What personal freedom is next?

[Doc]

So any possibility of anyone ever making a "poor" decision needs to be completely outlawed? People can OD on aspirin, therefore aspirin needs be to banned. Knives can, accidently or otherwise, hurt people so they should be banned as well. Gambling has destroyed thousands of families - ban it too! And so on.

Our society needs to stop thinking that the world can be made perfect by passing more and more laws and having more and more of our lives regulated. We need to stop sacrificing personal freedoms (in other words, our right to make choices) for what bad things "could happen". The world never has and never will be perfect - bad things are always going to happen. Bureaucratic donkeys placing personal choice on the sacrifical altar to pull the wool over everyone's eyes isn't the answer.
A general comment on the thread:
This decision was pathetic for a number of reasons. Saying "It is just about pot!" is just as wrong as saying "It is just about states' rights!". It's about about both issues. It is equally as wrong that honestly sick people are being denied legitimate medication merely because a bunch of moralists have decided that pot is evil and also that the federal government is squishing the last remnants of states' rights.

I don't fully agree with Doc, but he certainly makes a couple good points. One party basically controls our entire government now. Lobbyists are movingly closer and closer to controlling our entire national agenda. A few politcal families have seized a large percentage of the political clout in this country. I don't believe that "Empire" is the correct term, but I certainly believe that we're not heading in the right direction here.
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You don't fully agree with me... yet.

Give it time. One day, you will. Now, or later, either way, no worries on my part.

BTW, the Patriot Act is undergoing it's third revision. If rumour is to be believed, it will gived GWB a few extra terms in office to complete his work on the war on terror. He has a full Republican majority backing him, and a senate full of hawks.

Rumours are not always to be believed, but this is worrying. Alarming even, when one thinks of the implications.

This old man does not like which way the wind is blowing.