Posted on 09/15/2002 9:15:23 AM PDT by Pistol
<< No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.>>>
Since we are no longer in a 'time of peace' watch for this to fall as well.
Ah, I remember so well that afternoon when I went trekking into a field with a few friends to shoot our guns (none of us over 18). Not far from the border of an enchroaching urban sprawl, we happened upon a rabbit that took flight. Suddenly, all the 22's went off (one guy carried a 38) and we watched in amazment as the rabbit continued in his jagged escape to freedom. Clips spent, chambers emptied, nothing was left but admiration for the fleet-footed travel of an unexpected target.
By today's standards we'd all be looking at felonies. Unable to vote, unable to be in the same room with a gun, etc.
The reason we weren't cuffed back then (1970's) was that there were fewer cops/regulations and they had real criminals to contend with.IMO
Two suggestions: immediately cap the number of law schools and limit the number of students, and place a moritorium on all new laws at federal, state, county, city levels for 5 years. (Yes, Congress fund the country for longer than 12 months at a time. Dont worry we'll still pay you (you've paid farmers for not planting some crops)! We ALL need a break from more laws!!
Five years, ten years, what difference does it make when the constitution is being violated? The Soviets had a 'five year' plan and a constitution, and look where they ended up. Ash heap.
Centrally planned vs. individually planned is the answer. Bureaucrats may not want to hear this, but they are the hemmoroids on the effective elimination of wastes in any society. The pain is all theirs, though they may want to share it with the rest of us. I say no thanks.
I hear ya. "Great days" says a lot. I'm barely a grandfather (step) and yet those 'great days' seem so close while looking in the rear-view mirror.
Violations of the constitution at all levels seem to receive great applause from the majoritarians and collectivists in order to make our society 'safer' for us all. Little do these sorry bastards know that the limits placed upon government were done so to protect their inattentive asses by men who placed their 'everything' at risk in order to do so.
Sacred honor? Truth? Inalienable rights?
"Hey, where the heck is the remote?".
Oh, I get it! I get jokes! You want limits on Congress's ability to mess with your life. I'm all for it.
Every society needs rules, and to the degree that we live in society we will have rules. I can admire the woodsman or trapper who lives wholly on his own. Whether he's better than the decent family or community guy in the hat from the 1940s or 1950s is another question. You probably couldn't build a society out of the Mountain Man. And society would never give him the elbow room he demanded.
Either type is probably preferable to today's smoking-gestapo authoritarian, but both are also preferable to today's anarchic rebel without a cause. The fellow who wants ever more rules today and the fellow who wants to live with no rules, seem, from the point of view of a generation or two ago, to be opposite sides of the same coin.
Understand how we got here. We complained about the "conformism" of the 1950s and turned ourselves into individualist rebels. Now the degree of social control exercised by society comes back, vested this time in the state. I'd like to see less regulation, but some self-control will always be necessary to life in society. Perfect freedom, complete absence of external or internal constraints isn't given to man in society -- or in automobiles on public roads.
... and no, privatizing the public roads won't change that.
It already is.
bttt
There's a powerful, underappreciated lure to safety-by-decree... but only if you can bring yourself to forget that all things have their price, including increments of safety. Even when the State's safety regulations deliver the promised benefits, which is less than half the time, there's a price to pay -- and if people were willing to pay that price voluntarily, there would be no need for the State to impose it on us by force of law.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
It never ends. . .
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