Civil Liberties

I was reading Frank Rich's "The Greatest Dirty Joke Ever Told"
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: The Greatest Dirty Joke Ever Told
and it got me thinking about something I saw earlier today...

I was searching the Miami Herald archives on a police thing, and ended up reading an employment ad for police officers - and this struck me - in order to become a cop in the city of Miami, you have to provide a notarized affidavit that you do not smoke.

(And I'm not talking about wacky tobaccy...)

It's got me thinking, not only are we shrinking down the things it's politically correct and morally acceptable to say and write, let alone think, but we've got our employers and the government now dictating to us what we can and can not do in our own spare time.

Now I understand the whole "cigarettes are bad for you" thing, but cigarettes are just the beginning...if we let our bosses and our government tell us what is in our best interest - where has democracy gone?

Next thing you know, they'll be testing your cholesterol and firing you for that big mac you scarfed last night.

People should have the freedom to make their own decisions about what is right for them, whether it's drinking, smoking, having sex, or super sizing their fries. This is America.

When "they" started to impose bans on public smoking, I was so surprised to see the media nod their heads and agree, they didn't even put up a feeble hand in protest. There was no big debate about our first amendment rights. Not a peep. By giving up our rights, however inconsequential it may seem (ESPECIALLY UNDER THE GUISE OF BEING IN OUR BEST INTERESTS), we are giving the government a "greenlight" to start imposing their parental control.

We talk about how cable TV has parental settings, don't we realize that the government is parenting us? And the saddest part is we are allowing them to, in fact we are encouraging it.

Sort of takes us back to our voting system, the electoral college was installed because the people in power didn't think the uneducated masses would make informed decisions about the presidency - obviously the people in power today still think so, or they would have went with the popular vote and Al Gore would have been our president. We let them take away the people's choice, we let them take away our cigarettes, we let them start wars to line their pockets, and still we are silent.

It's time to grow up and start thinking for ourselves.