Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Nanny left - smoking bans and other restrictions on personal freedom, more regulations on business, higher taxes (taking away the freedom to spend your money how you see fit), wanting to ban gun ownership, etc.
Religious right - gay marriage bans, blue laws banning alcohol sales on Sundays, gambling bans, wanting to ban abortion, etc.
Actually if you look at places that voted on gay marriage, alcohol sales and gambling you will find many liberals support them.
I hate these threads. The liberals simply come on here and say conservatives restrict personal liberties and the conservatives complain about liberals restricting economic liberties and gun rights. It becomes a tit for tat and no political discourse ever really occurs. Nothing gets accomplished except those of left and center and those right of center on this forum grow further and further apart from the divisiveness.
The question is more complicated than the one asked. It isn't that freedoms, or what one assumes to be freedoms, are protected or intruded upon. The question should be, in a nation where the citizens are free to make their own choices, is accountability required of those who make these free choices?
If you want to enjoy butt sex with another guy, I will agree that it is none of my business as long as you fund your own AIDS research and leave my tax dollars out of it.
What to kill your baby because you rolled the dice and got caught? Tough crap! If you want to copulate, take responsibility for the life you "accidentally" created.
It is bi partisan support for a strong centralized federal gvt that restricts freedom and upsurps the power and rights of the states. Both parties and their partisans are so much alike and wanting to force their ideology down the throats of the whole country.
Both are equal enemies to liberty. Both are hostile to personal freedom.
Quote:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Well one day passed, and I find precious few real-world examples in the comments. As far as 'gay marriage,' I believe the devil is in the details. I don't have any poll data to prove it, but I think even most evangelicals these days are ok with 'civl unions' that would give gay couples all the legal 'benefits' of marriage, while leaving the word 'marriage' as being between man & woman. If that's the case, the entire struggle hinges on the definition of a word as used in court. I'm not sure how much of a restriction on freedom there is here. Suppose that I'm a pot smoker and 'they' pass a law allowing me to smoke as much of the noxious weed as I can stand. But I just can't call it 'pot' in court (say if I want to sue my supplier because my lungs are shot); I have to call it (say) 'ganja' in court. In private of course, I may use whatever word I wish. As a pot smoker, has my freedom been restricted? Not really.
I live in the decidedly blue, nannyist state of Washington. The only clout that the religious right has here is pretty much gving their input when the state bird, state flower, etc. is proclaimed.
In recent years the left-Democrats have enacted a) a state online gambling ban, ostensibly to save us from us, but in reality probably as a payoff to the Indian tribes who have a bunch of casinos here; b) various anti-smoking laws. Cigs now cost $8/pack, up from about $2 around 1992when the war on tobacco really went into high gear, led nationally by our current gov and then state atty-gen, Christine Gregoire (Democrat). We can no longer legally smoke in a bar as of several years ago; c) the state & local gov'ts have also conducted a kind of 'war on illicit sex' in recent years. Seattle police raided and eventually shut down the best and most popular strip club in Seattle, Rick's. SPD and King County sheriff's office have done numerous raids of massage places that were fronts for prostitution, including a SWAT-style raid a couple years ago on a place called the 'Sacred Temple.' Our state was at the forefront of the effort to shut down the CraigsList 'erotic services' advertising section. This effort was mostly pushed by our moderate R atty gen Rob McKenna, and supported by the liberal Seattle Times. Again, ostensibly to protect us from us, but many theorized that Craigslist taking all the Times classified ad revenue factored in. Now there is also a similar effort against backpage.com, which wound up getting most of the Craigslist biz after they were shut down. There are a few real world examples for you. I could provide much more, but the post is already way too long.
I'm pretty sure the evangelicals are the ones who get up in our face and tell us we're going to hell. The type that wants being gay to be a crime.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
