My wife and I had dinner with a friend and his wife tonight and the converstation slipped and slid into politics. My friend, David, said that the only way to straighten out this country is to move away from Big Brother providing us with rules and regulations for everything under the sun. Get rid of licensing, abolish all building codes, seat belt laws, and everything else that restricts and/or provides benefits for some while restricting others. He continued to say it won’t happen, that our society is too geared to being protected, provided with guarantees and other benefits and so no one is going to want “change” to occur which would get government out of our face. The problem is this: government is sexually attracted to itself. In other words, government is a self-breeding organism which will eventually overpower this nation and whoever is the leader then become a dictator. Our society is being dumbed down by our leaders and by our media.
THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN
GORDON KUHN
9 responses to “I Wonder.”
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I would suggest reading Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle. It does a very good job of portraying what industry was like when there were few regulations.
Further you might like to compare the death rates of cities that are devasted by earthquakes that do not have building codes – such as Haiti – and those that do – such as Las Angeles.
And would you really like to have an unlicensed surgeon take out your appendix?
It sounds good, especially when we are hit with so many regulations and laws. However a comparison with what it was like before often reminds us of why we enacted these laws to begin with. That is a problem with success. People forget why things are better and start chafing.
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I’ve read it. And I agree with you on your points. The point being made is that we have allowed and are allowing government to control more and more of our lives. Some of that is good but too much is bad and I think we’ve hit an end point where now we have counties ending “ladies night” because it is “too gender specific” and little boys being sent home because they have a tiny toy soldier with a rifle and that violates the school district’s “no gun policy” or where the 1st grader drew a gun under the same guidelines and was accused of promoting violence. We have idiots who are in charge and if the rest of us don’t bring a stop to this insanity then we will regulate ourselves to the point where an uncovered sneeze by an infant will land the parents in jail for spreading germs. We have full time legislatures who think they must create laws because that is what legislature does. Get these jerks out of office. Set term limits to two terms. Get rid of most of the redundancy in government. We don’t need five people standing around watching one man dig a hole, and, likewise, we don’t need more laws. Enough is enough.
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Now I will agree with the examples you cited there. From what you said in your post I had thought you might be applying it more broadly, as I have heard others do.
I think part of the problem is that laws are crafted to deal with real issues but they then are either applied without regards for individual situations – which is what happens in many of the school issues since these laws and policies are often crafted in such as way as to allow no consideration of individual circumstances – are they have that latitude but are then, as you say, interpreted by idiots.
Given the size of the country and the government necessary it is inevitable that some ill considered policies are going to be adopted or good policies badly applied. That is one of the reasons we have a legal remedy which is to challenge these actions and take them to court. We also have the option to vote and pursuade others to vote for candiidates that would change things.
Sometimes reason wins, sometimes it doesn’t. Of course oftentimes whether reason wins or not is dependent on who is doing the reasoning.
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I really like your comment: Sometimes reason wins, sometimes it doesn’t. Of course oftentimes whether reason wins or not is dependent on who is doing the reasoning.
My concern is legislation for legislations sake. The introduction of laws on top of laws on top of laws seems to be the norm in many cases. Everytime somebody gets shot there is an outcry for more and stricter gun laws. We have enough gun laws out there and those who are licensed to carry, like myself, are normally responsible people who carry responsibly. Yes, there are areas that need to be addressed. The danger is in over-addressing a particular area for political gain. We need sensible people in representative positions who will listen to and respond to the people whom they represent. I don’t see that happening. I also don’t see the right people running for office. That is another major problem, but given the blood letting I am sure a lot of people aren’t interested in being so abused and so we wind up with garbage running and garbage being elected and we get garbage results.
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Left of a point. You say we have enough laws. I would amend that to say we might have enough laws for one area but not enough for others.
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Agreed.
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I am glad you liked my comment. I will say that for the most part I agree with what you are saying. You see the same thing in the private sector where someone has a position that constantly spits out new ideas and policies, many of which are not really necessary and some which are actually harmful. However they keep spitting them out because they have to justify their position. Or perhaps because they are so focuses on just one narrow area that they fail to see how it is impacting the whole.
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Good conversation. Unfortunately have to run off to not one, but two birthday parties. Will try to think of something profound to write later on….LOL…Have a nice day. Gordon.
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Agreed. Enjoy the parties.
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THOUGHTS OF A POET IN THE RAIN 
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