Remember when we used to be free?

I think today would be a good day to reflect on lost freedom . . .
I'll start things off with:
Do you remember when it was legal to shoot off fire-works?

cha ngo said:

Do you remember when it was legal to shoot off fire-works?

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Still is here in Georgia.

Maybe that is what I am nostalgic for. I grew up in the South and have lived out West for a long time. They frown on blowing **** up out here.
How about seat belts?

cha ngo said:

Maybe that is what I am nostalgic for. I grew up in the South and have lived out West for a long time. They frown on blowing **** up out here.
How about seat belts?

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Yeah pretty sure you have to wear seat belts...another liberty taken from us.

I remeber when I could buy beer on Sundays (when I lived in another state that is).

I see this thread taking a bad political turn very soon.

Dude, I'm sitting here on my back porch looking over the horizon and from far left to far right...nothing but star bursts, whistles and flaming explosions.

It feels like Baghdad out there. :rockin:

How about the old days when you carried your pocket knife on an airplane without a search and seizure regimen.Hell,not too long ago you could smoke on an airline.

Beerrific said:

I see this thread taking a bad political turn very soon.

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I have no political bent. In my days I have seen both parties in control and they both have eroded my personal liberties. Let's leave politics out of it and reminisce about "the good old days".

Gene pool. Buggered. Totally.

I understand the seat belt arguement about as much as I understand that helmet arguement. I totally don't get people who have issues with laws with this. Trampling on your freedoms? Bull****.

I've seen completely ****ed up accidents where people have worn their seat belts and have been talking on the cell phone to their insurance companies when I rolled up. And I've seen accidents where guys have lost it going around the turn on their bike, head-first into the curb, only to crack their helmets.

But I've NEVER seen an accident where someone has NOT worn their seat belt and has been better off. Ever.

You can call it "nanny laws" or whatever but you have to realize, the state has another agenda...money. Health care costs and insurance companies get boned here. So who picks up the tab? The taxpayers. Me, I could care less what people do but the second they get in a car accident and are injured they want the whole book of medical care thrown at them.

My solution: you want to not wear seat belts or helmets? Fine. Your medical care is based off what's available in your bank account. Natural selection.

Maybe it's the 4 pints of Bell's Porter I've had but IMHO, people crying about seat belts laws is ****ing weak.

FireBrewer said:

Health care costs and insurance companies get boned here.

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Now we're getting somewhere.
Since when was it the government's job to protect the interest of the insurance companies?
(FWIW, I was wearing seat belts before it became the law)

back to original topic...i used to live in iowa about a 2 minute walk across the border from south dakota. i miss fire works

wtf am i gonna do here? light sparklers and snakes? i still have tons of bottle rockets from last year and noone will play tag with me! :cross:

FireBrewer said:

Health care costs and insurance companies get boned here. So who picks up the tab? The taxpayers.

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I remember the good old days when the government didn't stick their nose into our lives and let us sink or swim on our own merits. This is a big pet peeve of mine...when government creates laws (like providing healthcare) that then gives them the justification to create more laws (deciding medical care, seat belts, smoking, transfat, and I would bet alcohol is next) to stop people for harming the first law.

Fireworks...that's is why I love Montana. Go to the rez, get the big boomers anytime.

FireBrewer said:

I understand the seat belt arguement about as much as I understand that helmet arguement. I totally don't get people who have issues with laws with this. Trampling on your freedoms? Bull****.

I've seen completely ****ed up accidents where people have worn their seat belts and have been talking on the cell phone to their insurance companies when I rolled up. And I've seen accidents where guys have lost it going around the turn on their bike, head-first into the curb, only to crack their helmets.

But I've NEVER seen an accident where someone has NOT worn their seat belt and has been better off. Ever.

You can call it "nanny laws" or whatever but you have to realize, the state has another agenda...money. Health care costs and insurance companies get boned here. So who picks up the tab? The taxpayers. Me, I could care less what people do but the second they get in a car accident and are injured they want the whole book of medical care thrown at them.

My solution: you want to not wear seat belts or helmets? Fine. Your medical care is based off what's available in your bank account. Natural selection.

Maybe it's the 4 pints of Bell's Porter I've had but IMHO, people crying about seat belts laws is ****ing weak.

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FWIW I wear my seat belt and would always wear a helmet when on a bike weather its a 2 wheeled or 4 wheeled. With that said I think wearing "Personal" saftey equipment should be a choice to those able to make thier own decisions. I don't want to start an argument over whats right and whats wrong we could be here all week, but I have been an EMT for 10 years and have seen people die in car fires because they couldn't unhook thier seat belt. Also most motorcycle helmets are only rated up to 20 mph impact. So evn if you are wearing your helmet and wreck at 55 mph the helmet may save your life but your now a vegetable. Personally I would rather meet my maker than a life staring at the cieling comatose.

But this thread is about losing freedoms. How about drinking beer on my porch. 3 weeks aga a few BOTL's and I were smoking a cigar and drinking a few Belgiums on my back deck away from everybody and a county mounty showed up and told us if we don't go in the house he was going to site us for "Public Intoxication". We wern't being loud, nobody was naked (yet). What were we doing wrong? To make maters worse he sat at the end of my street waiting for one of us to leave.

Well thats my rant!

g

FireBrewer said:

I understand the seat belt arguement about as much as I understand that helmet arguement. I totally don't get people who have issues with laws with this. Trampling on your freedoms? Bull****.

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Okay, fine. What would you say if the government showed up at your door tomorrow morning and demanded that you wear a helmet and pads everywhere you go. Just to be safe. Trampling on your freedoms? It WOULD make you safer. So how would you feel about it?

You can call it "nanny laws" or whatever but you have to realize, the state has another agenda...money. Health care costs and insurance companies get boned here. So who picks up the tab? The taxpayers. Me, I could care less what people do but the second they get in a car accident and are injured they want the whole book of medical care thrown at them.

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So, your argument goes like this: because of our quasi-socialized welfare state, taxpayers are forced, against their will, to pay for idiots who don't take safety precautions. Your solution? Force idiots to take safety precautions. Unfortunately, your argument is based on the false assumption that the socialist welfare state is inevitable. The welfare state is the problem, not the idiots who wear no helmet or seat belt. You're simply treating the symptoms rather than the disease.

So, by your logic, we should just outlaw anything that's dangerous. Bungee jumping. Hang gliding. Motorcycles (period). Drinking. Smoking. Unprotected sex. Chili cheeseburgers. Chocolate Sundaes.

So, what I ask is this: if "saving the insurance companies some money" is the goal here, then why stop at mandatory safety equipment? Why not just skip to the logical conclusion of your argument and outlaw anything that's dangerous?

Now do you see the slippery slope that your argument rests upon?

Maybe it's the 4 pints of Bell's Porter I've had but IMHO, people crying about seat belts laws is ****ing weak.

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Most people complain about seatbelt laws not because they hate wearing seatbelts (I always wear mine as a force of habit), but because seatbelt laws represent something more widespread and troubling: the nanny state (yes, I will call it that). I just saw a video clip of some dumb fat kid on this tv show telling Ron Paul that we should use the military and everything else in our power to stop the drug trade---and Ron Paul responded that it's not the government's business to force us to live healthy lives...and proceeded to tell the kid, hey, you're overweight, should the government tell you how to eat? And therein lies the rub. People like you think that it's okay to selectively give up certain liberties to the State because those certain requirements aren't that intrusive. But, principally speaking, using the arguments that you've used, it would be perfectly acceptable for the government to mandate my daily diet and force me to exercise. You know, because, the healthier I am, the less the insurance companies and taxpayers have to pay for my medical bills. Right?

I'm with Evan! here. Liberty comes with a "price tag", if you will: personal responsibility. Liberty without personal responsibility is anarchy. The problem is, there's a big slice of the US population that's too stupid or lazy to exercise this responsibility. "I can do whatever I want, it's a free country...but if something bad happens, the governement's gotta bail me out! Or I'll sue somebody!"

I'm fine with the gov't putting laws in place to protect others from my stupidity (ie drunk driving). But not from myself...if I want to smoke, bike without a helmet and ride around without my seatbelt*, then I should be able to do that. AS LONG AS I ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES. No goverment handouts for my cancer treatments or cracked skull. Private insurance? Fine...if I pay for coverage that reflects my risky behavior, then I've accepted responsibility.

Oh, wait....which beer were we talking about again?


* none of which I do, by the way

Interestingly enough, I noted a sign in the delivery room where my son was born this week.

"you have the right to reasonable medical care for both you and your baby whether or not you have insurance or the ability to pay yourself"

So how do you make the conscious choice to pay insurance premiums when you can just stroll into emergency anytime you want?

I see both sides of the arguement here. We can either completely pull out of the social welfare business completely (being financially stable makes it really easy to take this side) or we try to minimize our loses as a whole by taking away freedoms. Unfortunately, we're trying to do both and pissing everyone off in the process.

I really don't give a ish if you want to ride your bike in shorts and tshirt with no helmet but you should be able to cover your own ass if things go wrong.

The difficulty, as it's been pointed out, is to decide how much protection is enough, and whether or not you can use fault as a threshold for whether or not you should receive certain care. I mean, you could wear a helmet but still choose to do highway speed tank-sitting wheelies. Should that guy get free care while the guy who was just cut off at an intersection has to cover a $1500 co-insurance?

This reminds me of that base jumper's helmet cam video where he slammed into the dam he jumped from and slid down from 200 feet. All the video was at that point was blood and weezing. I wonder who paid for the 1+ year of physical therapy if he even made it.

ooooh, lets dumb this down and add some humor

I miss the days where it was Ok to look at porn at work

This is a stupid debate

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Like I said this could go on for weeks. The important thing is what we celebrated yesterday. Freedom. It does come at a cost and obviosly we are willing to pay that cost because we are still here. We are still fighting for our country. We are still complaining about what is wrong and what "should" be done. There is no perfect world and we accept that. Otherwise we would defect from the union (again) and build a new country. But nobody will do that. I don't agree with most of the laws we have but what can we in this generation do. Revolt? Anarchy?

"I can do whatever I want, it's a free country...but if something bad happens, the governement's gotta bail me out! Or I'll sue somebody!"

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I read an article in the paper once that an overweight woman sued MCD's because her obesity was caused by Big Macs. The sad part of the story was that she was awarded 5 million dollars by the judge. Now I ask you, did MCD's force her fat arse to eat there? The rulling stated that "Any retaier has the right to refuse service to anyone at any time". Yea, try to take away MY big macs and see what happens!

g

98EXL said:

ooooh, lets dumb this down and add some humor

I miss the days where it was Ok to look at porn at work

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Oh yeah...hey, wait, when was that?

It's always okay to look at porn at work---just be sure to use an anonymizer (anonymouse.org, etc)and have your monitor turned so only you can see it. Not that I'd do that...

Evan! said:

Oh yeah...hey, wait, when was that?

It's always okay to look at porn at work---just be sure to use an anonymizer (anonymouse.org, etc)and have your monitor turned so only you can see it. Not that I'd do that...

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yeah, someone who isn't me looks at it still....but we are a small company, and someone who isn't me is the IT guy, so like someone who isn't me doesn't care