Eroding liberties

There are times when I'm so pissed off at the whole world that I can't see straight. I can't even put into words how frustrated I feel, partially because of my own powerlessness to do more, partly because of the collective complacency in which we all wallow. Take a look at this.

I will readily admit that I've had trouble verifying the truth of this article. I haven't found anything about it on any major news sites.. YET. Or maybe it won't ever show up. Maybe it's an overblown conspiracy theory cooked up by left-wing pot-smoking hippy liberals. But I will tell you my honest gut reaction to this story. It seems like the next logical step in the US government's steady methodical process to erode the civil liberties of their citizens. As soon as I saw the headline about the US Government effectively putting anyone wishing to fly in or out of the US on what amounts to a No-Fly list, I thought, "Gee, that sounds exactly like the Soviet Union." If the Dept. of Homeland Security has their way, no one will be able to fly in or out of the US without their permission. You want to talk about Red States and Blue states; it sounds like the government would like the entire country to be a Red state, if you're catching what I'm throwing.

One thing I've believed for a long time, and what I've heard echoed by friends of mine: Whatever happens to the US, will happen to us. For better or worse, sooner or later, we share their fate. Lately, I've been working my way through Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." If you're at all familiar with it, don't be too impressed. I've got the condensed, watered-down Reader's Digest version, so it's not that difficult to get through when I sit down and concentrate on it. If you're not familiar, It's a book, or series of books I guess. I think there's about 6 in all, and it's about 12 million pages in total. My version is one volume, and it's about 300 pages. It was written in the 1700's by a guy named Gibbon. It talks about how things were going so well in the Roman Empire for a long time, and then instantly after peaking, it started a slow, excruciating slide downhill. And it's really eerie how the descriptions of the Roman Empire in it's decline sound exactly like modern Western Civilization. It's supposed to be the greatest history book ever written. If I ever have kids, I think I'll tie them down and force them to read this book. And then write a report about it.

One thing that really pisses me off, is that I'm fully aware that I can't tell for sure what's true and what's baloney, from what I read in the news. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Not everything the US government does is wrong. It'd take an awful lot of effort for them to do that. So how am I supposed to sort out the fact from fiction? How can I tell what's a product of media bias, and what's truth? I really can't despite my best efforts, and that pisses me off even more.

Here's a classic example of government intrusion in our lives. Recently, the US government signed a bill making most forms of online gambling illegal. Looky. That's probably not the best place to read about the whole issue, but it's a start. If you know a lot about me, and what I do for a living, you know that my career (if you want to call it that) is actually quite closely related to online gambling. So this new law could have far-reaching implications for my job, and the jobs of my co-workers. I'm trying not to make any assumptions before I actually see what will happen, though. But one has to ask oneself, why does the government need to pass a law like this? Shouldn't people be allowed to waste their money on whatever useless crap they want? That's sort of the foundation of free enterprise. As long as it's not harmful to anyone else, then it should be fine. Please understand that I'm not personally a fan of online gambling. I think it's a waste of time and money, and I've seen a lot of people get into serious trouble because of it. But I also believe that they would find something else equally useless to waste their money on if it wasn't online poker. Do you think the government should outlaw everything that's a waste of money? There goes most of my cd collection, and a lot of my computer games, and maybe half of everything I own. I think one thing that people have forgotten, both the voters and the politicians, is that they're not supposed to tell us what's right and wrong. God knows they're horribly underqualified to do that. We're supposed to be our own morality police, WE are supposed to tell them what's right and wrong. And they're supposed to listen to us.

In 1775, Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" I wonder what he would think if he saw us today.

Should felons be allowed to vote?

So I've been thinking about this a little bit. A little bit being about 5 minutes. I'd like some input to help me think about it more. The link that I hope shows up is from Time Magazine, and it's about American felons, but I think we can apply the same argument here.

Do you think felons should be allowed to vote? Why or why not?

Part of me thinks they shouldn't. Like the article says, if they exercise enough bad judgement to commit a crime, they shouldn't be putting our leaders in office. Part of me thinks that they definitely should be voting. Voting isn't a privilege you take away like dessert, or watching tv when someone's bad. It's a responsibility that should be taken seriously by all. And despite what some some dictators say, freedom and democracy can't ever be taken away. You're free no matter what anyone says. The only true prison is the one you build yourself. Wow, that's beautiful. I even amaze myself once in awhile.

The whole responsibility thing relates to a lot of my personal philosophy about criminals. When they go to prison, they have all sense of responsibility taken away. The State does everything for them, provides everything for them, schedules their whole day. How is that supposed to fix someone who decided he'd rather profit from someone else's hard work, rather than work for himself? It almost seems deliberately counter-productive.

Anyways, that's all I've got for now. Leave comments, argue with me, whatever. Just be nice, and try and put at least as much thought into what you say as I did.