Why Does Everyone Want To Ban Things?

You know, I’m getting pretty tired of do-gooders constantly trying to ban things. What is it about the concept of freedom and personal responsibility that people can’t handle? Why are the people of this nation so ready to give up their rights and allow their “respresentatives” to pass laws on the state and federal level under the guise of “making the world safer” or “making the world a better place”? Freedom requires work, folks. You want freedom, you need to be willing to take responsibility for your choices and your actions. You also better be prepared for the fact that not everyone thinks the same as you, and that freedom requires that you afford them the same rights as you, yourself possess.

I personally hate the smell of cigarettes, but that doesn’t mean I believe that no one should be allowed to smoke them in public. If I don’t want to be around them, I go to places that cater to non-smokers. It’s freedom of choice, and business will cater to those who make them money. I can’t smoke my pipes anywhere these days, except outside and in my four walls and if my “respresentatives” keep ignoring what the people want (mainly because they’re not able to line their pockets with tax revenues), my ability to get my favorite pipe tobacco online with soon be curtailed, and I’ll have to rely on the ever-dwindling number of tobacconists in my state (who are being driven out of business by the anti-smoking crowd).

I believe, as does the Department of Justice, that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Anti-gun groups believe that banning private ownership of guns would reduce crime, ignoring the most basic of facts: criminals, by definition, do not obey laws. Banning private ownership simply dismantles an important part of the Constitution and punishes law-abiding citizens, leaving them defenseless against those who purchase guns illegaly and who would victamize the unarmed. Anyone can make statistics work to their advantage, but it seems pretty obvious that the state I live in, which has extremely tight gun control laws, is experiencing an increase in gun violence (with an increase in the number of deaths of over 10% this year from last, but I can’t get to the online article anymore). More laws don’t solve problems. Running all gun control under the federal blanket defeats the purpose of the 2nd Amendment and should never be considered.

Finally, the inspiration of this little rant (well…for today at least, as it seems I rant about this more often than not): lawmakers in Springfield, IL voted to ban the sale of sexually explicit or violent video games to minors. Do they have nothing better to do? I know some of you are saying, “but this isn’t a bad thing because kids don’t need to be playing games like this.” I don’t have a problem with that opinion, but where I DO have a problem is with lawmakers taking it upon themselves to become sensitivity police. What a child reads, sees or plays should be left up to the parent(s). If parents aren’t willing to take that responsibility, please do us all a favor and stop having children. Better yet, if you’re reading this and believe that you’re going to be one of those parents that just pawns off responsibility for your child’s rearing on the schools, government and television, just get sterilized now before it’s too late.

The fact is that the video game industry has had in place, for many years, a voluntary labeling system called the ESRB. Virtually all video games come with one of these easy-to-understand labels. If you’re worth your salt as a parent, you’ll be checking out the games you’re buying for your kid before plunking down the cash. If you can’t be bothered, then you shouldn’t be complaining when you’re kid is spouting all kinds of crazy talk after playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is labeled M (mature: 17+). It’s also astounding that this proposed law would force responsibility for policing these sales onto businesses ill-equipped to manage the process. It’s like the state lawmakers are willing to rail against a perceived problem, half-ass a solution that requires no effort on their part (but allows them to levy fines with which to stuff their troughs a bit more) and then wash their hands of it, forcing responsibility onto a third party who wanted nothing to do with this law in the first place.

The federal and state governments purpose in our lives is not to draft new laws day after day in an attempt to prove that they actually do something to earn their BS jobs (why can’t we have more term limits? This is public service, people, not an ass-kissing, corruption-loving career choice). The Federal government’s purpose is to maintain our infrastructure, protect our national interests and defend the populace…and that’s where the line should be drawn. State government exists to protect our interests on a local level and to protect us from an overzealous Federal government. Why can’t people remember that the government exists to better our lives, not to subjugate us to their whims? Why can’t people understand that the government is ours and not the other way around?

People, it’s time to stop letting these leeches draft law after law restricting us in our daily lives and learn to take some responsibility for ourselves and the country we call home. There is far more that binds us together as a people than divides us, and if we all decided to stop putting up with these overbearing, professional fibbers, we could reshape the government into a lean, mean, freedom-loving machine.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 01st, 2005 at 5:15pm and is filed under News, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.