The not so slow Decline of Personal Freedom

Minnesota has now has the distinction of being the 20th State in this once great Union to succumb to the anti-smoker demagogues and erode our personal freedoms to an even further degree than they already have.

Now I'm not even a smoker, but it seems to me that we are well on the way to becoming a society where every single action we take must be reviewed, processed and deemed safe or unsafe by Doctors who are paid to say that by whatever special interest groups have purchased them for the day. In that regard Doctors are now politicians by default, serving the good of the public indeed! But that's another topic for another time. When I have a group of angry mini van mothers telling me what I can and cannot do with my life, I will have some very serious issues to deal with. Like how many guns will I need to have at my compound to keep the crazy health nuts out.

Another issue with this horrible regression of our freedom is the fact that it takes away the choice bar and restaurant owners have in whether or not they choose to allow smoking in their particular establishment. Say I was the one bar owner in the Twin Cities who didn't allow smoking. I would be pissed off that the state was monopolizing my idea and effectively taking away my uniqueness so as to please the lovers of all things government controlled and inefficient.

It also behooves me to mention that our fine government is now paying bars to build "smoking rooms". So our tax money is going to fund things that were completely unnecessary until the government decided that people couldn't be left to make their own decisions.

I could write a lot more on this subject but it would all amount to the same thing. The regulation of personal freedoms and business owners choice is completely and utterly moronic not to mention against everything this great nation stands for. People can, and always have, freely made up their own minds on whether or not they wanted to go to a smoky bar or one that was smoke free. Or to work in a business or place of business where they would not be exposed to that. What changed recently that has caused us to lose the right of thinking for ourselves?

People and Cable

Ok, so people in general make me angry, now that we have that out in the open, there has been one thing lately which is absolutely driving me up the wall, to the point of obsession actually. That issue believe it or not, is cable T.V. don't get me wrong here I love my cable T.V. not enough however to jeopordize my financial future or endure endless collection calls because I refuse to pay other bills just so I can watch my beloved cable T.V.

Now maybe you think I'm making this up, let me assure you I am not. I am fortunate enough to get to talk to these wonderful people every day. Lately I've been in a shitty mood, so I've been asking them difficult questions. Like what their monthly income is, then what the must pay expenses are in their lifes, thinking that this would prompt things like, rent/mortgage, gas, electric, food. That sort of thing, but you know what the only thing people can't really get by without... CABLE T.V.

That to me is so blatantly irresponsible and pathetic it's borderline retarded. How can you justify paying 40 dollars a month so you can watch CSI reruns 900 times weekly when you can't even make an attempt at a payment on your credit card, which loaned you thousands of dollars. It's theft for Christ's sake!

And heaven forbid you mention that maybe a way they could cut down on expenses would be to get rid of the cable T.V. for a couple of weeks and go with the old fashioned regular channels. Or heaven forbid get a library card FOR FREE and get books from the library to read, which also happen to be FREE. If you so much as imply that they could do without cable, these kindly old souls will rip your head off and chew on the bloody stump that is your neck. It's unreal, I can compare it very literally to seeing someone with turrets. You can make the most innocent of comments, like "wow, you can pay your cable bill but not the credit cards" and they suddenly start spewing obscenities that would make the most avid fan of cursing cringe.

The other genuinely sad part of this is that these people who are most upset about the prospect of not having cable T.V. are part of the fabled greatest generation. The responsible builders of todays society have in there old age taken to running up credit debt and not paying any of it. I think that we do owe these folks a fair share of thanks. Which we give them in SSI and other programs that certaintly won't be available for my generation due to horrid mess we have made out of Social Security and medicare/aid. So one would think, that this greatest generation would have no problem sacrificing the cable T.V. so they could pay actual debts.