Postcards From Myself

First of all let me say that I find the use of racist terms abhorrent and personally offensive. Racism and everything that goes along with it is a cancer within our society. That being said, it is ridiculous and dangerous to try to regulate against it. I am not talking about discrimination or affirmative action here, but free speech and thought. I am talking about the city of New York outlawing the “N” word. See this story for more details.

It is a massive waste of time and the people’s money to pass laws and referendums that have no weight or consequence. And yes, I feel the same way about the recent one in Congress. There is too much serious work to be done to waste time on symbolic gestures. And legislatures need to remember that it is the tax payer’s money they are wasting on the grand performances. While children starve around the world and home need rebuilding on the Gulf Coast, millions of dollars gets flushed down the collective toilet of grandiose statements through legislation.

But just as importantly this is another example of a group of people trying to control you. In this case it is people trying to control your speech. Makes you wonder about that entire free speech thing doesn’t it? Language is a powerful thing. Those who wield it need to do so with great care and consideration. At the same time, to arbitrarily limit or ban certain words is absurd. Not only is it impossible at the base level, but it simply adds more power to those words in the end. And, this is the most important point, who am I to decide what words you can use to express yourself. Ban words because the are offensive? That takes us directly to banning collections of words - such as books. And that leads to the banning of the speakers of the words - which leads to the suppression and imprisonment of dissidents. A very slippery slope from which there is no easy return.

Ran across this one today, and I thought it was pretty good.

I am most certainly in agreement with the sentiment. Far more dangerous than a bit of smoke are those people who would take away your freedoms. The need to control you and have you lead your life the way they think you should is an extremely slippery slope. For more like this, though I am sure you will find many of them offensive, visit Infowars.com.

Ok, I will admit that this article may go a little far in places, but it does raise some good points. The basic thing that terrorists are trying to accomplish is to deprive us of our freedom and our way of life. The changes that President Bush is making in the name of the War on Terrorism are doing just that. So either the terrorists are succeeding or Bush is actually more destructive to our freedoms than they are.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” This statement was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759) which was attributed to Franklin . I think that this is exactly what we are dealing with here.

I will go farther than say this about national security though. When you look at issues such as anti-smoking laws, safety restrictions on some consumer items, and the mandated restriction of fats and cooking oil by restaurants you are definitely dealing with the substitution of safety for liberty. Worse yet, this is often merely opinion cloaked as safety. When discussing the recent smoking ban here in Charleston, South Carolina, with friends, relatives, and coworkers, they all talked about the benefits of not smelling like smoke, being able to be in a bar without the stench, and not having to wash their clothes when they get home. No one, not a one said a word about the alleged health risks of second hand smoke. So although these bans are often being proposed as health ordinances, they are being passed and supported as the oppression of one group’s personal preferences upon another.

I point blank asked one of these supporters why they should pass a law that regulates smoking in bar that they will never go into and who’s entire customer base and employees smoke. This person flatly replied that if they did want to go in there they should be able to free from the smoke. Why? When was this freedom guaranteed to you? When did the freedom to possibly not be offended trump a property owner’s or business owner’s right to fair use?

And lest you accuse me of saying this because I am anti-the person or anti-that group, let me say that I think this problem afflicts all political and religious groups. One of the problems with being devoted to a view point is that we begin to believe that everyone else ought to hold our views too. And if you don’t hold my view, then I will legislate so that you have to act like you hold my view!

It is more than a slippery slope this country is on at the moment. It may seem like terrorism, the President’s actions to “secure” our nation, and local sin ordinances are unrelated. But, in actuality, they are all examples of the loss of freedom we are suffering from those who seek to control by seeming to protect. I for one feel that a life without risk is a life without freedom and a life without freedom is no life at all.

Just a quick update on the ‘02 for those of you who care. I spent a while working on her this afternoon and finally got the oil changed. It took the help of my friend Dave who is a Mac Tool rep to get the drain plug out. Nice having a friend who has all those special tools. The filter still isn’t changed due to that being on too tight also. Seems the previous owner really like to tighten things down. In my over 20 years of working on old cars this is the absolute worst case I have ever seen of over-tight everything. If it wasn’t such a pain it might be funny. Might be, but isn’t.

I also got the idle adjusted down. Turned out to be a slight adjustment to the actual idle control, but more importantly the throttle return spring on there just wasn’t up to the job. I replaced it with one a little shorter and stronger, adjusted the idle, and now Roxy idles happily at around 950 RPM. Much nicer than the 1500 to 1700 that she was doing.

Finally, and this was actually a few days, I replaced the spark plugs. This was not a big thing in itself, but I am hoping the combination of new plugs, clean oil, and calm idle will improve the gas milage. Right now she is averaging somewhere between 19 and 20 miles per gallon. I am hoping through this and other improvements to get up to at least 23 to 25.

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Interesting to hear something that smacks so much of the truth about our current “efforts” over seas. Especially since it comes from a Republican. To quote from what was said in Congress by Texas Republican Ron Paul: “our policies have been driven by neoconservative empire radicalism; profiteering in the military industrial complex; misplaced do-good internationalism; mercantilistic notions regarding the need to control natural resources; and blind loyalty to various governments in the Middle East.”