Freedom=Separation of Church & State

[LulaMay]

[magellan]

1. Freedom also = separation of Corporations & State. n/t

[The Straight Story]

2. also = govt out of my damn personal business and pot being legalized

:)

[Skip Intro]

7. ALL consensual adult activities should be legal.

pot, other drugs, prostitution, gambling, gay marriage, etc

[The Straight Story]

8. Don't forget smoking in bars

:)

[Skip Intro]

9. hmmm...I'm a former smoker, former non-smoker, current smoker, soon to be non-smoker

I don't know about that one. Sure, you and I have a right to smoke if we want, but people who don't have a right to be not affected by that decision. Hmmm...

Maybe there should be smoking and non-smoking bars? Or portions within each bar that could be smoking areas and a non smoking areas.

That's a tricky one.

[The Straight Story]

10. freedom to choose

You can go to a bar where smoking is allowed (or work there), or you can go to one where it is not allowed.

Or you can go to a bar that has a bdsm theme, or one that doesn't :)

Freedom = choice. As long as we can choose we are free, when someone restricts that (outside of reasonable societal issues) we all lose.

Somehow, I think people were more free in the 1800's than they are now (except women and people of color, and gays - we gained freedoms for some, and have lost freedoms for all on other fronts).

Freedom means you are willing to live with people who make choices you wouldn't make, and not trying to punish/force them to make the same choices you would.

[Skip Intro]

16. I agree with every word, but

there is a line where my freedom may intrude upon someone elses - we don't have the freedom to erode others' freedoms.

Choice=freedom. Yes.

But the role of the government must be to protect everyone's freedoms. The governemnt currently enforces morality, and that is wrong. But the point at which someone else's freedoms intrude upon, or require me to sacrifice my freedom, is a point at which we are all no longer free.

I must say, I've never been on this side of the argument. Please don't get me wrong. No one has a right to tell me how I should live outside the context I've just laid out. And let everyone make their own decisions. And bars that cater to either smokers or non-smokers, or both, are fine with me. My freedom doesn't extend so far that it erodes someone else's freedom.

I think we agree 99%+, but I cannot say I choose to kill, and therefore should be free to do so, because it robs the victim of his or her freedom to live.

There is a line. But what goes on in my own home, or in places that cater to people who share my choices, is my and their own fucking business, and no business of the government.

Everyone should be free to live their lives as they see fit, the pursuit of happiness, so to speak, but no one's right in that respect tramples my right. Room must be made for all, while protecting freedom for all, for all.

[selador]

13. it should be a private business decision

it's not tricky at all to me

fwiw, i HATE cigarette smoke and thus PERSONALLY benefit from smoking bans.

but i am 100% against them because they encroach on what SHOULD be a private business decision.

in other words, i benefit from the ban, but i'm against it because principles are WAY more important than my benefit or comfort.

any bar can choose to ban smoking (and several did before the ban).

and if you don't like smoking, you have the asbolute right not to patronize a bar that allows it.

prior to the ban (in WA state) there already were private entities that made their own decisions.

i contrast this with, for example, smoking bans in public building like libraries, courthouses, etc. which are paid for by tax dollars and serve a common good. totally different thing. all for that.

[LWolf]

4. Yes to that, too.

I don't see a candidate on my primary ballot that offers both.

:nuke:

[LWolf]

3. YES. n/t

[ChazII]

5. Keep gov't out of

my bedroom, my bathroom and my dr.'s office.

[The Straight Story]

6. Oh - and sep. of Nannies and state, you know - the people who

even without religion are trying to tell me how to live and how my choices affect them because they have to pay more $ for insurance etc.

When money becomes a religion (which it seems to have become) we are all pretty well fucked.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. Not equals because it's necessary but not sufficient.

[Festivito]

12. I don't think that works with something I saw here on DU.

Don't remember who. Sorry. But, here's the ending:

Freedom comes from having power,
Power comes from having knowledge,
Knowledge comes from having love.

If freedom does come from a position of power, then
having a rule that limits power, should limit freedom.

That if people had the power to maintain displays of religious nature, they would have that freedom of which you speak -- freedom to maintain it, and freedom to not erect it at all.

So, equating freedom with a limitation of freedom is at best lackluster, but more likely just completely wrong.

[jazzjunkysue]

14. And you don't have to kill the church: Just immunize the government from it's

non-democratic ideas.

True believers know that their freedom from government interferance is more important than any individual law.

[maveric]

15. Amen Sister!

And until we have that separation we will never be free.

[pleah]

17. K&R!!!!!!!