Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
[M]y husband and I were strolling through the city and realized we were going to be late for a gathering, so we hopped in a cab and had a very interesting chat with the driver, an Afghani (is that correct?) who has lived here for 30 years, raised a family and so forth. In talking about the advantages of working for oneself, he said he had not yet felt the pinch of the bad economy, but he expected he would, sooner or later. Then he complained that America was “no longer a democracy.”
I asked him what he meant by that and he said, “this country used to be about freedom. You work, you pay your taxes, and you are left alone to live your life. That was freedom. Now America is all about little laws, I am being nagged to death with the little laws. I work on cars like a hobby. I always keep my cab covered, out of regard for my neighbors. Then I am told, ‘you’re not allowed to cover your car’, I think because they wonder what is under it. So I don’t cover it, and then I get told it must come off the street because it is an eyesore, but I am not allowed to cover it.”
“Yeah, those little laws,” I teased, “Chesterton said, ‘When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom. You do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.’ ”
“But I am not breaking any laws!” he said, “I do nothing but work and work and I work very hard, and I feel like every day America is finding new laws, more laws, and no matter how much I want to just live my life and keep to myself, America is making so many laws that we all cannot just live anymore, now we have to always answer to someone. I don’t like it.”
“No, I can’t say I like it much, either,” I agreed.
But the little laws are costless, we think. We must think this sometimes at some level, otherwise, would it be such a simple matter to create a society so full of the little laws?
Costless. Affordable. But are they?
Of course, as our government steals more and more of the wealth from its own citizens, we’re seeing that the responsibilites that the government is entrusted with are being breached. If we’re going to have a fascist government, they’re at least supposed to keep us safe, right?
Yeah, not quite.
Just look at Contra Costa County in California, where certain criminals are no longer going to be prosecuted.
Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.
District Attorney Robert Kochly also said that beginning May 4, his office will no longer prosecute felony drug cases involving smaller amounts of narcotics. That means anyone caught with less than a gram of methamphetamine or cocaine, less than 0.5 grams of heroin and fewer than five pills of ecstasy, OxyContin or Vicodin won’t be charged.
People who are suspected of misdemeanor drug crimes, break minor traffic laws, shoplift, trespass or commit misdemeanor vandalism will also be in the clear. Those crimes won’t be prosecuted, either.
Jeremy Clarkson, host of BBC’s Top Gear, rules himself out of consideration for the job of Prime Minister of the UK…with some interesting words that dovetail nicely into this topic overall:
He ruled himself out of Downing Street when asked at the Hay Festival in Powys about a 1,000-strong Facebook group calling for him to get his job.
He talked of his loathing for health and safety rules and bureaucracy.
The broadcaster said the government should be in charge of “building park benches and nothing else”.
This is a country in which you’re supposed to have a license to watch the “telly”…the equivalent of 300 USD, I understand, per year…and then they have some goo-gooder nanny-constables knocking on the door of your “flat” looking for television sets so they can enforce this. The English need a Prime Minister Clarkson; it would do ’em some good. I see them as the nicely-poached frog floating belly-side up in the pot of boiling water. That Spirit of 1776 that compelled us to sever the bonds, out of protest of taxation-without-representation — it is a regional thing. It is the absence of something-else, like the dark or the cold, but it is something more than that, I think. It is a recalcitrant refusal to co-exist with the invading nanny-state that insists your kids have to wear helmets and elbow pads on a swing set.
The “little laws” of the nanny-state, in turn, constitute a recalcitrant refusal to co-exist with common sense. Before you know it, you’ve blown so much time & money on the fancy cupholder and seatwarmers that you can’t afford to make the engine run. You’re letting criminals out of jail — so that you tell people what to eat and how to live.
Make sure the good guys win and the bad guys lose…maintain some police stations, fire halls, and maybe Jeremy’s precious park benches…and that is it.
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[…] to back up what Steyn was saying; I did find some. His point was this: “little laws,” like our leviathan of a health care act that has just made it past both floors of our […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/24/2009 @ 10:01[…] Issues on which liberty is more harmoniously aligned with order, and against chaos. 1. Abortion, from the perspective of the baby; 2. Gay marriage, from the perspective of the church getting sued; 3. Minimum wage; 4. CAFE standards; 5. Religious expression around or near a school; 6. Gun control versus freedom to self-defend; 7. School vouchers; 8. Progressive income tax policy; 9. Punishing the Boy Scouts for not admitting gay scouts; 10. Sexual harassment and hostile work environment litigation; 11. ADA abuse; 12. Strange bizarre union rules; 13. Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution; 14. Environmental issues; 15. All the “little laws.” […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/05/2013 @ 06:13[…] do. And the NorCal culture is busy & thick with it. We have a culture that is friendly to the little laws; it comes easy to us to complain that such-and-such is happening, unregulated and we need […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 03/22/2014 @ 09:59