Blogging For Choice
It's Blogging For Choice day.
I'm leaving the abortion thing alone, though. I've said all I care to say about that.
I want to blog about the thousands of other choices being taken away from free citizens of the United States.
The choice to smoke.
The choice to eat what you want.
The choice to drink what you want.
The choice to watch what you want on television channels you pay for.
The choice to move freely about your own country without presentation of government-issued identity papers.
The choice to ride in a car in the most comfortable way for you to travel.
The choice to read whatever you want from the Public Library.
The choice to take appropriate medicine to relieve your pain and suffering.
The choice to do as you wish with your personal property.
Today's the day we talk about the right of Americans to choose. And yet the arguments surrounding our right to choice have been so laser-focused on one choice, the exercise of which is available to only 50% of the population, that we seem to be allowing the erosion of choices available to all of us.
Today is blogging for choice day, and I'd like to mourn all the choices we've already lost.
posted by Kat Coble @ 11:17 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I am so completely with you. The nanny-state has taken away so many of our choices. It's frustrating.
I bow low to your libertarianism.
Nice.
I agree with you and would add the choice of a spouse, the choice to have private conversations on your home phone, the choice to peacefully protest on public property, etc.
Wow, simply great.
This is a great take on this issue. Well done.
I would suppose you support someone interfering with your neighbor's choice to do what he wants with his toxic waste? With his garbage?
I suppose you support someone interfering with the alcohol consumer's choice to drive when he wants?
I suppose you support the interference of someone's choice to drive whatever speed he wants wherever he wants?
We live in a community and a community without rules is chaos and could be deadly. A community with too many rules, of course, is totalitarian and to be avoided.
In all things, balance.
I'd hope we could agree on this choice of a balanced community, one where rights are balanced by responsibilities.
As Jefferson said, (or was it Franklin...one of those guys)
"Your freedom to swing your nose ends where mine begins." That's my fundamental operational guideline.
To answer your questions:
I would suppose you support someone interfering with your neighbor's choice to do what he wants with his toxic waste? With his garbage?
Yes. To a degree. For instance, I like that you can't dump your garbage on my property. I do not like however, for you to pass a law (actually happens in a lot of communities) about where on MY property I can store my garbage cans. I don't care if you think it's an eyesore if I keep my cans at the side of my house. Too bad. My property, my choice.
I suppose you support someone interfering with the alcohol consumer's choice to drive when he wants?
Actually, no I don't. I personally do not drink alcohol at all for health reasons, so this is not me justifying my partying ways. But I believe our current drunk-driving laws are draconian. They're actually punishing people WHO HAVEN'T COMMITTED AN ACTUAL CRIME.
Of course, I'm all for throwing the book at anyone who has any type of accident while impaired. But we selectively punish alcohol impairment to an excessive degree while ignoring other, equally dangerous, forms of impairment.
I've had 3 accidents in the last 10 years. None of them were with drunk people. 2 of them were with Sr. Citizens who should NOT have been driving at all. Yet age-impairment is overlooked, while supposed drunkenness is villified.
I suppose you support the interference of someone's choice to drive whatever speed he wants wherever he wants?
On the highways, no. I think our Eisenhower freeway system ought to be, like the Autobahn, speed-limit free. I've driven through Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona. There is NO need to limit the speed.
In residential areas, where the roads are not designed to take the additional friction of higher speeds, and the drivers must occasionally interact with others who have a right to the roads (cyclists, pedestrians, heavy equipment drivers) then speed limits are necessary.
We live in a community and a community without rules is chaos and could be deadly.
I never ever say that I want a community devoid of rules. If you'll kindly read my post from today about Locke and Aquinas you'll see my guidelines for what I believe to be necessary rules for the health of the community versus what I believe to be excessive rules for the benefit of the ruling class.
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