tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post2087985930085028541..comments2023-12-05T07:50:19.855-05:00Comments on No Oil for Pacifists: QOTD@nooil4pacifistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-6172209863156313452007-11-02T19:48:00.000-04:002007-11-02T19:48:00.000-04:00OBloodyhell:Agreed. Cogito: OBloodyhell's commen...OBloodyhell:<BR/><BR/>Agreed. <BR/><BR/>Cogito: <BR/><BR/>OBloodyhell's comment is excellent; the penultimate sentence is his most persuasive.@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-77104800258485240582007-11-01T22:31:00.000-04:002007-11-01T22:31:00.000-04:00> many regulations that at first blush seem intru...> many regulations that at first blush seem intrusive are in fact beneficial to social compatibility and ensure the freedom and other rights we hold so dear.<BR/><BR/>Really? How does taking away the property rights of an owner of a bar or restaurant to either allow or not allow smoking on the premises "protect" anyone's freedom? Beforehand, you, the potential customer, had the right, <I>the freedom</I> to go somewhere else -- if enough people are making this choice, there will, indeed, be places which don't allow smoking. Now, the smoker has close to <I>no right</I> anywhere, to do as <B>they</B> please. Less freedom.<BR/><BR/>Before, I had the right to create a "smokers' airline", if I chose and could get the backers, and only those who <B>chose</B> to fly on said flights would do so. Now I have <B>no such right</B><BR/><BR/>It's the <I>death of a thousand cuts</I> for freedom, it's that simple...<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>"The only social order in which freedom of speech is secure is the one in which it is secure for everyone... and, as those who call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize, it is never the oppressed who determine the bounds of the censorship. Their power is limited to legitimizing the idea of censorship."</I><BR/> - Aryeh Neier -<BR/><BR/>The same holds true for all the other rights. Once you grant someone the power to substantially control a right, you have lost that right. The Right to use one's own property as one sees fit is as important a part of the foundation as all the others.<BR/><BR/><I>Freedom is not an individual effort. Yours comes only if you grant others</I><BR/>theirs.<BR/><BR/><I>"...that way lies death. It's a dead end road that assumes inner growth can only be had at the price of giving up that which has made us what we are over [the last] million years... chained and channeled organisms grow stunted and wrong, always. Free ones grow wrong sometimes, but right other times; because the price of life is a continual seeking to grow and explore. Lacking that freedom, all action, physical and mental, circles in on itself and ends up only wearing a deeper and deeper rut in which it goes around and around until it dies."</I><BR/> - Gordon R. Dickson, 'The Final Encyclopaedia' -<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>"...An hour's perusal of our national charter makes it hard to understand what the argle-bargle is about. The First Amendment forbids any law 'abridging the freedom of speech.' It doesn't say 'except for commercials on children's elevision' or 'unless somebody says 'cunt' in a rap song or 'chick' on a college campus."</I><BR/> - P.J. O'Rourke, 'Parliament of Whores' -<BR/><BR/><BR/>One question for you: What is the oldest contiguously unchanged government of any major nation on earth (excluding, say, 'San Marino' or 'Vatican City')?<BR/><BR/>Think about it.<BR/><BR/>Right. It's <I>ours</I>. Each and every other major nation, if it existed at all (Germany, Italy) has gone through a radical change since 1789. In some cases (France), many. The best second answer, Britain, went through a substantial change from a true monarchy to a parliamentary system with a figurehead monarch.<BR/><BR/>And the solidity of ours is that, despite having a major crisis seven years ago, there was no violence at all. Those in power didn't dare attempt to just "take over" -- they played musical legal maneuvers until one found himself without a chair. So the FF's did something not just <I>right</I>, but <B><I>spectacularly right.</I></B><BR/><BR/>This stuff all interlocks. Any social system is a house of cards -- Pull out one of the cards and the whole house of cards can come crashing down. <BR/><BR/>You cannot guess ahead of time which "right" is the lynchpin of the whole arrangement.<BR/><BR/>I fear for our grandchildren.<BR/><BR/>--- OBloodyhellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-30880780813040865462007-10-31T01:45:00.000-04:002007-10-31T01:45:00.000-04:00Cogito:Of course we can have some of both. But as...Cogito:<BR/><BR/>Of course we can have some of both. But as M_O_M intimates, we're approaching the totalitarian tipping point (if we've not already passed it). Even lefty Kurt Vonnegut was concerned--<A HREF="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html" REL="nofollow">in 1961</A>. So, Cogito, what's your bright-line rule, and have we yet crossed it?@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-8633684927935724182007-10-30T19:02:00.000-04:002007-10-30T19:02:00.000-04:00Carl - the smoking license has made me laugh for s...Carl - the smoking license has made me laugh for several days. Can you imagine what would happen if the UK government proposed forcing homosexuals to get a license every year and a signed permission slip from a doctor for the right to have anal sex? <BR/><BR/>Havilland is right. It's totalitarian.MaxedOutMamahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08011469804162511617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-39814817582393570982007-10-30T08:53:00.000-04:002007-10-30T08:53:00.000-04:00NOfP-Please find Quotes Of The Day that are "worth...NOfP-<BR/><BR/>Please find Quotes Of The Day that are "worthy." Perry de Havilland's statements suffer from the logical fallacies of "false dichotomy" and <I>dicto simpliciter</I> (hasty generalization). While I do not support totalitarian regimes, whether murderous or just overly coercive, many regulations that at first blush seem intrusive are in fact beneficial to social compatibility and ensure the freedom and other rights we hold so dear. We can have a democracy that incorporates certain traits that Mr. Havilland attributes to totalitarianism; it clearly is not an either/or situation.<BR/><BR/>-CogitoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-49241670767465603402007-10-29T13:12:00.000-04:002007-10-29T13:12:00.000-04:00Uh, things are getting out of control in all 50 st...Uh, things are getting out of control in all 50 states. Partition?<BR/><BR/>http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=5729868Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18145633856852871800noreply@blogger.com