Explosions rock Boston Marathon; several injured

[Smitty]

It's minor, but here is an example. I want to build a privacy fence in my back yard. I have to pay the city 150 bucks just to come look at my property and give me "permission" to build a fence.

Property that I own. It's mine. I should be able to do whatever the F I want to do if it doesn't harm someone. But I gotta pay money for some guy to come out, look at my yard for two seconds and say okay?

And then if he tells me it's okay to build something on property that I own, then my property value goes up... you know, what you try to do when you buy a place. Make it worth more than you paid for it. And then I gotta pay more taxes.

Taxes in general, forget about it. I can make 4 grand a month but I'm not taking home anywhere close to that.

I want to smoke pot. I love it. But nope, can't do it. It's a schedule one drug, up there with heroin and morphine. But as a consolation gift please have this cigarette and a beer for your trouble. lulz.

It's little shit like that. We're not free. We just have an illusion of freedom.

These are dumb, petty examples, I get it. But there are so many more on a much more grand scale that I can't even think of right now because I'm drinking, which is amazingly somehow still a "freedom" that I have.

Basically, nothing that doesn't harm other people should be illegal IMO.

Death by a thousand cuts. And they call Libertarians crazy for believing in slippery slopes.

 

[Smitty]

Anyway, what I'm saying is that we have to decide if the degree of potential harm done makes it worth prohibiting an action, but I don't buy the idea that there is very much I can do in this life that has no repercussions for anyone else. I don't agree with the whole libertarian notion that we are born little autonomous heroes who are put down by our civil associations and laws.

Everything has repercussions, but not everything that has an effect is affecting something that is someone else's freedom.

 

[NoDak]

Most people don't understand true freedom.

Do you?

 

[Cowboysrock55]

How presumptuous of you. I actually support decentralizing as much as possible and letting states and cities make their own rules. Then, if Houston wants to ban chocolate or drop the speed limits to 30, I am free to move. I don't give a damn about New York's municipal gun laws despite being very pro-gun because I dont live there. I was merely responding to a point of philosophy I don't agree with.

Just remember, if you disagree with me, it can't be in good faith based on your own knowledge and reflection. You must have been indoctrinated or not understand freedom.

Big government doesn't have to be just big Federal Government. You're still describing big government, just a decentralized version. I don't want big government anywhere in America, not New York and not in Houston.

 

[Kbrown]

Everything has repercussions, but not everything that has an effect is affecting something that is someone else's freedom.

I kind of agree. Just think the "not hurting anyone" standard is primarily a fallacy.

 

[Kbrown]

Big government doesn't have to be just big Federal Government. You're still describing big government, just a decentralized version. I don't want big government anywhere in America, not New York and not in Houston.

So you want your understanding of freedom imposed on others.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

So you want your understanding of freedom imposed on others.

What I want is the exact opposite of imposing anything on anyone.

 

[Kbrown]

What I want is the exact opposite of imposing anything on anyone.

Then why do you care what regulations are enacted by the elected officials or the popular vote of a place you don't live in?

This is a pretty good example of how liberty, while certainly a good, eats itself when people have no proper sense of limits.

 

[Cotton]

How presumptuous of you. I actually support decentralizing as much as possible and letting states and cities make their own rules. Then, if Houston wants to ban chocolate or drop the speed limits to 30, I am free to move. I don't give a damn about New York's municipal gun laws despite being very pro-gun because I dont live there. I was merely responding to a point of philosophy I don't agree with.

Just remember, if you disagree with me, it can't be in good faith based on your own knowledge and reflection. You must have been indoctrinated or not understand freedom.

 

[Cotton]

Then why do you care what regulations are enacted by the elected officials or the popular vote of a place you don't live in?

This is a pretty good example of how liberty, while certainly a good, eats itself when people have no proper sense of limits.

Idealism is never easy to explain nor handle.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Then why do you care what regulations are enacted by the elected officials or the popular vote of a place you don't live in?

This is a pretty good example of how liberty, while certainly a good, eats itself when people have no proper sense of limits.

I live in America last I checked...

Not sure what type of point you are trying to make with the "proper sense of limits" comment. I don't find oppression to be a good thing but to each his own.

 

[Kbrown]

I live in America last I checked...

Not sure what type of point you are trying to make with the "proper sense of limits" comment. I don't find oppression to be a good thing but to each his own.

I mean what I think the founding fathers meant: that the goal of our system is to respect the cultural differences and various desires of states and cities and thus allow them to self-govern, not necessarily to ensure that the entire American populace enjoys the sacred right to ride a motorcycle helmetless.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

I mean what I think the founding fathers meant: that the goal of our system is to respect the cultural differences and various desires of states and cities and thus allow them to self-govern, not necessarily to ensure that the entire American populace enjoys the sacred right to ride a motorcycle helmetless.

Why should someone else make it illegal for me to not wear a helmet. Why the hell should someone I have never met make that decision for me. It's all so that person can stomp their foot and claim they saved lives when in reality they didn't accomplish shit.

With that being said I don't disagree with the shift of power from the federal government to the states. That was certainly the original intent and then the federal government decided to use the commerce clause to regulate everything they possibly could.

 

[Smitty]

KBrown's point, and it's one that I agree with, is that if the citizens of NYC want to ban soft drinks, let them.

It's ridiculously out of control, but yeah, you can always move out of New York City if you don't like it.

That is how government should be. The Constitution gives us rights, but they are specifically rights against encroachment of the federal government. Only more recently has the Constitution been enforced against the state and local governments.

I recognize that the people in Iowa know how to live their lives out there in Iowa and they may have a set of rules that they feel works for them, and it may be different than the set of rules in New York.

That is the beauty of what was supposed to be a unification of state governments, instead of one massive government overriding every state issue.

 

[Smitty]

By the way, the more I hear about this plot the less I am convinced it's "terrorism" any more than any of these public shootings like the guy in Colorado.

This was two kids who wanted to kill people and they used a bomb instead of a handgun. Yeah, they were "self-radicalized" by reading stuff on the internet. Translation... they were two assholes involved in online communities to vent their naive but homegrown Anti-Americanism, just like the two sick twisted fucks who pulled off Columbine were active online.

Terrorism implies a plot and a conspiracy with more people, who are capable of contriving the ever present danger of pseudo-warfare conducted through 4GW guerilla style tactics if not met with action to stop them.

This was a single criminal act.

 

[townsend]

KBrown's point, and it's one that I agree with, is that if the citizens of NYC want to ban soft drinks, let them.

It's ridiculously out of control, but yeah, you can always move out of New York City if you don't like it.

That is how government should be. The Constitution gives us rights, but they are specifically rights against encroachment of the federal government. Only more recently has the Constitution been enforced against the state and local governments.

I recognize that the people in Iowa know how to live their lives out there in Iowa and they may have a set of rules that they feel works for them, and it may be different than the set of rules in New York.

That is the beauty of what was supposed to be a unification of state governments, instead of one massive government overriding every state issue.

I can't imagine a the point of a bill of rights that only protects its people from the federal government. It certainly doesn't help much if I'm sent to state instead of federal prison for speaking against the dictator.

 

[Smitty]

I can't imagine a the point of a bill of rights that only protects its people from the federal government. It certainly doesn't help much if I'm sent to state instead of federal prison for speaking against the dictator.

Yeah but that's how it was originally meant.

 

[VA Cowboy]

This was a single criminal act.

Nuh-uh....two bombs.

 

[Cotton]

Luke Russert ‏@LukeRussert 3m
NBC News: Officials say the Boston bombers were planning to come to NYC and detonate the balance of their explosives in Times Square.

______________________

Doesn't look like it was going to be one single criminal act.

 

[Smitty]

Still don't know that it would fit my definition of terrorism.