Y'know what? You all are! I'm tired of it. I have a plan to end debate on things that don't have answers everyone can live with by giving every man jack of you your dreamworld:
Make it ALL illegal or compulsory. Yeah, that's right. No middle ground. No more gun shows. No more private sales. No same-sex marriages and the traditional sort of wedlockery will be universally required by age 24 but only after careful study of the parties of involved and by gum, if you are not poppin' out babies soon after (but no more than nine months after!), you better have an excuse backed up by doctors. --And doctoring will be completely free but strictly rationed; you get five visits a year, including eye exams and dentistry and if you need more, tough. Also: no divorce. Cowboy up or stifle yourself.
No cover illustrations on magazines and they will all be the same size and use the same three fonts, period. No sweets. No salty stuff. No alcohol. No caffeine. No tofu or red meat. No pork. No hats. Everyone gets a buzzcut haircut every other month, without exception. Voting will be compulsory but there won't be any choices on the ballot. TV and radio will air nothing but weather reports, traffic reports and black and white still shots of bland, inoffensive subjects. The Internet will be strictly censored, text-only, 2400 Baud connections and the computers will be free, plain, and have no mass storage capability.
Everything will be painted with high-quality grey paint. You'll get three outfits a year, all grey, all plain. One pair of canvas shoes, one pair of galoshes and if required for your job, you will be issued work boots. No singing. No whistling. No motorcycles, bicycles or stinky buses. The national speed limit will be 40 miles an hour and all the cars will be horsepower limited -- and painted, yes, grey. If you go over the speed limit or don't wear your seat belt, you get run off the road and summarily executed by the police, who will be required to wear nice blue uniforms, smile and call you "Sir" or "Ma'am." Gum-chewing, gayness, open atheism and/or praying in public? Same penalty. In fact, the same penalty for any offense against the peace: quick, simple and without all that faffing around with courts and attornies. Everything that ever bothered your buddies, neighbors, best enemy and you will be illegal, by gosh, and you can darned well put up with it 'cos it is the very best you're a-gonna get, ever.
Okay? That's the world you're building, one damn brick of "Daddy, make those bad people stop!" at a time. You can either unclench and let all the idiots, heathens, gunnies, preverts and people just like you alone as long as they stay off your lawn and leave you alone, or you can try to police them -- and in the process, build a police state for everyone. You decide; I'm sick and tired of the noise and I've got plenty of books and a place to hide them. I can cope with the rest of it as long as I can read.
21 comments:
My favorite brother was in the Navy, stationed down in Vallejo CA. Submarines. I flew down to see him one time with an Instrument student. Getting directions to his place on the base, I was given a basic direction to his little sub section and then was just told. . "You'll know my house when you see it."
How COULD I? A couple hundred base houses all painted the same color, all owned by the same entity, all maintained in the same manner?
But I knew his. . Out in front was a big pink Flamingo and a huge sign that said "For Sale - By Owner".
He's now a head honcho at Electric Boat. . .so I guess they weren't too pissed off.
Yup, I am a big fan of being left alone. Try not to bother anyone, expect to not be bothered in return.
You're welcome in our underground library any day.
Hmmm. Ever read "Lathe Of Heaven"?
Or watched it!
Lathe of Heaven, Pt. 12
The 'Lathe of Heaven' is exactly what came to mind as I read Roberta's post.
Me, I've been known to wear a big red clown nose on occasion, without special reason.
Just to get the opposite out there, how about making the STATE illegal? Don't run to Big Daddy Gubmint any time somebody wants something or get their shorts in a bowline over what their neighbor's up to. Tell them all, "Sorry, no can do." And make it stick.
Dunno how to do that last.
M
Yeah. As long as you don't intrude on other's business, and don't outright endanger your kids, do whatever the hell you want.
Read!?!?! Well, as long as it's the APPROVED version of the bible, and you read it out loud in church on Sunday's, I guess it'll be okay. But keeping your own secret stash of books? That smells like subversion to me. The firemen are probably already at your door, you know, to burn your books.
hmmm, north Korea...
Or maybe Albania, back when they hated everybody.
Word: Subsases?
it's all big fun until YOUR sacred cow gets gored.
The one thing governments cannot abide is people who want to be left alone. Dangerous subversives!
Lots of people do lots of things of which I disapprove, or just don't suit my tastes. Unless they insist on doing it on my property, or stealing my money to fund it, ain't none of my business. (Obvious exception: harming an innocent.)
And since I live in Maryland, I'm hacked off most of the time. It'll kill me someday (either the high blood pressure of the gov't).
Yay Roberta!
Y'know, I'm startin' to think I may've hit the exact note I was intending to with this'n: the one thing we can all agree on is the right to not be meddled with!
Darned if I know how to codify that any better than the Founders tried to. But it's worth a try.
The problem specifically is that there are a LOT of things that meddle with us. And what meddles with me don't meddle with you. So you think Gay Marriage is fine? Hell, I think Book Burning is fine. Well, no, I don't, but people do. And you can't do a single thing that doesn't piss in someone else's cornflakes. The difference is this: Your shit offends me, vs your shit threatens my existence or the existence of an institution I hold sacred.
The libertarian ideal is just trouble, as I see it, and it looks like it always will be. it sounds nice in theory, but so does communism.
Why do people say that line? Communism does NOT sound nice, even in theory.
And, three fonts? What does anybody need three fonts for?
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need. What doesn't sound nice about that? It's at the basis of a lot of Chrisitanity. Unfortunately it's designed to be voluntary, and not mandatory. When it's mandatory, it's communism. And it sucks. Just like Libertarianism, in practice.
I'm good with that. The question is, how the dickens do we get everyone who wants to live our lives for us to leave us the hell be? Shooting them is a tempting option, but unworkable. :-)
Oh, people say it would be unworkable, I'm not so sure. Has its drawbacks, though.
Og: I got no problem with people burning books. Just so long as they bought 'em, it's no skin off my nose if they choose to use excessively expensive kindling.
I think it's tasteless as all get out, and I won't invite such people to dinner, but trying to regulate things which are merely in poor taste is what's got us where we are now.
wv: "stize", like what's in thy brother's eye whilst one ignores the beam in thine own.
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