Well, you’re right that complaining about bad laws is the only way to change them. What I take issue with is the argumentation strategy that says “this law should be changed because it infringes on my God-given rights” with no further analysis. It’s a shallow way out of real debate. Why should X be considered a “right” recognized by law? Why should it be considered among those rights that are “inalienable”? Why is the proposed restriction on right X an unreasonable one (after all, even sacrosanct rights like free political speech are subject to laws on time/place/manner, libel, perjury and national security)?
Or, put more simply, who the hell are you to be the arbiter of what is or is not God-given?
As you note below, “inalienable rights” is language found in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. That’s an important distinction. The DOI is, in essence, a bit of political rhetoric. Important rhetoric, to be sure, rhetoric that lays out some important principles, but rhetoric just the same. It isn’t a governing document. The Constitution is. The powers of and contraints upon government are found in the latter.
Right, all of which relate to causing some form of harm to others.
A person, same as you, same as the people who make the laws.
possibly.
You said earlier:
Which is a very good reason to get rid of laws that needlessly restrict the rights of citizens.
As I mentioned earlier, I have violated certain of my state’s laws on several occasions and intend to do so in the future. This doesn’t make me a bad person, and I always try to avoid doing anything to harm others not because it’s the law, but because it’s the right thing to do, but when the state tries to tell me who I can sleep with they have very clearly overstepped their bounds and I have no problem with ignoring their unjust laws. The problem is that not everyone follows my moral code, but everyone comes across these laws. Not everyone who figures out that the laws relating to sodomy, marijuana, strip clubs, etc… are unjust is going to keep from doing things that actually are bad, that harm others.
Odd that you would include time/place/manner restrictions in that category, since you seem to have a pretty narrow definition of “harm to others.”
But that does bring up a related question. Say there’s a law that prohibits playing loud music after 9 p.m. Clearly, that’s a limitation on my right to act as I please on my own property. And loud music doesn’t physically damage your property. Is that legitimate? Or is cranking Led Zepplin an inalienable right as well?
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But again, you never tell us why simultaneous drinking and ogling ought to be sacrosanct. You’ve avoided making a real argument entirely by just punting the question to God (the ulitmate appeal to authority, I suppose).
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Actually, you’ve missed my point. In an area where, regardless of legality, going to a strip club is considered a vice (and clearly that would vary quite a bit depending on where you were in the U.S.), encouraging establishments that cater to vice might further encourage other vices, vices which might not be legal.
Again, that’s just a theory, and I’m not entirely convinced of the truth of it myself. But the theory is plausible enough that a community could use it as a legitimate rationale for regulations discouraging strip clubs.
Vices which are illegal, by their very definition already have laws against them. By your reasoning children should be euthanised at birth because there is a chance they could grow up to be criminals.
Listen, as I said earlier I don’t go to nudie bars. That doesn’t change the fact that if someone else does go to nudie bars it’s none of my fucking business. If that person goes on to vandalise property or rob liquor stores or whatever, THAT is when they are commiting a crime.
The “gateway” argument has never made any sense to me, it is just another variation of the slippery slope argument. Problem is that it is used to justify laws that abridge our freedoms.
Look, I agree that the “gateway” argument can be taken too far, but that doesn’t mean it is completely worthless. “Balance in all things” should be the watchword here. Look, strip clubs, particularly when there are several concentrated in one area, arguably tend to lead to red light districts. And criminal activity usually takes place in those areas. It’s all well and good to say “just prosecute the criminal activity when it occurs,” but that’s only a partial solution. The cops can’t catch 100% of the illegal vice activities going on – they can’t even come close. And the fact that you’re prosecuting those activities as best you can is going to come as cold comfort to the guy who has to walk through a gaggle of street prostitutes, step over winos and straightarm the local drug dealer on his way to work.
And again, as I said, the theory is arguable on empirical grounds. But it makes enough sense that arguments relying on it are rational. Those using it have legitimate concerns that need addressing.
BTW, you didn’t answer my question about loud music. I’m curious to hear your response.
Unfortunately, I perfectly understood your argument, to the extent it “makes sense” at all. 1. You want to do something. 2. You claim to have some unidentified “right” to do it, but 3. You can’t identify what right, precisely that would be, because 4. Having to explain yourself would cut into your “griping” time.
Not sure where this is coming from or going to, but I’ll play along: Yes, I think both genders should have equal rights. What does that have to do with your OP, or my (or anyone’s) responses to it?
Someone who goes about declaring their own “rights,” made up by them alone? No. If that is what they (meaning you) are going to do – and that is exactly what you have done, and admitted to doing, here – then they might as well invent “rights” with more concrete payoffs – like cars and money. What, you don’t think you’ll get a car or money on that basis? That’s no more likely than that you’ll get the right to drink alcohol and watch nude dancing, based only on your own assertion that that is a “right” you have. That’s the point.
Oh, for the love of – What right? What specific right? The right to drink and watch nude dancing? You do NOT have any such right. “Oh, yes I do!” you rejoin. “Why?” I ask. “Because I say so!” you respond. Newsflash: You don’t get to just decide what rights you have. “Because I say so” doesn’t wash. Why do you think you have that right? Where do you think it comes from? For the upteenth time, explain yourself. Or for God’s sake shut up about it. But wait – you don’t want to “explain;” you want to “gripe.” Well, gripe away, but I have an equal ability to point out that your gripe doesn’t make any sense. And by “makes no sense” I do not mean to imply I did not understand it, but rather that it has no basis in fact or reality.
Loud music is very discourteous, and there should be laws against it… but People should at least attempt to straighten things out without getting the law involved.
Loud music can certainly be argued to cause actual harm to others, I know when I had redneck neighbors playing loud music at all hours I didn’t get enough sleep and it definitely effected my work performance.
Oh, and Jodi… don’t you think that those attempting to interfere with other’s lives ought to have to support their position as well? Suppose you really like chocolate and some group of freaks gets together and ammasses enough power to pass legislation outlawing chocolate… Would you be willing to give it up just because you don’t have a “right” to chocolate? Would you just accept it without complaint? How would you feel if people jumped your case when you did complain?
And if chocolate did any or all of (a) through (d), I would not be surprised to find that its consumption was also regulated, and there’d be fuck-all I could do about it – because I don’t have any particular right to eat chocolate. And, frankly, lil’ law-abider that I am, if it were illegal, I wouldn’t eat it. And I sure as hell wouldn’t argue I have some nebulous, undefined “right” to eat it, because I don’t. And the analysis IMO remains the same regardless of whether the people enacting the law are part of the Upright Citizens Brigade or merely a “group of freaks.”
Lady is talking about male strippers coming to the bar where she works. I don’t know what kind of bar she works at, but I somehow doubt that nekkid men coaxing dollar bills away from frustrated housefraus is the type of “exploitation of women” you are talking about.
As I mentioned earlier, the state where I live still has sodomy laws on the books. I have taken part in the campaign against them, but would you suggest that I have to choose between leaving my home state and having sex? I submit that this is my state too, just as Ladys home state is hers as well- we should not be pushed around by an ignorant majority, and we have a “right” to speak out against ignorant laws.
I’ll stipulate that neighbors should work out solutions amongst themselves. But sometimes people can’t work things out, and sometimes people are just assholes. That’s a big part of the reason why we have laws.
OK, so you’re against loud music at night because it kept you up. But why should your neighbors give two shits about your sleep schedule or job performance? They want to party and have a good time! Under your analysis, don’t they have a God-given right to do so?
And what if some of your neighbors go to bed at 9:00 pm? Does their right to a good night’s rest trump the loud music crowd too?
Why is your desire to have a good night’s sleep any more important than someone else’s desire to avoid living in a red light district?
It sounds to me like you want the world to cater to your whims, and you’re using “rights-speak” as justification for it. You don’t mind the ancillary costs of strip clubs, so people have a in inalienable right to build them wherever they want. You DO, however, mind loud music late at night, so suddenly your preference trumps the “right” of people to do with their property as they please.
Frankly, while I didn’t ever report my neighbors for loud music they were doing more harm than a strip club does to the nosy old prudes who would try to shut it down.
Strip clubs are never in residential areas, for one thing- the people complaining can easily avoid it, which is one huge difference from complaining about what your neighbors do. For another thing “property values might fall” is not an argument I can respect, that argument was used to justify redlining among other things- it is a blatant pseudo-justification that is used to attack anything the complainer disaproves of.
I have explained myself several times you incredibly thick skulled person. You want to define “right” by what has been legally granted. Do you think that is the only way in the world to define it? The fact that I stated in an earlier post that I thought it was my individual right should have been all the explaination that you needed . . .
shaking head
Right - “Something that is due to a person or governmental body by law, tradition, or nature.”
I asked you if you felt that both genders should have equal rights. Would you disagree that it is a human “right” that they should? But how can you feel that all men and women should have equal rights when the right has not been granted?
Do you think that the women who lived years and years ago who felt they had the right to vote, who felt their rights were being infringed upon because they could not by law vote, would care too shits about hearing your legal rhetoric?
Really? The guy who has to deal with additional crime, lower property values, and increased traffic in the evenings is experiencing “less harm” than someone living next to late-night music lovers? Why don’t you just buy 99 cent earplugs, ya cheap bastard?**
This is simply an untrue statement. I know of strip clubs that, though not in the middle of residential neighborhoods, are on the perimeter of such places. And, of course, for large cities with strip clubs downtown, strip clubs will be directly below residential buildings (think NYC).**
Uh-huh. Because the property values argument has on occasion been put to nefarious use, it is never a valid argument? That’s plainly silly. Suppose your neighbor decided to use his backyard as a waste dump – wouldn’t you be right to be concerned about the impact on your property?
Odd you should cite that example. When the suffragettes were agitating for the right to vote, they didn’t just say “we have a God-given right to vote, so let us in at the ballot box!”
What they DID do was construct an argument. It went something like this: this country is ostensibly committed to equal treatment under the law; women are no different from men in their capacity to make informed political judgments; thus, for this country to live up to its founding principles, women must be treated equally to men. Since men can vote, women must be allowed to vote, too.
If you want to argue that simultaneous ogling and drinking are rights that should be enshrined in law, fine; make your argument. But bleating that “it’s my God-given right” with no further analysis is not an argument. It’s a whine, the same sort of thing teenagers do when they are grounded.
As I’ve pointed out numerous times, the “additional crime” is already illegal without punishing the innocent. All any “wide net” does is disenfranchise those innocents who are treated like criminals.
Honey, I think anyone reading this thread will have no trouble figuring out which of the two of us is the one of thick skull and tiny brain, but for you I have a hint: It ain’t me.
As I have already said multiple times, if you don’t like my definition of right, then let’s use yours. Right: Something due to a person by law, tradition, or nature. Clearly, you have no right to drink and watch nekkid people at law, and there apparently is no tradition to that effect in your locale. So . . . you think you have a “natural” right – endowed by nature – to drinks and T&A? It is to laugh. Where is the Fundamental Titty Bar of the Natural World, anyway? Oh, wait: There isn’t one.
That’s “two shits,” darling, and I’m sure they would, since my legal rhetoric in that case would be that discrimination on the basis of gender is, and ought to be, generally unconstitutional. See, I’m ready, willing, and able to argue in favor of actual rights. I’m just not so much a fan of people who whine tiresomely about fictional ones.
And as I’ve pointed out numerous times, the cops can’t police perfectly. Hence regulations that discourage “crime magnets.” We don’t live in a utopia – we have to make real-world solutions.
And nevermind that you fail to address my overriding point, namely that you seem bent on defining “harm” as only including those things that disturb you. Thus, in your view, late night loud music is right out, but diminished property values and increased noise traffic are OK.
LADY, as someone who doesn’t have a horse in this race, I must conclude that Jodi has proved her points pretty darn well.
Grendel, here in southern Californias beautiful San Fernando Valley, strip clubs (where there is ‘complete’ nudity) are in industrial areas, not residential ones. However, the industrial areas are directly adjacent to the residential areas. So it’s not uncommon at all for the strip club to be a block, or less, from an apartment complex. In some places, they are just across an alley.
Why do you assume “property value” is a right? The value of your property is going to rise and fall in a free market system, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. What I am talking about has dick all to do with property, it is people’s personal freedom being infringed upon.
In Ladys case, the law would allow strippers if they didn’t serve alcohol, and alcohol with no strippers. There is absolutely no fucking condition where that law is not infringing on people’s freedom for no good reason- “diminished property values” and “noise traffic” are happening right now due to the fact that she works at a bar.
And for the ten thousandth fucking time in this thread no I am not bent on defining “harm” as only including those things that disturb me. As I have said before, the infringement of Ladys freedom has absolutely no effect on me- I don’t go to nudie bars. I can still see that someone else is being treated like shit by having a perfectly valid rant jumped on.
I don’t believe I’ve ever described it as such. I’m not the one who’s inventing fictitious rights out of thin air.**
The proposed regulation might minimize that noise and traffic by making the establishment less popular.**
Whether you go to nudie bars or not is not the point; the point is, you are clearly not bothered by the increased traffic, noise and street crime and decrease in property values that results from the placement of strip clubs in a neighborhood. You ARE, however, bothered by loud late-night music. Thus, you think regulations that discourage strip clubs are stupid, but regulations against loud late-night music are OK. Your is an awfully “me-centered” view on what concerns are legitimate and what concerns are not.
