• I don’t know if you any of you watch road to america: freedom to fascism. but I am thinking about getting my driving permit and then license. But are licenses really ethical ( not Jenn’s definition  :wink: lol) Also all these regulations and arbritary laws that we must follow what are they good for expect restricting freedom? I guess why does anyone have the right to regulate us and strip our freedoms in today’s society, is it really a necessary price. so I want the ethicalness and morality of system of society to be disscussed. not for it to go political with the patriot act is running us, Osama bin laden wants you to think that, and so on.

    edit: i guess the main theme of this topic would be things that our society just accepts but shouldn’t. like being subjected to random drink and drive testing and the baning of alcohol on Sunday but not the other days.

  • 2007 AAR League

    cops should not be able to just stop people at checkpoints. thats super unconstitutional in my  opinion.

    if they find nothing they had no damn reason to invade your privacy, and whats even worse, is they treat everyone as a suspect in those checkpoints, thats way messed up and anti american in practice.


  • Driving is not a right, it is a privilege. There are other means of transportation. Therefore state governments have the ability to establish regulations on driving. Plus there is the obvious benefit of keeping incompetent drivers off the road, or if they do go on the road, they will be severely penalized for not having a license.

    The federal government, however, is restricted by the 10th amendment, and therefore most of the legislation they pass is actually unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the American people are too lazy and ignorant to stop congress from their gross misconduct. Apparently, American Idol is more important than the systematic theft of the liberties my brothers and I fight so hard to protect.

  • '19 Moderator

    @cyan:

    baning of alcohol on Sunday but not the other days.

    Where are you from?


  • @dezrtfish:

    @cyan:

    baning of alcohol on Sunday but not the other days.

    Where are you from?

    I don’t know where he is from but where I’m from on the border of Ohio and West Virginia you can not purchase spiritous liquors or wine on Sunday. Restauraunts may serve them but the ‘state store’ has the day off. Beer is available every day of the week.


  • @balungaloaf:

    cops should not be able to just stop people at checkpoints. thats super unconstitutional in my  opinion.

    if they find nothing they had no damn reason to invade your privacy, and whats even worse, is they treat everyone as a suspect in those checkpoints, thats way messed up and anti american in practice.

    I agree with this.

    @M36:

    Driving is not a right, it is a privilege. There are other means of transportation. Therefore state governments have the ability to establish regulations on driving. Plus there is the obvious benefit of keeping incompetent drivers off the road, or if they do go on the road, they will be severely penalized for not having a license.

    I was going to say this too, but there still should be limitations on what can be done.  I guess we just allow it, as you say later on.

    @frimmel:

    @dezrtfish:

    @cyan:

    baning of alcohol on Sunday but not the other days.

    Where are you from?

    I don’t know where he is from but where I’m from on the border of Ohio and West Virginia you can not purchase spiritous liquors or wine on Sunday. Restauraunts may serve them but the ‘state store’ has the day off. Beer is available every day of the week.

    Here in Lexington, KY, we had no alcohol sales on Sunday for years, at least until this past December.  There was a huge religious campaign against allowing alcohol sales on Sunday, but thankfully it didn’t work.  There is still some criticism of the new law, but since it did change for the better (IMO), it’s not something to worry too much about right now.  What was funny is that here also, restaurants and hotels could serve alcohol on Sunday, but I couldn’t buy it anywhere else.  I’m sure there was a different type of influence in that decision.

    I don’t understand it really, why alcohol shouldn’t be sold on Sundays.  If you don’t think you should drink, don’t do it.  Why not all days, if you feel that way?  Either way, it’s my choice whether to drink or not, not someone else’s.

    BTW, if you can die for your country at 18, you should be able to drink to it as well.  But I also believe you should be able to smoke to it too…

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    First:  Anyone who thinks they live in the land of the free or thinks they have liberty in this nation is wrong.  We are not as legislated as other nations, but we are hardly free any longer.

    Second: permits for driving is ethical because it can be used to prevent those who are mentally, physically, emotionally or too unstable psychologically from becoming a threat to the lives of other citizens.

    One car controlled by an unqualified driver can threaten dozens of lives easily. (Think a mini-van packed with a soccer team and a soccer mom going to the game.)

    So just looking at what situation would engender the greatest good or the greatest happiness: having permits you have to earn, or just giving everyone the permission; it is easy to tell that permits are the greater good and thus more ethical.

    However, I am not saying that just giving everyone the permission to drive is unethical.  I am just arguing that it is MORE ethical to have a state or local commission regulate the privilege of driving.


  • South Carolina:  NO alcohol sales on Sunday
    North Carolina:  No alcohol sales before noon on Sundays

    THe above applies to ALL businesses.

    They are holdover “blue laws” from the last great Theocratic push in this nation, the 1950’s.

    Unfortunately I have to agree with Jen…  True liberty in this nation is a fiction.  Government control of both finances and actions have stripped any but the most minuscule freedoms from each and every one of us.


  • What would you propose we do about our state of slavery then?


  • Vote the bums out.  Vote out every single politician that has voted for pork, or programs, or whatever beyond the strict limits of Article 1, Section 8.

    The problem is that I do not think there are enough folks left that CARE.

    And that leaves us with an Atlas Shrugged solution… let the whole thing fail, and let a small cadre of devoted people rebuild in the ashes…


  • @ncscswitch:

    Vote the bums out.  Vote out every single politician that has voted for pork, or programs, or whatever beyond the strict limits of Article 1, Section 8.

    I agree. But who does that leave, seriously?

    I think that by and large “we the people” still care a great deal. Certainly well beyond our means to easily change things. If we can no longer find politicians ready and willing to make the changes that need to happen then we have been essentially sidelined from the democratic process. It’s no longer “we the people” collectively as in government representing the constituents. Government and people have become “us and them”, a breakdown of the wealthy elite and the rest. The haves and the have not’s.

    We could take to the streets like was done in the 60’s and 70’s and maybe that’s really what needs to happen. But in this day and age I just can’t see that happening. We face a modern quandary. This is an age of technological distraction. 200+ channels on the tv, cell phones, internet, home game systems, and so on. Actually the internet has a positive effect in all of this though because it is one of the few places you can still find information that has not been filtered through the slanderous bias of “big media”. But unfortunately most people don’t read. Far too many weak minded individual just stare at the “glowing little box” all day and let the “glowing little box” hand their opinions to them (inbetween mind numbing doses of ET and American Idol). So they don’t know. Therefore they don’t care.

    So the quandry is the youth of the nation, who has historically been the ones to take things to the streets, has become distracted and hooked on technology of the age. Most seem more wrapped up “things” rather than ideals, such important fundamental ideals such as democracy and freedom. As long as they have access to cell phones, a nintendo wii and a myspace account and a microwave dinner well, they’re more or less complacent. They’re not taking to the streets, and it’s not really their fault. They’ve been bought off by the system and a future of status quo.

    The quandary for the non-youth (like you and I) is that we know very well the importance of the ideals like freedom and democracy. We can plainly can see what’s going on and what’s being lost. We see something must be done and must be done now. But what? Who to vote for? Because other than the vote… where to go and what do do? We’re not taking it to the streets either because we’ve been distracted in an entirely different way. Hell we gotta be at work tomorrow! So it’s not really our fault either. We’ve been integrated into the system of a future status quo.

    So I think the single biggest problem is there isn’t a true representation of “we the people” in government anymore. There aren’t any political choices left to make the changes that need to be made. I’m not taking about this or that particular stance, program or funding. I’m talking about the fundamental principles of democracy. Like Habeas Corpus! We’re all outraged that this true pillar of democracy has been quietly removed at the sole discretion of the president in the name of “war on terror”. With terror being merely a concept also subject to the sole interpretation of the president. So sad really.

    We the people are outraged yet again but there isn’t a single damn politician to be found willing to do anything about it. The Dems got marginal control of Congress and spent weeks and weeks barking up the Scooter Libby tree, and the Alberto Gonzales tree. Neither were the top level instigators themselves to the crimes of course. But what happened? Libby got pardoned immediately and Gonzales quietly resigned while Congress was on break. And that was that. No investigative follow up the food chain like should have been done. And not even a single consequence for those blowing off Congressional subpoenas. Just sigh nothing.

    The people care, there just aren’t any politicians left who care. Government has become the embodiment of status quo. Politicians run on their touted platforms of health care and economic recovery and it’s all completely abstract to them. They don’t face unemployment or realistic economic woes. They have no worries about how to pay for their health care or the consequences of Asian outsourcing. They’ve become too far removed from we the people to even remotely rationalize a true representation of what it is to be an American citizen.

    And if there are no politicians left to make the changes, to let us make the changes we want to see made through them… then this system of democratic representation has become a farce, a charade, just a quaint antiquated idea who’s time has come and gone. The only other option is taking it to the streets and unfortunately I just can’t see that happening anymore in this day and age.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @ncscswitch:

    Unfortunately I have to agree with Jen…

    I don’t find it unfortunate at all to have you agree with me. :P

    Look, in the 1900-1920s we had a religious upheaval in this nation.  This is why we had prohibition, red light districts were closed, etc.  A lot of these programs and policies are STILL IN PLACE!

    I’m for complete and total autonomy provided you do not infringe on the inalienable rights of other US Citizens.

    That would preclude things like Murder, Theft, etc.  Since the original inalienable rights were Life, Liberty and Poverty.

    That would allow things like Prostitution (a victimless crime, or, if there is a victim, it’s men and they chose to be victimized), purchase of firearms or spirits on Sundays, etc.


  • Was that a deliberate mis-phrasing on those inalienable rights?  Or a Freudian Slip?  :-P

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I’d love to say I said that on purpose, but it was an accident. :(

    It’s life, liberty and property, not poverty.


  • LOL!  One more try perhaps?

    Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness (aka PROSPERITY!)

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    No.  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was what the founders of this nation wrote.

    Life, Liberty and Property were the rights that were originally determined to be inalienable because they were not given to us by man but by some other force, whether that be a higher power, nature, or whatever.

    The phrase is based on the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of “life, liberty, and estate (or property)”. Locke said that “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

    I do believe John Locke wrote this before Thomas Jefferson adopted it when he wrote the Declaration of Independence and changed the phrase to “pursuit of happiness.”

  • Moderator

    Yes this is true… From Locke’s “2 Treatises on Civil Government”.

    If I understand right Jefferson changed it because Locke was strictly referring to property and not to the broadened definition that Jefferson Believed the New American Republic was fighting for (what would eventually become our Bill of Rights), which included Property…

    GG

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