great to live in. I mean the freest country is probably one with virtually no law enforcement, as all countries have lots of laws, unless you buy your own island. One where there are not too many police, no drug laws, no police officers, probably places in rural africa are pretty free. You can do whatever you want and as long as you don't get caught because of the very few cops your pretty free. Like there are cities of 400 people that have no police, so you'd imagine it is pretty free, but it kinda becomes like the wild wild west, people police themselves.
The ones who are skeptical about global warming? Or the ones who are skeptical about big business's assurance that there is no global warming? I'm more skeptical about the explanations coming from PR professionals who have contracts with big corporations.
Natthebattherat, it is quite possible that Cambodia is now the freest country in the world. The freest country I've ever spent much time in was Paraguay.
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