Ok Skinner, here is my drunken rant about DU I promised ya :)

[The Straight Story]

(I was gonna post this last night, but got busy with the wife. Shit happens)

The previous thread where I said I would post this :)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2831305

Just because your leg is broke doesn't mean I need a cast
By TSS

For a long time I have equated liberalism with equality and freedom. Until I started reading some of the threads here.

Freedom to me used to mean a line drawn in the sand - you have some laws and regulations to create a framework for a free society and then you stand there and defend that line from people who want to erase it. Often we complain that the people wanting to erase it are religious fundies.

Well, they sure as hell aren't the only ones.

Now everything has become about money. Whether it be your home (and when did a home become an investment and not a place to live and shelter yourself?) or health care - the accountants in society have determined that anything I do could affect you and therefore we need to regulate everyone more and more.

You smoke? Companies can now fire you or refuse to hire you (and test you for smoking) because it might cost someone else more money. Obese? That is in the mix now too. Have a fire in your fireplace? Well, that adds to local pollution so we need to stop it - you can only heat via paying a big company.

Slowly but surely we keep attaching the actions of others to our money.

And the sad thing is, I see that more here on DU than anywhere else (ok, to be fair I spend more time here than anywhere else as this is my internet Home).

Normally cool progressive and liberal folks here on DU turn into quasi-religious zealots telling folks that their way is the only way and we have to punish those we don't agree with.

I am all for simple and sensible regulation starting on the local level to address local issues - but when you start telling me that I can't have a fire in my back yard way out in the country because people in the city can't have one due to too much pollution I get a little pissed off.

You don't need to stretch the band aid you need on your arm all the way to me.

It's called diversity. I don't want to tell the Amish how to live, anymore than I want them telling me how to live.

Once more - I get that we need sensible regulation, rules, laws, etc as a society. But I have seen time and again how it starts with one thing and leads to another (to wit - when they decided that people had to wear seat belts in Ohio it was a secondary offense, about 6 years later it became a primary one. Incrementally we are boxing ourselves in).

WHY do some here on DU support this erosion? Is it because you feel that the rest of us need to follow your lead or be punished for the good of all? do you feel your way is the best and only way to the salvation of humankind?

The line has been erased and moved yet again - and to see it supported here makes what little hope I had for freedom disappear.

Does progress mean we keep eroding the rights of the person for the group?

If so, I want no part of that.

To me the price of freedom is accepting the fact that some folks will do things I don't like. They may own handguns, they may smoke (yes, even in bars!), drive SUV's, etc and so on.

It may even affect me and those I love in negative ways.

The cost of freedom is not measured in wars and blood from such, it is measured in how much I am willing to put up with people doing things I don't like (and they doing the same for me).

A government cannot give freedom, it can only take it away and regulate it. And to a point that is ok (ie, as I said above a framework). But what I have seen time and again here is that people are willing to remove freedoms due to money.

And now I fear we have not simply lost battles, but we have lost the war when folks side with controlling others for the sake of the almighty dollar.

Liberal used to mean freedom and diversity. Sadly, some here want to make it mean control of others for their own ideals.

Rant off :)

[windbreeze]

1. Great Rant.....

thank you...wb

[windbreeze]

2. oh, and gave it the big #5...n/t

[The Straight Story]

3. Thank you my friend (nt)

[Generic Brad]

4. You sound pretty sober to me

But then again, I am drunk.

[bobbolink]

5. " zealots telling folks that their way is the only way " I used to be appalled by this...

now I've seen it so much here that it doesn't surprise me, but has contributed to my sense of hopelessness about this society.

Of course, as you know, I mostly focus on the ones telling poor folk just how they need to live, and disregarding their painful circumstances that make it much more difficult or impossible to do what the comfortable muddleclass can do.

This furthers the class division that is growing, at a time when "progressives' should be doing all they can to EASE that class divide.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention... good writing!

:hi: :pals:

[The Straight Story]

6. My dear friend

If there is one person I have been thinking about this last year it has been you.

Your threads on poverty are right on. It is an issue that no one seems to deal with. Even I have been slack in that area :)

I hope this thread finds you well.

[bobbolink]

26. The concern of people like you is what keeps me going.

Your friendly posts do so much for me!

My only hesitation in all that you are saying is that I firmly believe there MUST be some limits on rudeness and hostility. We are becoming such a sociopathic society because people think they can say and do whatever the hell they want, no matter who it hurts.

So, it becomes more complex, but I certainly agree with what you wrote.

I'm looking out the library window at a beautiful view of the Rockies, and wish I could package it and send it to you!

:loveya:

[MedleyMisty]

7. I sort of get your point

But with the SUVs thing - the planet is dying due to our actions. If we don't change the way we consume, we're going to die. In the great balancing act of personal freedom versus the good of the group, the freedom to be a wasteful consumer is so outweighed by the ability of life to continue to exist on the planet that it isn't a question. The CO2 that we put in the air is being absorbed by the oceans and is killing the bottom of the food chain.

And yes, the things that need changing are a whole hell of a lot bigger than the size of the car that you choose to drive and there's not much that us little peons can do to change the things that need to be changed. It's just that it's an easy thing to latch on to and that it can be taken as representative of a person's attitude towards the planet.

As for smoking - my father died from a heart attack when I had just turned seven. He was beginning to develop emphysema, which I'm sure didn't help matters. We all constantly had respiratory diseases while he was alive. After he died, those stopped. If you want to kill yourself, that's all well and good. But you don't have the right and freedom to force illness on others through your actions. Of course, I'm all for consensual illness and suicide so I'm cool with designated smoking areas as opposed to draconian no smoking at all stuff. Same idea as drinking being legal but not drunk driving.

Basically, your rights end where other people's begin and there are boundaries and you have to consider the effects that your actions have on others. Of course there also has to be a balance with personal freedom - I think that maybe what you're ranting about is people who take it too far and want to take away all your freedom to do stuff that annoys them. Like HOAs - I work for a rental management company and I will never live anywhere with a HOA. They're full of assholes with way too much time on their hands who send in letters like, "OMG, I was sitting all sad and alone in my living room on a Friday night and I had my telescope out spying on people and I noticed that your fence is 5/8th of an inch taller than regulation!!!!"

Actually, that is probably more what you're ranting about and so I probably really agree with you. The limits that I would place on personal freedom have nothing to do with money - well, okay, so I'm not a fan of unregulated fascistic capitalism and if I were dictator of the world I'd regulate the hell out of business and significantly lower income disparity, but that's corporate freedom.

When it comes to personal freedom, I'm all for it as long as boundaries are respected - like get drunk all you want, but don't drive drunk and kill other people. Or smoke all you want, but not around people who don't want to die of lung cancer. Or be religious all you want, but don't tell other people that they can't make their own reproductive decisions or marry the person they love or that they have to believe the same way you do.

Consuming all you want is stickier, because of the many ways that it affects the rest of the planet and also what you have to do to survive in your current culture - like I said, us peons can't do much to change things. What little bit we do by choosing to drive less wasteful vehicles is a tiny tiny practically useless drop in the bucket compared to corporations and governments funding research into alternative forms of energy and transportation and using the technology produced by the research to fundamentally change the way we all do things - I think I saw somewhere once the statistics comparing the results of you recycling versus McDonald's recycling.

But of course that's no excuse to not do what little you can. You can choose to drive a huge luxury gas guzzler on paved mostly flat city streets where it barely snows, but don't be surprised if you get nasty looks - it is the future of the only planet that we have to live on that you're showing that you don't give a damn about.

[bbgrunt]

22. that was a thoughtul and reasonable reply to the op

But I also agree with the op regarding the "chipping" away of our personal freedoms. I put chipping in quotes, because it is the ultimate desire of corporations to implant us all with chips that not only identify us but can also be used to control us as a population and turn us into corporate slaves. Already Homeland Security is threatening to hassle people from states that don't adopt the real i.d. laws for their driver's licenses. They won't be able to get on domestic flights, visit national monuments/parks or federal offices without a passport or a significant hassle.

My sister has a small farm where they raise beef for their own consumption. The regulations and paperwork she now has to fill out to satisfy homeland security are driving her off the farm. I've been reading threads about how in some states they are contemplating laws forbidding the collection of rainwater from your own roof because it might alter the distribution of water to rivers, water tables etc.

The "commons" vs. individual freedom also comes into play when you consider population control. While we all want individual freedom, overpopulation is driving this planet to its limits. It used to be that you could simply move somewhere less populated if you wanted to avoid such limits. Now it is impossible to find anywhere on earth that is not feeling the results of decisions made in the rest of the world. We can no longer finesse this crisis by avoiding it and not talking about it.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what we are doing as a society because, I think, too many would view the necessary limitations on their activities and procreation as creating a society not worth saving. I may be among them.

[Kermitt Gribble]

8. Great post!

"Sadly, some here want to make it mean control of others for their own ideals."

That is tue everywhere, it seems.

I still don't wear a seat belt out of protest - even though I paid a $73 fine for it a month ago.

When I lived in PA we had a well. The city always threatened that they were going to start making people with wells pay a tax - because the city felt that everyone in the city should pay their share for water - even if you don't use city water.

Always look forward to your posts, Staight Story - thank you!

[JeffR]

9. Kicked, recommended & very much enjoyed!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[havocmom]

10. Well said, Straight.

:applause:

[Raejeanowl]

11. Lovely Rant Yourself

Normally cool progressive and liberal folks here on DU turn into quasi-religious zealots telling folks that their way is the only way and we have to punish those we don't agree with.....Does progress mean we keep eroding the rights of the person for the group? If so, I want no part of that. To me the price of freedom is accepting the fact that some folks will do things I don't like....Liberal used to mean freedom and diversity. Sadly, some here want to make it mean control of others for their own ideals.


Bless you, Straight-not much I can add to that, sober or not. I'll have something worthwhile to console me the next time I read another one of those dishearteningly fascistic proposals to demand the (tomb)stoning of every member not considered ideologically pure and compliant by the OP.

[Subdivisions]

12. Selective liberalism. I have to admit, I'm guilty of it too. n/t

[mike_c]

13. K&R-- a most EXCELLENT rant!

Very well said!

[noamnety]

14. Who gets to define freedom?

the person doing the polluting, or the person who is suffering the effects of it? That second person isn't experiencing freedom.

I live near a city where almost a fifth of the kids in high school have lead poisoning. What kind of freedom do they have? The freedom to live in a city that was contaminated by the smelting industry?

What kind of freedom do people in Nigeria have, as a result of our freedom to drive SUVs?

It's not freedom if one person's actions affect another person without their permission.

You sound more like a libertarian than a liberal in this rant. I think it missed the mark.

[The Straight Story]

18. I said we need sensible regulation

Some things others do will affect me, like you using your computer which takes electric which generates pollution in the air I breath.

If the line moves a little once in awhile that is OK - IF there is serious consideration. Nowadays people move it on a whim for the children or the money.

[noamnety]

24. I think your OP misrepresents "freedom" as being one-sided.

We live in a society. There's no concept of freedom without being aware of how it affects others.

You wrote: "A government cannot give freedom, it can only take it away and regulate it."

The point of the regulations is that they protect OTHER people's freedoms. If you are infringing on my rights, and the government regulates that, they are, in effect, protecting my freedom.

Your OP portrays that as a "loss" of liberty when it's something you want to do - and attempts to portray other people's loss of liberty as a sacrifice they ought to be making graciously in order to protect your liberty. You're trying to portray it as if you have a big ole pot of freedom, and the nasty government is stealing from it. In the case of the patriot act, yes, that's exactly what is happening. But in the cases you present, which are about individuals looking at the effects of their actions on others, it's not a pot of freedom that one person owns. It's more like a tug of war, and you can't get all the rope without sending other people face down in the mud.

I think this needs to be examined as double-speak: "The cost of freedom is not measured in wars and blood from such, it is measured in how much I am willing to put up with people doing things I don't like."

What does that even mean? You want other people to sacrifice their freedom and view it as a plus because the compromise fell in favor of your desires, not their health?

I think you are attempting to portray a willingness to accept violations of other people's freedoms in a variety of ways as a glorious celebration of diversity. That's not the kind of "diversity" I want.

[The Straight Story]

29. I think the bigger problem is

That we start defining things more and more as 'affecting' someone else.

[intaglio]

15. Happy to K&R n/t

[caseycoon]

16. K&R Very well said. Thanks! n/t

[distantearlywarning]

17. K & R!!!

I think this might be the best rant I've ever read on DU. I couldn't agree more.

[leftofthedial]

19. rants like this need to be controlled!

then they need to be criminalized!

I won't be happy until ALL you damn people are in a box!










oh, uh, :sarcasm:


what the hell ever happened to "live and let live"?

I mean except for that hip hop rap crap. that needs to cease!

[The Straight Story]

27. now there is a DUzy

:)

[aikoaiko]

20. "Liberal used to mean freedom and diversity. Sadly, some here want to make it mean control of others

.... for their own ideals"


Quoted for the truth.

[The Straight Story]

28. Thank you my friend (nt)

[Fire Walk With Me]

21. Any society based upon a single resource is ripe for utter control.

Through control of that resource.

Look around you.

[Rex]

23. Good rant!

Money controls how we live and die. Money is the difference between eating mud cookies and sirloin steak. Money can buy you love, happiness and a weapon to kill those that don't bring you love and happiness.

Now freedom, freedom means things like you don't have to pay for the air you breath, yet. Freedom costs nothing, well not until we humans found a way to make money off freedom. That is why governments were created. Someone had to make money off our freedom and then regulate both. For the greater good.

Sick, but true.

[uppityperson]

25. Don't hurt people, don't hurt things. If you want to worship the God of $$$,

go ahead just don't hurt people, don't hurt things (things meaning everything in the world, including the earth). Other than that, it is window dresing.