Good morning Frank. Regarding the Subject line, I never changed it, I don't know what it means, unless it's another jab at Conster by Jay. Beats me.
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 21:47:00 -0800, Frank Reichert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Good evening again, Conster! > >And, welcome back! Thank you >First let me just say, the Libertarian Party neither supports nor >discourages the use, sale or distribution of [harmful] or any >drugs such as Meth. What people choose to purchase for >themselves, and what people choose to make available on an >otherwise free market, is entirely their choice to make. However the point remains. Meth can be dangerous to those other than the people using it and especially dangerous to people around those using it. Recently there was a truck at a police auction that was going for $50. Later the person I knew at the auction found out it had been used for a Meth Lab and was permeated with hazardous chemicals that still remained in the truck, even after sitting in the lot for months. Therefore, if I'm living in a duplex, apartment, or even next door to someone brewing up crank or crystal Meth in the bathroom, the chemicals involved are deadly and extremely volatile. If the fumes don't kill you and yours or damage their lungs, the potential explosion might just do a real number on you. This is how I see the rights being infringed and if the cops didn't come and remove the characters, I would feel it was within my rights to have them remove, with or without force. Most Meth heads don't understand what planet they are on, so force is usually necessary. I don't mean going in there with guns blazing, but if that is the only means available to get these chemical brewing freaks out of the neighborhood, so be it. I wouldn't think it bad if a little vigilantism was involved. No one wants a Meth lab in their neighborhood. Aside from the obvious problems with crack, I've never met a tweaker yet who wouldn't steal from their own mother and trust me on this one, as I speak from the hard voice of experience. >Everyone has choices to make over such things as what they choose >to consume, purchase, or sell. There are also responsibilities, >and more than that, there are always consequences to the choices >in which we make as free individuals. Some of these choices will >obviously be very bad ones, and the consequences will accordingly >be rather severe, or, in some cases, even lethal. I guess I can >best summarize that by simply saying that EVERY choice each and >everyone of us makes everyday, has personal consequences. And, >each and every one of us, are entirely responsible for the >consequences of the 'bad' or 'good' choices we choose to make in >our lives. > >The idea here is to promote the realization that individuals >ought to make the best possible personal choices for themselves, >their families and over their private property, and such choices >are entirely their own. The consequences for such choices are >entirely their own too. But a person on Meth doesn't make good choices and that usually infringes on my rights because I'm the one they are stealing from or the fumes of their favorite dope are permeating my lungs and property. >To put this another way, the Libertarian Party believes that the >use of government force to protect people from themselves is >morally wrong and unacceptable. It is a humangeous misuse and >abuse of power, and a huge miscarriage of government power. Most >of all, such edicts deprive individuals of their most fundamental >rights over their own lives, their families, and their enjoyment, >use and control, over their own private property. So at what point are we allowed to defend ourselves, if we don't want our elected officials do the job? When it's too late? When the damage is done and a Meth Lab explosion took out my grandson riding his bike near-by. Regarding this particular drug I take great exception. I don't care if people want to kick back and smoke a doobie while watching 'South Park' or something, but to endanger others, including driving while drunk -- We need to have the government officials to intervene and protect us from those idiots that don't have brains enough to protect themselves and their little kids often crawling around in the back seat while they are driving high or drunk. >Connie, now you raise the interesting spectre of children and >grandchildren. I appreciate that, I really do. >Now the question arises, as it surely must: Who ought to be the >foundation for the raising of our children, and grandchildren? >The government? >God have mercy! I sure don't want any government to be my >children's and grandchildren's foundation of moral values and >lifestyle choices! Such values ought not to arise from political >force, but from parental control. To do that, parents must have >more power and control over their own families, and government >should mostly stay completely away from that as a moral duty to >protecting and defending our rights, not taking them away. Keep >in mind here that 'government' is nothing more than pure power, >and such power without restraint is dangerous and inherently >evil. > >Connie, there are several alternatives to the use of government >force for ensuring that your children and grandchildren are safe, >or at least much safer than under the current status quo. >Libertarians also believe: > >1. Education ought to be totally under the control of parents and >family decisions, and that a 'separation of government and >schools' are ultimately necessary for education America's youth. I agree. But we can't have it both ways. Where does the school funding come from? The taxes we pay, that the government allots and the school districts are one of the very few agencies that receives monies that they don't have to account for their expenditure. For instance, when I was 6 years old, many schools were built in Snohomish Co., including Cedar Way Elementary were I attended first grade and it's still a perfectly good school, even though there have been some additions after all these 45 years. However Edmonds High School, which was built the same year was obliterated, as was Woodway High School, which was built some 10 years if not later than Edmonds. In their stead was built this architect's dream. Yet I see so many things that could have been done differently. When I went to Edmonds High School from 10th through 12th grade all the hallways were outdoors. Hello??? Edmonds is very close to Seattle and what does it do in Seattle? Rain... very much and at times, it snows. Back in the days when I went to school there was a dress code and girls had to wear dresses and of course we added nylons as panty-hose hadn't been invented yet, or were very new and expense. I recall hitting an icy patch in the outdoor hallway and skidding downward as my dress hiked upward and my garters holding my nylons were there for all to see. My point. When they rebuilt the school with it's fancy new brick entrance, why didn't they instead spend the funds on indoor hallways which would have been more appropriate? You can ask, but you won't get an answer because the school board doesn't have to explain how funds are spent. We take money from the government, but we want it all our own way. I'm going to school on government's money and I'm very appreciative. So if we want to stop government intervention, do we stop the funding as well? >2. We believe individuals ought to be free to make personal >contracts and obligations with other individuals of like mind, to >educate our children, and teach moral and family values, and >government shouldn't have anything whatsoever to do with any of >that. Again I agree. I believe that we should be allowed to have a manger scene in front of city hall as there was for years, until someone who didn't believe in Jesus had a hissy fit and now we can't even sing Christmas Carols in school. I don't believe in the Easter Bunny, yet I don't go around smashing colored eggs to make my point known. So what happens? We have a cultural battle? Bottom line there are more Christians in the religious circle in our area than other religions. As far as I'm concerned Atheists can keep their nose out of my religion, but they don't. The minority wins. Why? Because the government caved in? Who's to say . >3. Churches, Pastors, civil and business leaders, anyone and >everyone, ought to be in the forefront for promoting honest >values within community settings, and not government bureaucrats >and flunkies. You might be surprised at just how many volunteers >are really out there and willing to do a lot of great things that >the government cannot or will not by law, ever do to improve the >environment our kids live in these days! I believe in family values and as you said, more churches taking care of their own. While a whole lot of people stomp their feet and scream about the doctrine of the LDS church, the LDS people have their own welfare system and don't want anyone in their church taking money from the government unless they earned it working for the government. If you are on any church assistance, they expect you to do something you are able to do in kind. A lot of churches could learn from the way the LDS church runs things. Granted, the LDS church checks and sees if you pay your tithes at the end of the year. There are different reasons for this, one has to do with taxes and the other has to do with a church doctrine that requires a church member pays 10% of their increase. That is between the church and it's members and no anyone else. I believe that Grandparents are an important part of the family and somewhat like the days of the Walton's should be an important extension of the family. Instead of placing Mom and Dad off in a Nursing home, because there were so few and they were very terrible places in yesteryear you took care of them at home. My brother currently has his 87 y.o. deaf, senile mother-in-law living with his wife and 3 children. She has her own beautiful bedroom and they are putting in an elevator so she won't fall down the long flight of stairs in their home. My mother-in-law was in a nursing Home from the time she was 42 and died in one when she was 69. She had MS. I suggested we take her in our home and the family had a super snit fit, because they thought I was doing it for the money I would get from welfare for her care. I wasn't going to take any money from welfare, except possibly for her pills and Dr. visits, as she was a stay at home mom and didn't have much in the way of funds to take care of her in her old age. Again.. I agree with you Frank, but again, it's hard to use government funds these days and until we stop using government funds we have to allow the government access. I know our taxes created these funds and we vote so the majority party wins. We need to completely obliterate the 2 party system, the electorate college and go strictly popular vote. Seems that ballots are getting lost all the time anyway. Why not have a old fashioned system where there was no way to lose ballots or if they were lost, no one apparently noticed. >Because of bandwidth and time, I'm leaving a lot more of this out >here. Jay may have come across to you a bit rude as if it didn't >matter to him. But you got to know, there are a lot of us who are >members of churches and other civic groups, including private >schools and other educational endeavours, who are working hard to >help individuals find ways of making difficult choices. Jay loves to twist my crank and see if I'll sputter at him. I don't agree with his much of the time. I'm one of those people who volunteered many, many hours of my time to bring culture to my community. I was on the board and worked for the local Hospice in Othello until they shut us down, because the government demanded we had a doctor who would volunteer his/her services and couldn't find one. I volunteered hours overtime at the nursing home where I worked just because I enjoyed the people and wanted them to have an extra special event come in and out of their time. I believe in doing. I think Jay believes in talking about those he disagrees with, but does very little to fix the problem. Fixing the problem requires on hands work. >I suspect you might really be surprised at the sheer number of >people who really do care about the things you mentioned here >tonight. Libertarians are NEVER opposed to any of that, in fact, >you'll probably find, that most of us fully support private >alternatives to the current status quo on every issue you just >raised moments ago. > >A couple of days ago the Boundary County (Idaho) Property Owner's >Association had a meeting. This is NOT a government group. It >is a private association of county property owners. We invited >and received the 'other side', a group dedicated to growing the >county government over our lives and choices. We discussed >together the mess in our public schools. >This meeting was not hostile. Both sides seemed to want the best >for our children in THIS community. If you can brace yourself a >moment, and imagine this, indulge me for a time: I spoke on >behalf of privatization in education in this county. I spoke of >the benefits of electing public legislators who would support >this concept of education, in that public education was miserably >failing, and must be forced to compete in the arena of education >with all other choices that PARENTS and FAMILIES chose to make, >including: public education as it exists today, Charter Schools, >Private Schools, and Home Schooling. Were you able to discuss the pay scale of teachers or where the money went? I think this is a great idea, but in the end, did it really get anything changed? If it did, then it's even a greater idea. But I agree with you completely. We are paying people to be teachers Aides when home moms could do it part of the time and all share in helping the teachers. None of my teachers had Aides and they had larger classes and we all learned or we were held back or put in Special Ed. I think we are making too many concessions to the schools and letting to much go. However, one of my instructors at the college who lives in Idaho and makes the trip here for the week then goes home on weekends, because WA pays much higher wages and ID has much lower taxes feels that anyone living in WA is "nuts" because of our incredibly high taxes. So which way do we fight the government intervention? From the county, region, state, feds?? I'm clueless and admit it when it comes to this recourse. >In this collective meeting between the Property Owner's >Association, and the Public School minded government advocate >lobby, no one, and I mean 'no one' challenged me on this concept. It's a good concept... And that is really something that no one challenged you. Seems there is usually one in every group. >Both sides seemed to agree that Parent and Families ought to make >the final decisions based upon specifically what is best for >them. Amen.. and absolutely >Here in America, it took us a long time to reach the stench of >Meth Labs and the loss of at least two generations of American >children. Nothing is going to change in the next 24 hours, or >the next few weeks or months. However, in the long run, the best >way to tackle such problems is for community leaders, individual >people and families, to get together and make decisions, choices, >and make mutual commitments and compacts that meet their own >needs, and without resorting to government force, cohersion and >power. However... I'm a little confused on this. My brother lives in an upper class housing area. When they moved in, they had to agree to sign this contract of sorts (I can't think of the name he used, but I'm sure you will know what I mean), that they had to keep up their yards, no junk cars or working cars allowed in their driveways, much less on the streets. This was a citizens counsel that made these arrangements and the citizens agreed. Granted the whole area looks very nice and I'm sure their property valued are high as are their property taxes so the government won't bitch. They moved the boundaries of Bothell and Mill Creek much to my brother's joy because if you live in "Mill Creek" you are upper crust, you live in Bothell, you might raise chickens in your yard. Say I inherited one of these homes and didn't sign the contract, or even refused to sign the contract. Would the citizens have the right to make me move? And if yes, how would they do so? With the local law enforcement? Now I'm going to have to call my brother and ask these questions because I don't have any answer to the policy or how it works . >So Connie, I am not, and would not suggest, that your issues here >are not real, or imagined. They are real. I could obviously go >one much further here and suggest that the government has >exacerbated our current problems and make them a lot, lot worse >that they would have been otherwise if the government had never >become involved in them in the first place. I don't know that I have represented myself as wearing jack boots and wielding power over the little citizens if they don't 'mind'. I'm one of those citizens. I also like the fact I can call 911 and have too many cops and ambulances come to my door. This has happened in my household more than a few times. Sometimes to take out a member of my family who was using crank and crack that we were speaking about and sometimes to help someone in my home who was nearly in a coma. These are realities. How can we have help from officials with some government intervention? I'm confused I guess what is considered government and what is considered necessary forces. Connie >You mentioned to me a few moments ago, in another post, if you >needed to be 100 percent Libertarian to post here. I think you >might find, that my post tonight will answer your question. >There will likely be other "Libertarians" that might even largely >disagree with what *I* just wrote! > >Stay tuned. > >Kindest regards, >Frank > _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
