Losing Our Freedom

OK! I know that many of you don't really care what I have to say because I'm just a "high-school graduate" and most of you have a college degree. The thing is, I live like most of us do. From paycheck to paycheck and with very little chance to get ahead.

But at least I have the guts to speak up when I don't think that thinks are on the up and up.

I worked at trying to prevent the unfair taxes on tobacco because I consider it nothing short of discrimination against smokers. I lost, but at least I stood up for what I believed when most of you were going along with the majority just because they don't like the smell of smoke. Yes, I know! It was suppose to be because smoking is not healthy, but nobody seems to believe that drunk driving and speeding is unhealthy.

Now, why the title "I Almost Laugh" for this article? Because the state where I live has got many of you who were down on me for being against the unjust tax on tobacco, up in arms. They want to raise the tax on beer, wine and hard liqueur now!
Not just a little, but a lot!

As far as I'm concerned, this is just as fair a tax as the ones on tobacco and even more so because a drunk driver can kill or maim you right away while tobacco takes years.

Problem is, I can't laugh about it because our federal and local governments are beginning to raise our taxes every time they need a little more money. Instead of cutting down on all of the frills, they just raise taxes again. The latest excuse that they use is that they are taxing things that are unhealthy.

And as usual, their taxes are designed to hurt low income as all of you high income folks could care less. You've got the money to pay the extra expense.

But even then, the taxes on wine and beer are going up approx. 200% and taxes on hard stuff only about 18%. Couldn't be because most of the low income drink cheap beer and wine while higher income stick to the hard stuff could it?

Why don't more of you "college educated" folks fight for your rights? It won't be long before these "taxes" start hurting you too!

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Iowa new smoking bans show how our elected officials pass laws that are convenient and safe for them. Not laws that are necessary for the safety of their citizens.

As in many other states, non-smokers in Iowa have been putting the preasure on it's elected officials to ban smoking in public places; and as in other states, Iowas' elected officials have caved in to the preasure.

Well, not completely! The state makes too much money from the casinos to upset them by banning smoking completely so they have decided to allow it on the gambling floors. I guess they consider it unhealthy anywhere else but safe enough for the gamblers!

Or is it that they figure that banning it everywhere else will be good enough to appease the voters and at the same time keep the money coming in from the casinoes?

There is even something in the new ban to keep people from smoking in their own home! Even the non-smokers should be up in arms when our government starts to tell us what we can do in our own homes!

Lets face it! If the smoking bans were really an effort to clean up our air they would also be banning excessive driving, factory pollutants, barbecuing, open burning and a couple hundred other things.

The smoking bans are just a way to keep the non-smoking voters happy!

And no, I don't smoke! But, I also don't like losing what few freedoms that we have left.

The right to bear arms is a never ending battle. While recent shootings in our schools, accidental deaths and crime would seem to add fuel for those who want guns taken away from the common people, they do not seem to realize that if guns were taken away from us the only ones with guns would be the criminals.

All you need do is look at the news everyday. Criminals do not care about the law and always find ways of getting what they want whether it be guns, drugs or whatever.

Disarming everyone except the criminals would make our lives better how?

The right to keep and bear arms did not originate fully-formed in the Bill of Rights in 1791; rather, the Second Amendment was the codification of the six centuries old responsibility to keep and bear arms for king and country that was inherited from the English Colonists that settled North America, tracing its origin back to the Assize of Arms of 1181 that occurred during the reign of Henry II. Through being codified in the United States Constitution, the common law right was continued and guaranteed for the People, and statutory law enacted subsequently by Congress cannot extinguish the pre-existing common law right to keep and bear arms.

This right is often presented in the United States as synonymous with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, although this belief is controversial among some factions and is not subscribed to by all.

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution Protects the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms.
" A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. "

Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution Provides for unenumerated rights, including implicitly a right to keep and bear arms and a right to have arms for defense, hunting, sport etc..

Click here for more on the right to bear arms.

A good example of losing some of our freedoms are the many laws that we now have that control how we raise our children. Parents are held responsible for their "out of control" kids, yet the laws stop us from being able to discipline them.

I do not condone "child abuse", but many of our child abuse laws make it nearly impossible to have any control of our children.

Our children have reached the point where they will threaten to report the parents for child abuse if they are punished for bad behavior in any way. And parents are reluctant to carry out these punishments because of the hell that they must go through if they are reported for child abuse real or imagined.

Child abuse is the physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect of children by parents, guardians, or others. While most child abuse happens in the child's home, large numbers of cases of child abuse have been identified within some organizations involving children, such as churches, schools, child care businesses, and residential schools. It also can occur almost anywhere (eg. kidnappings, random murders etc.)

There are many forms of abuse and neglect and many governments have developed their own legal definition of what constitutes child maltreatment for the purposes of removing a child and/or prosecuting a criminal charge. In the United States, the Federal Government puts out a full definition of child abuse and neglect and creates a summary of each State definition.

Click here to read more on child abuse.

Political Systems and the Nature of Freedom The Elusive Rainbow Mans Search for the Path to Freedom Equality and Justice (Paperback (Trade Paper))

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Much of the information used here has been researched from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.