Oops, sorry I'm late. I think whoever I steal my home Internet connection from is still out of town for the holidays, and I've been too busy at work to respond. Now I’ve relocated to a coffee shop where wireless is easier to steal.
I think, fundamentally, we all agree on these issues. Obviously, no one wants the government to have more control over our personal lives and decisions, but none of us want to live next to the militia man who hoards rocket launchers he gets at gun shows and has a weird, nervous tic whenever you greet him from across your front lawn. How are you going to tell a guy like that to keep his dog from shitting in your yard? I think that if any of us were “into” guns (collecting, using for protection, hunting, whatever), we would have stronger and more clear-cut opinions on what the government can tell us and what is a reasonable limit. I don't know how much better my chances of surviving would be if I was mowed down with a machine gun or if I simply had a pistol unloaded into me, but then, if someone really wanted to kill/maim/rob/violate me, they could just club me over the head with a tree branch. Wherever you draw the line, if you draw a line at all, it's going to seem arbitrary to some people. Personally, I have a problem with limiting any type of previously allowed freedom. For example, although I'm a non-smoker, I have consistently voted against any type of smoking bans, but I’m thrilled when they pass without me. I hate inhaling other people's cancer and stinking like an ashtray, but it doesn't seem like a good solution to take away the legal right to smoke. (I would, however, have supported providing incentives to businesses for choosing to install better air conditioning and circulation systems or to ban smoking on their own premises. That way, it's the choice of individual businesses and not a requirement passed down from the Powers That Be.) I don't see a nationwide weapons ban happening anytime soon, and I'm not sure I would support it if it did. Actually, I think something like Florida's 10-20-Life rule makes more sense. I'm not totally familiar with this, but I believe that they add time to your normal sentence if your crime was committed with a gun, depending on how many offenses you've had. That punishes people who use guns to bad ends, but not people who simply own them for whatever reason.
Also, super-kudos to Glenn for bringing up the responsibility of a people to revolt against an oppressive government as a last resort. Citizens are responsible for keeping their government in line. Additionally, no one is ever too poor to move, even to another country. Poverty-stricken people have been immigrating (legally or illegally) to America and other countries for centuries. You may not be able to enjoy the level of comfort you’ve become accustomed to, but that’s certainly no excuse.
Gay marriage? Of course I think gay people should be able to get married and have the same rights and responsibilities as married straight couples, including the title of marriage. The law doesn’t discriminate if people were married in the church or the courthouse, or even if they were common-law married after living together, as long as they have a valid marriage license. So why should it matter if that couple is the “traditional” one-person-who-defines-herself-as-a-female and one-person-who-defines-himself-as-a-male? There are something like 5 different factors that determine the sex of an individual, and you can’t always tell from looking at him or her what (if either) sex he or she is (I also think we need a gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun in English, like the French “on”). So the only argument that can be made against this is one about the gender of a person; and who freaking cares what gender another person defines him or herself as? As long as the partner understands, accepts, loves, and can tolerate marriage with that person, let’s allow it. After all, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. Let’s not squelch that. I don’t believe, however, that churches should be forced to perform gay marriage ceremonies by the government. I strongly support all separation of church and state and, just as I would like someone else’s church to stay out of my government, I would not impose my government on someone’s church. That decision should be up to each denomination, decided through whatever committees make those decisions. However, our civil servants who can perform non-religious marriage ceremonies should be required to perform gay marriages if asked because their power comes directly from the government. I believe personal freedoms, especially of this nature, promote peace and well being. To quote the T-shirt worn by one of the singing bartenders at the gay cowboy bar I went to last month, “Make awkward sexual advances, not war.” I would quote the other bartender’s shirt, but he wasn’t wearing one.
What was the other issue? Ah, assisted suicide. Along with the personal freedoms theme I’ve tried to promote thus far, I obviously am fine with this. However, here I actually have anecdotal experience that led me to support this before I thought too much about government interference in individual lives. In high school, I dated a guy who had cancer when we were in middle school. He went through chemo and the whole nine yards and hit his 5-years-in-remission milestone while we were dating. Overall, the guy was an ass, but he did teach me a little about the importance of attitude and how it affects quality of life. While he was in the hospital, he said, he never once prayed to a God he didn’t believe in, but instead he simply decided he was going to live through it, no matter what. He joked with the nurses, got sick out of car windows, made friends with a lot of peers in the cancer ward, and lost all his hair, but made it through everything (and even got a computer from the Make a Wish Foundation). On the other hand, some of those friends he made didn’t live through it. He said, though, that you could tell by people’s attitude when they had given up and had decided they were ready to die. And, after they made that personal decision, there wasn’t much else to be done. You could keep giving them treatments or praying over them or whatever else, but once that decision was made, that was the end. He never made that decision, kept fighting, and made it through extraordinarily well. Because of this experience, he said, he believed in the right of suicide, not just for old people, but for young people, children even, who had lost the hope they needed to survive. And I certainly cannot argue with that.
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Well, I'm not so sure if I agree with young people having the right to assisted suicide. Maybe if their lives will be nothing but pain, and brief, but are the young capable of making such a big decision?
I'm talking <18, here.
I agree with your sentiments; on gun control, I still don't think anyone offered a good enough argument against some limits. And they aren't necessarily "previously held freedoms." Do you really think the Framers could have foreseen the kinds of weapons people may have access to? AK-47, MAC-10, MAC-11, let alone what the gov't would have access to (nuclear weapons, anyone?). These weapons were never meant to be in the hands of people, and while I want to government out of people's business, because the people know how to run their own lives, this is something I do want the gov't to get involved in. Like I said, there's lots of things that are illegal, which are "infringing" upon people's "rights," but we don't go around legalizing things on that basis. And that's from someone who grew up around guns, had a roommate that had a gun (and felt extremely safe as a result) and has been out hunting and shooting guns. And who, I might add, due to the recent spike in gun homicides here in SoFla (most of which with, surprise, assault weapons), I have always been seriously considering buying a gun myself. And lastly, if I wanted to kill you with a pencil, I could sure as hell do so, and effectively. But the difference between an assault weapon and a handgun or rifle is a huge difference; if I wanted to walk into a crowded mall and begin shooting with a handgun, I could surely do some damage. But we'd all surely have to agree that I could do much, much, much more damage with an assault rifle; the difference is horribly obvious.
I don't agree with assisted suicide for children per se; I think terminally ill people, whatever age they may be of, should have some control over their lives and deaths- but it does get murkier when it comes to children. Though I don't agree with what someone said previously that we should question the sanity of adults who wish to commit suicide that are not terminally ill; I question the sanity of people who follow Paris Hilton, or are part of the 20% who think Bush is doing a heckuva job, certain religious followers, etc. There are clear cut cases where someone's sanity is obviously in question (having worked in a while at a mental health center), but we can't imagine what life might be for someone else, and some people can't handle life, for whatever reason. But children, I think, would be very murky and at the most would need to be on a case-by-case basis . I'd have to be with Glenn and say that I'm not at all comfortable with kids being assisted in suicide.
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