Two Sacred Things, or Your Rights Are Grass...

The BBQ Pit
1

…And The Government’s The Lawnmower…

It seems, in the last 10 or 15 years, that there are only two truly sacred things which trump the Constitution:

The Children

and

The War on Drugs.
It seems like politicians just roll over and expose their soft, slimy underbellies in submission to any plea that involves Saving The Children or Winning The War On Drugs.

First Amendment? No problem…we have to Save The Children from evil, horrible, corrupting sexual conduct (or evil, horrible, corrupting bloody violence, depending on your political POV), so your right to view controversial/explicit material is moot!

Fourth Amendment? Fuhgeddaboutit! We have to wage The Noble And Glorious War On Nasty Lowlife Drugs! Your protections from Search and Seizure are as so much toilet paper before the might of DARE and the DEA!

Why does the population of the US fall for this smarmy, lachrymose, maudlin bullshit? Why doesn’t someone ask these people who are boo-fucking-hooing about sex and violence in movies what their 12-year-old child is doing going to an R- or NC-17-rated movie or watching cable television or surfing the internet without parental involvement anyway? Are these the same people who let their 5-year-old wander the park while they concentrate on their knitting, then wonder why the hell all the people walking by let the kid play with the rabid dog?

Why doesn’t someone with some kind of influence wake up and realize that, when we eventually have 40% of the population of the US behind bars for drugs, drugs will still be available, common, and used in the US?

Most importantly, why are my Constitutional rights being abrogated for the convenience of lazy parents and the pleasure puritans of the Right and the Left?

Lick the lead paint off your goverment office walls, breathe asbestos from your government office insulation, and die, stupid politicos too cowardly to stand up for the document you serve under!

2

Good rant. I’m not good at rating so I’ll leave it to someone else. Incidentally, I agree.

3

But jayjay–we’re Fighting the War on Drugs in order to Protect the Children.

Geez–what kind of evil person are you, anyway?

4

**TEN!!! TEN!!! A SOLID TEN!!!
[/quote]

[sub]no…it’s not just cause I agree with him…no…(shakes head)…no…I tell ya…it’s just a good rant[/sub]

5

Nice rant…

Welcome the Center, where we take fire from both the Left and the Right.

 *...INCOMING*!
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And let’s not forget the 2nd Ammendment. They’re trouncing that one royally.

And the 5th. “[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” How many times have people’s property been taken and not returned because a cop suspected the property was bought with “drug money”? Lots.

And the 6th. Death-row inmates wait for many years while awaiting appeals.

And the 7th. “…and no fact tried by a jury, shall be
otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” The Rodney King case comes to mind. Some would say that re-trying the Rodney King case is a bad thing; others, a good thing. I think most will agree that the re-trying of the murderers of the civil rights workers on charges of denying the victims their civil rights was a good thing.

And the 8th. Almost half of the country believe that capital punishment is “cruel and unusual”. By the standards of most of the world’s developed countries, it is. And excessive bail and excessive fines seem to be imposed regularly.

The 9th: Basically, just because a certain right is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, that does not mean that you do not have that right. Take the 2nd Ammendment, for example. Even if it doesn’t grant the right to own firearms (and I believe it does, for reasons I won’t get into here), the 9th Ammendment does guarantee that right. Similarly, there is no provision in the Constitution that specifically recognizes a woman’s right to an abortion; but that right would be covered by the 9th Ammendment.

The 10th Ammendment? That’s what the Republicans and Democrats are fighting over.

7

And when is the Army coming back to pick up the grunts who are sacked out on my couch, huh?! I want my 3rd amendment rights, dammit!!

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The one that pisses me off isn’t even in the bill of rights. But it’s an amendment to the constitution that is broken day in and day out on nearly every street in America. It happens in the homes and business have been created which flaunt their apathetic attitude towards the law. The police are no better, willingly turning a blind eye to these groups who feel they are above the law and above the words of our most sacred document.
Everyone in America, it seems, just ignores the 18th amendment and it’s insulting to me as an American and as someone who holds the ideals of the founding fathers high at heart. I don’t understand it. Never have never will. How can people be so callous in their apathetic attitude towards this? I dare say something must be done.
And don’t get me started on the 19th amendment. Don’t we think women have had enough suffrage in their lives already without adding more to it here?

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I just want to say that Max’s post was damn funny.

10

You got it right. A solid gold ten.

I read about these issues, particularly the sacrifice of our rights re: search and seizure, and my brain simply screams…“HHHHHHEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

People are asleep all over the land.

stoid

11

Adding my vote to Freedom and Stoid’s.

10.0

Jayjay, you have to stick around. We need the level of involved, informed, intelligent comment you’ve evinced in this and other threads here. If you don’t, I’ll… (oh, yeah, can’t say that)… Well, I’ll sic the fundamentalists on you then! And make sure you have to review the next 330 Creationism vs. Evolution threads, and do a report on them to Stoid’s satisfaction. :wink:

(Was that ranty enough for the Pit?)

12

::applause::

Few things drive me more crazy than – and there’s no other way to put it – the attempt to childproof the world.

Prescription bottles with dangerous drugs? Childproof the caps. Nasty cleaning chemicals? Ditto. Handguns? Same. Credit cards, adult movies, firing ranges, sex-toy shops? I don’t think kids are that easily corrupted by a simple introduction to and/or viewing of “adult”-oriented stuff, but I’ll concede that there are a few places kids ought not to go.

But these bluenose fuckwits apparently won’t rest until every single place a kid might ever accidentally possibly potentially become aware of, let alone actually visit, has been made safe for them. Y’know, Disneyland has its place, but I don’t want to fucking live there.

Grrrrr. If you and your kids aren’t capable of coping with a modern, complex world, then maybe that part of the gene pool needs a little chlorine.

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::Let’s see now…where was that thread about ‘Most hated Clichés’?:::smiley:

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Thank you, Poly. And Stoid and Freedom and everyone else, too. I plan on being around a while. :slight_smile:

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… and ITR Chamipon makes four.

And even though this is the pit, I’m going to post a link:
http://reason.com/9706/fe.nick.html

The entire time that I was in school, my parents worried constantly about me getting shot/exposed to every concievable drug/a hundred other terrible things. I kind of think that when an actual child is born, all logical think capability in the parents just shuts down for the next 18 years.

16

Wow. Great article, Champion. How I managed to miss Reason all these years is inexplicable. It’s now bookmarked.

And the “Buddhification of Children” (I love that term!) is another one of my hotbuttons.

17

Good rant and amen.

I dig Reason–I appreciate libertarian perspectives that are generally not shrill, and they’re one of the best at nailing that.

18

On the subject of child proofing everything…

I have lived in Japan for the last 9 years. When I first came over here it struck me as odd that many subjects that would cause public outcry in the U.S. are very commonplace here. i.e., pornographic magazines are available in convenience stores and vending machines, cigarettes and beer are also available in vending machines (up till 11 pm), partial nudity is “ok” on late night TV, etc.

So I got to looking around and I found that the Japanese don’t have a problem with it. They don’t seem to have a hang up about many of the things that U.S. parents would scream about. Granted there are laws that say that tobacco and alcohol are not for sale to minors, but things like censorship and bans on words and images are not so common.

Granted my view of the U.S. now is from the outside looking in - and maybe it causes me to take an odd view of things.

I feel that most of the folks who are screaming “save the children” should take a minute to really think about what it is they are screaming about. Perhaps they should quit wasting their time protesting and spend more time with their kids.

-my 2 cents. I hope this post doesnt qualify as a full fledged “hijack”!

19

Another example of the (becoming) meaningless fourth ammendment. Drug Testing. As if that is going solve anything, anyway. And so many people think it’s just fine. “If you don’t have anything to hide…” Ok, what’s next? Random house searches. Just let the police, or your boss, walk into your house anytime they feel like it, just to take a look around. After all, “if you don’t have anything to hide…”

Think it won’t happen. Well, pissing into a cup to check for drugs as a requirement to get hired for a job was unheard of 20 years ago.

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I would also like to point out the screaming hypocrisy of the Motion Picture Association of America, which routinely gives R (or PG-13!) ratings to movies in which people get shot, maimed, tortured, and otherwise violently abused, but if one naked! person! is seen, that’s instant NC-17 material. Because hey, it’s not like we have a bigger problem with VIOLENCE IN THE SCHOOLS lately than with sex in the schools.

But we must protect the chilllldrun from the horrors of nekkidness, because otherwise they might actually learn what SEX IS! Except that most of them already figured it out from the neighbor kid when they were like six years old, but that’s beside the point.