blungld said:
AunBear89 said:
My body, my choice! FREEDOM!"
Except when the government sends you to war to get killed, or a woman is pregnant, or the state decides to execute you, or if you don't want to be around people who pose a threat carrying weapons of menace openly, or if you choose to kneel during the anthem, or don't dress in one of their prescribed ways of gender presentation and then try and use a toilet, or love a person of the same sex and want to use your body to express it, or don't use your mouth to say "Merry Christmas, or really just about anything Republicans want you to do in the name of freedom with their small government that allegedly respects personal liberty.
Blu - I will assume you wrote this post in sincerity since you do come across as very sincere, if sometimes overly passionate. And I respect you enough to try to give you the benefit of the doubt.
With that, I want to better understand why you believe the things above are only what Republicans want or why you think they are about lack of freedom (unless you mean freedom to be the ability to do whatever the hell you want to do whenever you want to do it no matter who it hurts, which I assume you don't).
- "Sending to war." By now, I hope we understand that many (not all) of the wars were started or escalated by Democrats, whether escalation in Afghanistan (started by Bush, supported by both parties, and escalated by Obama), Vietnam war (started by Kennedy and escalated by Johnson as well as Nixon), Korean War (Truman), WWII (FDR), etc. Yes, Iraq was all Bush. Furthermore, we have a volunteer army. And finally, I would assume you don't believe we will have freedom if we do not have a military and sometimes go to war (e.g., Civil War, WWII, Afghanistan when Taliban was sheltering the terrorist who caused 9/11) to protect our freedom. I assume when you say your nice things about our military and say that they protect our freedom, it is not some virtue signalling and that you actually believe that. What do you think the military does to protect the freedom? Just play soldier and dress up? Sometimes you have to go to war to protect the exact freedom you love. How is that a reflection of lack of freedom or a big government? Are you suggesting that we have no military? If we do have a military, what would be the point if they could never go to war? We can debate whether any specific war is the right one, but I would hope you don't believe we can have freedom without sometimes going to war against those who would take those away.
- "Or the state decides to execute you" - I am once again confused on why this is representative of big government or even a matter of freedom. Now, the proper discussion may be whether execution is a cruel and unusual punishment. We can also argue whether we should permit the sanctioned killing of our own people, even if they were found to have committed horrible and unimaginable crimes. We can also argue how death punishment is permanent that cannot be reversed once executed. But dropping that in the context of "freedom" seems odd unless you think no one should even go to jail (which also is a restriction on freedom). I assume you are not suggesting that someone who is rightfully found guilty and was rightfully or wrongfully sentenced to death should be let loose back into society. If you think even someone who raped and murdered children should not be killed, I would agree with you but not because i think it represents big government or infringes on the freedom of the criminal. I would want the person to spend of rest of his life in jail and be deprived of his "Freedom" and spend more government time and money to keep him in jail even if it would be smaller government to kill him and be done with it. That is not based on my belief in smaller or bigger government. That is based on my belief on the fallibility of our justice system and the sanctity of life.
- "Woman is pregnant." I assume you don't think a free nation can be free of all laws intended to protect others. For example, unless you are for complete anarchy, I would assume you would not view a law that prohibits a woman from slaughtering her born child as infringement on her right of privacy no matter how much of a burden the child is to the woman and how much she would love to be free from the child. Yes, she can give it up for adoption, but until she does, she must not abandon it or kill it. A woman who is pregnant can give it up for adoption once it is born. A Siamese twin who want to be free of her sibling is not free to kill her sister. So, it isn't a matter of freedom for the woman. It is a matter of whether the fetus is alive, is it not? Because if you believe that the fetus is alive and a person, then I would assume you would not side in favor of incremental convenience for the woman over the protection of a child's life. We can debate that, but when people just talk about a woman's right on abortion without any debate on whether the fetus is alive, I am as persuaded as when someone refers to woman's right about a mother who killed her kids. And a law that prevents a mother from killing her kids is not something I hope you or anyone thinks is big government or representative of the conservative hypocrisy.
- "Don't want to be around people who pose a threat carrying weapons of menace openly." Let me get this straight. Are you against gun ownership or someone menacing others openly with a gun, because I would think the latter is illegal. Now, if you want to make guns illegal because you feel like it could be used against you, I think there are a lot ways for people to kill others. For many like me who have been training in martial arts and mixed martial arts for decades, we know that it is fairly easy to kill people without guns. Will I ever do it unless absolutely necessary? Of course not. Although I don't own guns, I would assume, even if I had one, I would no more menace people with it than I would about snapping someone's neck. We also know that you can kill people with knives. Now, the question should be what level of gun control is appropriate and what allows mass murder. That should be the focus of the discussion, but lazy discussion on gun control takes it completely off track. Obviously, carrying a bazooka is not OK. Maybe a small gun that you keep locked up in your house in case there is a burglary? I don't but I assume most would be OK with that. Now, there is a lot in between, and that is what we should discuss. I am not in favor of no gun control. I am leaning more towards stricter gun control (mainly because I have never owned a gun and will never own a gun). But I am not trying to make clones of myself or force others to adopt what I believe as one and only. I am respectful of the second amendment (which is a greater protection than the right of privacy used to ban all restriction on abortion). But, again, not sure how freedom to bear arms is big government or restriction on freedom. You seem to want to restrict freedom provided by the second amendment so that you can be free of feeling afraid of guns (which some may argue is irrational - as Boston marathon terrorist act showed, evil, insane people can cause mass murder with or without guns).
- "Kneel during national anthem" - why isn't someone free to kneel? Is there a law prohibiting this? Has Kap gone to jail? I don't think so. Or are you suggesting that people should not be FREE to criticize that action. I personally think he should do what he believes and I support him, but I also support the right of business owners to dictate code of conduct for their employees and for people to have healthy debate on whether that is the appropriate behavior. What part of that is restriction on freedom or big government? If you think those you agree with should be "FREE" from criticism, that seems to be a big government and lack of freedom to me.
- OK one more - "don't dress in one of their prescribed ways of gender presentation and then try and use a toilet" - Again, let me ask you a question. If I were to go into a bathroom that you wife was using, would that be OK with you? How about if some purely innocent 30 year old man uses the same bathroom that a 5 year girl is using? What if the 30 year old man was gay and not transgender but wanted to use the bathroom the same time as your 5 year old daughter. OK, with that? If not, why not? And how does that change depending on whether the "man" identifies as a woman and dresses a certain way? I get that we should have empathy that the transgender person would want to use the restroom corresponding to the gender she associates with. But what about how she feels changes the main basis for why a straight man would not be allowed to use a woman's bathroom while a 5 year old girl was in there? Was that restriction to protect the man or the little girl? I really do want to understand and have my ears wide open because I do trust you are genuine. I want to understand how you would address the other side of the coin.
Having said all that, I am fully in support of requiring people to wear a mask. If not wearing a mask when social distancing is not practical only hurts those not wearing a mask, I could not care less. But if it impacts those who are trying to do the right thing, screw the selfish *****s. We need to get this pandemic under control, and mask wearing seems like a low hanging fruit.
Trolls like Aunbear and Calpoly can feel free to **** off and keep your "snowflake" or other knee jerk responses to yourself. Not interested in your idiocy or discussion with you. Just grown ups.
