You make a tremendous amount of sense with everything you say there...IT simply needs to be reversed...The government needs to understand and fear going outside the boundaries set forth in how things are supposed to be done, yet no one calls them on the carpet...The Annoyed Man wrote:What's interesting about it after having actually read Graybeard's linked PDF is the way the law in general is written from a philosophical standpoint. It has never occurred to me until this moment that much of the laws in general tell you what you MAY NOT do, not what you MAY do. I think that this can often be confusing to people because these days they are looking for a clear affirmation of what they MAY do, rather than what they MAY NOT do.
The reason I find this interesting is that our fundamental structure of government, the Constitution, and our laws started with the philosophical assumption that the subset of human behavior called MAY is much larger than the subset called MAY NOT, and consequently the language used to define those things in our laws talks about the MAY NOTs, because it is easier to describe the smaller subset of MAY NOTs than the larger subset of MAYs. The problem is that, as our government and its laws have grown more and more intrusive and have come to dominate more and more aspects of our lives, the subset of MAYs has shrunk in size while the subset of MAY NOTs has grown in size. Consequently, individuals begin to doubt whether their own behavior is lawful or not - even when motivated by personally benign factors. In the context of this thread, "benign" means that most people who would keep a gun in their car would do so for reasons of self-protection rather than predation.
The founding fathers would have said, "Of COURSE it is lawful to carry a pistol in your carriage! Why do you even feel the need to ask?" In their times, the language used to define laws was couched in MAY NOT terminology because the subset of MAY was assumed to be vastly much larger than the subset of MAY NOT, and pretty much everybody knew what the MAY NOTs were. These days, it is not so clear anymore, and we (the proverbial "we") often find ourselves asking if something we have in mind is legal instead of simply assuming that it is.
I think that we are not that far down the road from seeing our laws written thusly: "you may do A, B, and C. Everything else is illegal."
There's an old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." This is interesting, but I don't like it one bit. Am I a budding libertarian?
I don't care if you like your guy or gal you elect into office...They should fear the people in good times and bad...They do not have any fear, therefore the situation right now is that there is not enough of us banging on their doors reminding them of that fact...
When a politician sees me coming, their reaction should be, "Oh crap. here comes Steve..." (that is exactly the reaction I want out of them)...On the other hand, when they do something right, I certainly let them know it...
There still may be opportunities to be cordule and finesse elected officials these days, but for the most part they need to know we are watching every cotton-pickin' move, statement and VOTE they make...
If I was in their position, I would expect (and want) people to hold me to the same amount of pressure and scrutiny...That is the only way I roll...
The time for niceties is over for now...This is no longer a hobby for any of us...If you want politicians to listen, it is time to get busy...Nice or not, it is the new norm...
They will either thank you for your participation, or they will hate you for it...
I would prefer to be hated...