Freedom lost ?

[SHOOTALL]

Do you see a law passed as freedom lost ? Do you feel it nessary to lose freedom to feel protected ?

[MGMorden]

In general, yes.  Some freedom has to be restricted as it directly affects the rights/freedom of another, but these restrictions should be carefully weighed and always have a desire to maintain freedom where possible, and not to take it away lightly.

Eg, you don't deserve the freedom to kill someone.  You don't deserve the freedom to walk into someone else's home and take their possessions. 

HOWEVER, I do think that for the most part, our laws have become too restrictive and should really have a review.

Copyright law has gone too far for example.  It's granted corporations an indefinite monopoly at this point to something that once would have become part of our culture.  IMHO copyright should be reduced to 7 years with an option for a ONE TIME extension of an additional 5 years.  Patents much the same.  We've allowed patent applications to be dilute to the point where rather than filing a patent on a specific machine that picks cotton (as you once would have had to do), you can now file a patent on the general concept of a machine picking cotton.  Patents on business methods, software concepts, and mathematical or scientific truths should be completely eliminated.

Other laws that affect only the participants should be dropped entirely - most restrictions on gun ownership, home distillation, personal drug use, prostitution, etc.  All laws based on forced "morality" rather than based on freedom.

Also in particular are the out and out STUPID laws left over on the books.  Plenty of examples over at http://www.dumblaws.com/.
One location in SC still has it on the books that all adult males must bring a rifle to church on Sunday to ward off Indian attacks . . .

Maybe I'm being naive, but I think we could stand to toss out 95% of the laws we have today and start anew.  I'd betting we could have a functioning society where almost all things that most people would want illegal - theft, rape, murder, assault, etc would still be illegal and we could define our laws within 50 pages or less. 

The problem we have today is one of accrued junk in the books.  Most people don't understand that you absolutely cannot legislate away trouble in life.  Even if it's against the law, people will still do bad things.  Rather than simply punish the criminals though, people naively look to legislators to "make sure this doesn't happen again".  It's not a realistic goal, but they'd certainly be happy to give it a try by piling on more and more legislation (hence why we get stupid stuff like wanting to make guns illegal to keep people from committing murder - hoping that just one more law will convince someone not to commit an act this is already illegal). 

When you consider that they've been diligently going through this process for over two centuries, it's no surprise that our society and it's laws have become inundated with useless cruft.

[Pat/Rick]

+1 MGM. No point making new laws when the ones we have are not enforced.

[Old Syko]

I once heard a political humorist state it should be standard practice that before a new law could be put on the books, 2 similar laws would have to be removed.  He was trying to be funny but it was too rational and no one laughed.  Most just shook their heads in agreement.

Yes, any new law is more freedom lost.  And who should I be protected by, government?  Right now I think more people are concerned with protection from government.  If we have to lose freedom to feel protected there is a serious flaw in the system.

[powderman]

+1 MGM. No point making new laws when the ones we have are not enforced.

YEP. A  VERY large percentage of the laws on the books are totally ridiculous. Murder would still be illegal, including killing babies. POWDERMAN. 

[teamnelson]

Do you see a law passed as freedom lost ? Do you feel it nessary to lose freedom to feel protected ?

Yes to the first; No to the latter. As a matter of fact, most of the newer legislation leaves me feeling less and less protected ... from my government, and from those for whom the law means nothing. I think part of the issue is we are no longer willing to accept a plain statement at face value. Everything is subject to interpretation, so new laws have to be articulated to address all possible interpretations until a new one comes along. This is not a new problem ... the 10 commandments have been a matter of debate for a few thousand years now. They seem plainly enough stated, but few are willing to apply them simply, so there are literally thousands of linear feet of book having to explain 10 plain sentences.

Also, the liberal notion of legislating social responsibility has got to stop. A good citizen will help his neighbor, and does not need to be taxed to fund welfare programs, most of which have such a high overhead that only a small percentage actually winds up helping the neighbor. A good citizen will ensure his children are educated, and does not need to be taxed to fund programs ... A good citizen will provide and protect for his family, and does not need to be taxed to fund programs ... And the bad citizens? Well lacking the protection of the state, they will be more prone to suffer the consequences of their decisions, which is their right in a free society. Everyone should be afforded the legal protection to fail as well as suceed.

[Hooker]

TeamNelson right on target

Pat

[jimster]

Most all of our laws are just laws piled up on top of other laws that are not enforced, mostly just to make people feel like something was done after a crises of some sort.  Like there is already a law that says you can't murder someone, so they add a bunch of laws on top of that, like what you used to muder them with, or now even what you were thinking when you murdered them.  Way too many laws all piled up on top of each other just to make people feel good and give our legislators something to do I guess.  You could cancel most all the laws that were passed over the last few decades and still have plenty in place to do the main job.

So yes...more laws are a loss of freedom. Protection is not guaranteed to any "individual" from any police force per the courts, so logically, none of us should feel protected no matter what laws they pass. That is something each person has to do on their own if they want to.

TeamNelson....hit the nail on the head again concerning a wide range of legislation coming our way, you can't legislate responsibility or basic morals, you would think they would have figured this out after several thousand pages of legislation that caused the opposite to happen.

[powderman]

TEAMNELSON. Good  post, all true. Gods commandments covered it all. POWDERMAN.