Pubdate: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 Source: Cold Lake Sun, The (CN AB) Copyright: 2004 The Cold Lake Sun Contact: http://www.coldlakesun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1421 Author: Chris Miller, editor Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) PERSONAL FREEDOMS The law says children aged zero to 17 must wear bike helmets. Regardless of our age, we must wear seatbelts. With few exceptions, you cannot smoke in a Cold Lake restaurant. I am morally opposed to any legislation that dictates what is right and wrong, laws that attempt to protect me from myself. Even today's drug laws infringe on our personal rights. While I believe that taking drugs is a stupid way to spend your evening, since I don't have any legal claim on you, my opinion shouldn't matter. Your taking drugs in the privacy of your own home doesn't infringe on my property rights. After all, I think playing basketball and collecting postage stamps are stupid, too. But those are decisions I can make only for myself. Despite continual subjection to claims about the evils of tobacco, for example, or the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt, I am being told that I am too incompetent to make up my own mind about these things. Unfortunately, we take such insults on a daily basis. What disturbs me the most is that so few others seem to acknowledge how insulting all this is! Soon the world will be filled with nothing but fools, politically correct non-thinkers, everybody having the exact same views on lifestyles, politics, abortion, homosexuality, religion, war, music, anything and everything. If you want to teach your children something of value, teach them about freedom, not censorship. Persuasion, not regulation, are the primary social values that we ought to choose to pass on to our children ... whether they smoke or not, whether they do drugs or not, whether they wear a bike helmet or not. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin