For What It's Worth » government

17 Ridiculous Laws

Rick — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:02:04 +0000

From The Huffington Post, here are 17 Ridiculous Laws Still On The Books:

Missouri — It is illegal to drive with an uncaged bear.
Maine — It is illegal to have Christmas decorations up after January 14th.
New Jersey — It is illegal to wear a bulletproof vest while committing a murder.
Nevada — It is illegal for a man to buy drinks for more than three people at a time.
Wisconsin — It is illegal to server butter substitutes in state prisons.
New Jersey — Once convicted of drunk driving you may never again have personalized plates.
North Dakota — Beer and pretzels cannot be served at the same time in any bar or restaurant.
Alaska — Waking a sleeping bear for a photo opportunity is strictly forbidden.
Connecticut — A pickle is not officially a pickle unless it bounces.
South Carolina — You must be 18 years of age to play a pinball machine.
Michigan — Anyone over the age of 12 may own a handgun as long as he/she has not committed a felony.
Idaho — It is illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
North Carolina — Bingo games can’t last longer than five hours.
Connecticut — It is illegal to walk across the street on your hands.
Louisiana — There is a $500 fine for instructing a pizza delivery man to deliver a pizza to a friend unknowingly.
Ohio — It is illegal to get a fish drunk.
Arizona — It is illegal to own more than two dildos.

As an Ohio resident, I’m suddenly very concerned about the drunken fish problem.

For what it’s worth…

It’s so stupid, it might just work

Rick — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:18:54 +0000

Facebook poll: Can the USA spend its way out of debt?

It makes about as much sense as keeping your virginity by having sex, protecting our children from child pornography by making them child pornographers, preserving freedom by curtailing civil liberties and Constitutional rights, and the ever popular concept of picking up a turd by the clean end. There are those in the government and elsewhere who sincerely believe all of these things can be done. And, of course, the time-honored American solution to any problem is to throw money at it. It’s so stupid, it might just work.

For what it’s worth…

Uncle Sam’s Throbbing Military

Rick — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:38:25 +0000

I love the analogy and it makes a good point. I’m a veteran and I fully support our troops and appreciate the hell they go through. My beef has always been with those who decide national policy and put our troops in harm’s way. I had issues with that when I, too, was an instrument of national policy.

Teddy Roosevelt is famous for saying, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Somewhere along the line, either during WWII or shortly thereafter when we discovered we were a super power, it got translated to "Boast loudly and swing a big dick." As a nation, WWII took us through puberty and into adolescence. We have yet to reach adulthood. We haven’t matured as a nation.

For what it’s worth…

Technorati Tags: freedom,liberty,military,Uncle Sam

God in School?

Rick — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:12:33 +0000

Should we put God back in schools?

That’s an interesting question since the Supreme Court erred in its decision to ban school. prayer. The First Amendment expressly PROHIBITS federal interference in the free expression of religion. Students have a constitutional right to pray anywhere they want. Regarding freedom of religion and separation of church and state, the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (The emphasis is mine.)

Did God ever really leave? Students, teachers, school nurses, administrators, cooks, janitors and everyone else in a public school, have always been free to bring God into the school. Any student is free to read from The Bible, The Koran, or any other religious text or publication at lunch or in a study hall. The school, by the Constitution, is prohibited from interfering with the free expression of religion.

Losing my faith

Rick — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:42:49 +0000

I’m not a conservative nor am I a liberal. I’m not even middle of the road. I don’t claim to be a Democrat, a Republican, or a Libertarian. So, what am I politically? I am disillusioned and I have lost faith in my government in every aspect, save one. I do have complete faith in their ability to fuck up a wet dream.

Though it survived many trials, some that would have destroyed most nations, and has triumphed over incredible odds, today I can’t help but think the great American experiment in democracy has fallen far short of the dream our founding fathers had for it. Partisan politics, corruption, greed, special interests, monolithic bureaucracies, and overall incompetence are destroying that dream from within. Where is the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” that Lincoln spoke of? It has become the government of, by, and for the corporations and special interests.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” — Abraham Lincoln

Meanwhile, the rights of the citizenry continue to be eroded and government agencies operate outside their charters with virtually no oversight, all in the name of protecting us from the evil specter of terrorism. In essence, we have done what Benjamin Franklin advised against. We have traded liberty for the promise of security.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin

“The natural process of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” — Thomas Jefferson

I would rather have liberty than false security. I would rather be free than live in fear because you can not be free when you live in fear, be it in fear of terrorists or in fear of your own government. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson stated, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” Did we really consent to this government? Do we have the very government our founding fathers warned us about?

I had high hopes for an Obama presidency, hopes for a refreshing change in direction for the nation but those hopes are fading. To date, little has changed. Maybe President Obama will come through in the next three years but I’m feeling very pessimistic that there will be any significant changes before 2012.

Here’s your challenge, Mr. Obama. Surprise me and restore my faith in the ideal of American democracy. Restore the Constitution, make it a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” once again, and restore our respect and credibility in the world community. I realize it’s a tall order Are you up to it, Mr. President?

Big Brother

Rick — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:32:29 +0000

Quote of the day: I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. — Thomas Jefferson

Song of the day: For What It’s Worth
Artist: Buffalo Springfield
Album: Buffalo Springfield
Released: 1967

George Orwell’s 1984 wasn’t too far off. Big Brother is watching us, especially in the post-9/11 paranoid regime of King George. I have yet to see any sign that the presence of Big Brother has diminished under new leadership nor that it will. The government, at all levels, has massive amounts of information on all of us. There are surveillance cameras everywhere, watching us as we shop, do our banking, and buy gas. More and more intersections have cameras to catch us speeding or running a light. In the future, surveillance will become ubiquitous, so common that we’ll hardly notice it.

Presently, our only saving grace is that the various databases and surveillance devices and the agencies who operate them, don’t talk to each other. But it’s only a matter of time before they do. As technology advances, it will become cheaper and easier to connect all of these disparate systems. And as they are networked, there will be more inter-agency cooperation and more government agencies will be combined under one umbrella. King George started the ball rolling with the Department of Homeland Security. Although presently a cumbersome and inefficient monolithic conglomeration of once semi-efficient organizations, with the aid of advancing technology, it will expand and become more powerful and obtrusive. That’s the nature of bureaucracies.

For what it’s worth…

It’s all about the profits

Rick — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:07:27 +0000

This morning I saw a minute or so of Mike Huckabee jabbering about healthcare reform and how the poor pharmaceutical companies won’t be able to recoup their R&D costs or have any incentive to develop new products under a government-run universal healthcare plan. That’s when it dawned on me why we don’t have universal health coverage or alternative energy — there’s no profit in them! If the industries that control Congress were able to generate obscenely huge profits from these endeavors, we’d have them tomorrow. In America, it’s all about profit and the bottom line. It’s unAmerican to do something for the greater good or for the benefit of mankind simply because it’s the right thing to do. There must be revenue and profit. Any benefits to the citizenry or mankind in general are purely coincidental.

For what it’s worth…

Banned in ‘Bama

Rick — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:40:02 +0000

Alabama joins Michigan in censoring/banning nudity on labels for alcoholic beverages. Just what is the connection between nudity and alcohol that seemingly makes the two incompatible?

The Alabama Beverage Control Board has deemed that an art poster from 1895 is pornographic, forcing distributors to remove a wine bearing its image from stores across the state. The offending label carries a reproduction of an art poster done in 1895 by an unknown Parisian artist introducing the Cycles Gladiator bicycle. The poster depicts a nude woman with flowing red hair essentially flying through space with a bicycle.

The ABC claims the issue is that the label was not approved by the board. However, Hahn Family Wines of Napa Valley, California, producer of the wine, claims that the board did approve the label in 2006 and has been selling the wine in all 50 states and around the world without complaints. They’re dutifully pulling their product from Alabama shelves and are contemplating whether to change the label for wine sold in Alabama or not sell it in the state at all. They only sell about 500 cases a year in Alabama. As Bill Leigon, president of Hahn Family Wines, points out, “It’s still available in the other 49 states.”

The article is here.

Repression in a recession

Rick — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:28:26 +0000

This is just a casual observation but have you ever noticed that in times of austerity and recession, governments tend to become more repressive, focusing already limited and stretched resources on matters that really don’t matter at all? This seems especially true of state and local governments. Again, just an observation, for what it’s worth.

Communism and Capitalism

Rick — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:19:00 +0000

I have an observation, which may or may not be accurate, about Communism and Capitalism.

Soviet Communism collapsed under its own weight. American Capitalism is now collapsing under the weight of its own avarice. Neither economic system can sustain itself in the long term. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle, a mix of free market and socialism.

For what it’s worth…