Registered: Oct 2001
Location:
Posts: 18972

PERSONAL LIBERTY

“The liberty of the individual, which is rightfully one of the proudest possessions of the American people. Is largely a freedom from arbitrary action by those possessed of the power of government”---City of St Paul vs Morris, 258, Minn. 467 104 N.W. 2d 902, Minnesota Supreme Court, July 22, 1960

Over the past fifty years there has been an unprecedented erosion of personal liberty in the US. We have literally lost many facets of the personal liberty that we possessed before World War II. Most people will not recognize this fact because they are not old enough to remember when the liberties they have lost were exercised. The odd thing about this is that nearly all of these lost liberties were lost because some government official, board, panel or agency determined that we needed “protection” from ourselves and from our irresponsible actions. In the days when we could exercise these freedoms there was a general assumption by society and by the law that adult humans could exercise judgment and were responsible for their own welfare. Sometime about 1960 or so the government and society began to think that it was necessary for the government to do our thinking for us, and so they started to enact one regulation, law or ruling after another.

Below I have listed just a few of the liberties, choices, options, freedoms, and rights that we use to have in my memory and that have been taken away from us in the name of saving us from ourselves mostly.

Anyone could walk into a pharmacy or drug store and buy potassium cyanide, arsenic or any other poison you might need without prescription or without even signing that you had bought it.

Anyone could buy opium, morphine or cocaine at the pharmacy without prescription or permit – opium in the form of paregoric that is camphorated tincture of opium, morphine, in the form of Auralgan, which is tincture of morphine, and cocaine in various codeine forms.

You could ride a bicycle or motorcycle anywhere without a helmet or other safety equipment.

One could ride in a car without a seat belt or an airbag. As a child I could ride in any seat in the car, or on the fender, or on the running board.

I could attend as a child any movie if I had the twelve cents admission (Sat. matinee). There was no G, PG, R or X rating system.

Any pet was permissible in the city or any number of pets of any kind as long as they did not damage the neighbors or their property.

Insurance was not required on vehicles of any kind.

Safety inspection was not required on vehicles.

Zoning restrictions and deed covenants were almost unknown until the 1960s. If you owned a piece of property you owned it as my father said “From Heaven to Hell” and could do anything you wanted to with it.

Ownership of any kind of gun was permissible, after all it is a constitutionally protected right. Most of the farmers and ranchers in the area where I grew up carried two rifles in a rack in the rear window of their trucks. Useful for varmints both two legged and four legged. It was perfectly all right to transport these guns from state to state.

Farmers could plant any crops on their land that they wished. They did not have to have a government “allotment”.

No license was required for a dog and no shots.

There was no such thing as a credit check for most citizens. One might ask around to see if the person had a good reputation, but there were no credit rating agencies.

Everyone wanted indoor plumbing but it was not a law that you had to have it. Now it is illegal in most areas to have a privy or a septic tank.

Building permits to construct residences were unheard of until about 1955. If you wanted a house you just built it.

There were no “neighborhood integrity” boards. If you wanted to erect a fence, let the weeds grow or repair the car on your front porch that was between you and your neighbors, but it wasn’t against the law.

You could buy dynamite, Primacord, and other construction explosives at most any hardware store and some lumberyards.

Fireworks in town? Sure, why not?

No one could attach my homestead, my car (the law says “horse” but it means car or so the courts say) or the tools of my trade for debt.

Milk, you got from your neighbor or from your own cow, and no inspection, pasteurization, or homogenization were required by law as they are now.

We normally swam in creeks or lakes with no chlorine in the water and with no lifeguards. It was just us and the water moccasins.

No matter what crime I committed the government could not seize my private property unless they had a lien on the property prior to the crime.

There were no parking meters.

Drinking water was usually from a well and there was no government inspection, treatment or certification of the water.

There was no taxation on gasoline. As a result gasoline was 13 cents per gallon.

No one could tap my phone without a Federal Court order.

No one could garnish my wages.

Now those are just the things that I can jot down off the top of my head. There are thousands and thousands more. Can you name a few?

I suppose that you think that I grew up in this very dangerous period and that I am probably a hopeless physical wreck. Please be informed that I have never broken a bone, have never been in a car wreck, have never been seriously ill (except for the malaria I got in Bangui, Central Africa),until I was well into my seventies and that I intend to live to 104 and be shot by a jealous husband---maybe 105.

Love
Dad,granpa,ami

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Zion
Posts: 4594

One of my fondest memories as a young boy was when the farmers in our community burnt of the stubble in their fields or burned down the ditchbanks. Kids showed up from everywhere with a shovel to just create, watch and control the fire. In 1980 our little town started a volunteer fire department and the burnings became illegal without a permit. Apparently the fires that had been a practiced tradition from the beginning of time were now dangerous and needed to have firemen present. One of the older farmers actually shot at the fire trucks because they were trespassing and uninvited. He never spent a minute in jail. The fireman driving the truck was his own son.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: ObamaNation
Posts: 14452

Anyone could walk into a pharmacy or drug store and buy potassium cyanide, arsenic or any other poison you might need without prescription or without even signing that you had bought it.
If it hadn't been for the Tylenol tamperers, you could probably still do this.

Anyone could buy opium, morphine or cocaine at the pharmacy without prescription or permit – opium in the form of paregoric that is camphorated tincture of opium, morphine, in the form of Auralgan, which is tincture of morphine, and cocaine in various codeine forms.
Back then, you didn't have the legion of addicts that we have now. The '60s really fucked up our culture.

You could ride a bicycle or motorcycle anywhere without a helmet or other safety equipment.
I really have a problem with these laws. They mostly suck.

One could ride in a car without a seat belt or an airbag. As a child I could ride in any seat in the car, or on the fender, or on the running board.
The multitude of lives saved by these laws (mainly children) outweigh any personal liberty lost in this area.

I could attend as a child any movie if I had the twelve cents admission (Sat. matinee). There was no G, PG, R or X rating system.
There weren't any PG, R, or X films then. Where's the liberty lost?

Any pet was permissible in the city or any number of pets of any kind as long as they did not damage the neighbors or their property.
Yeah, and how many people kept tigers and bears as pets in the city then?

Insurance was not required on vehicles of any kind.
There are millions of more vehicles now than then, and the costs associated with wrecks are many times greater. Thank God for mandatory insurance so the people not at fault are medically paid for their hospital stays and their cars are fixed or compensated for by those at fault.

Safety inspection was not required on vehicles.
This is a debatable requirement in my eyes.

Zoning restrictions and deed covenants were almost unknown until the 1960s. If you owned a piece of property you owned it as my father said “From Heaven to Hell” and could do anything you wanted to with it.
Some of these laws are needed now days, but feel the majority of these laws are too restrictive.

Ownership of any kind of gun was permissible, after all it is a constitutionally protected right. Most of the farmers and ranchers in the area where I grew up carried two rifles in a rack in the rear window of their trucks. Useful for varmints both two legged and four legged. It was perfectly all right to transport these guns from state to state.
Blame the crack dealers and gangs from the 80's using Mac 10's for this.

Farmers could plant any crops on their land that they wished. They did not have to have a government “allotment”.
It's a sad state of affairs when we pay farmers not to grow crops. It's political bullshit.

No license was required for a dog and no shots.
The pol's saw a way of making money off animals without raising taxes. But now that there are so many animals about, and new diseases like parvo, shots are a good way to control sickness in the pet population.

There was no such thing as a credit check for most citizens. One might ask around to see if the person had a good reputation, but there were no credit rating agencies.
What right was lost here?

Everyone wanted indoor plumbing but it was not a law that you had to have it. Now it is illegal in most areas to have a privy or a septic tank.
The population has drastically grown since then, and millions of more leaky septic tanks and open-aired privies, which are disease breeding grounds, are thankfully outlawed.

Building permits to construct residences were unheard of until about 1955. If you wanted a house you just built it.
Building permits enforce quality control in cities, but the rules have gotten too far out of hand.

There were no “neighborhood integrity” boards. If you wanted to erect a fence, let the weeds grow or repair the car on your front porch that was between you and your neighbors, but it wasn’t against the law.
That's the way it should be.

You could buy dynamite, Primacord, and other construction explosives at most any hardware store and some lumberyards.
Too many nuts around these days.

Fireworks in town? Sure, why not?
And dammit, I want fireworks! I love the shows on the 4th of July, and I wish I could enjoy them year around. Actually around my county you can have a private fireworks show anytime of year as long as you get a nominal permit, which is easy to do.

No one could attach my homestead, my car (the law says “horse” but it means car or so the courts say) or the tools of my trade for debt.
It should still be this way.


Milk, you got from your neighbor or from your own cow, and no inspection, pasteurization, or homogenization were required by law as they are now.
Milk is made and consumed by so many now days, I'm glad there are such laws. I don't want to get sick from drinking diseased milk.

We normally swam in creeks or lakes with no chlorine in the water and with no lifeguards. It was just us and the water moccasins.
I am not aware of creeks and lakes being chlorinated now, just muninciple and home pools. And thank God for that (damn pool pissers!).

No matter what crime I committed the government could not seize my private property unless they had a lien on the property prior to the crime.
A debatable thing.

There were no parking meters.
I hate the damn things myself.

Drinking water was usually from a well and there was no government inspection, treatment or certification of the water.
Thank God we're out of the Stone Age too. I love indoor plumbing.

There was no taxation on gasoline. As a result gasoline was 13 cents per gallon.
Just another money raiser by the politicians. My govenor just raised the gas tax by a nickel, the bastard. They'd better use it for road construction like they say it will.

No one could tap my phone without a Federal Court order.
Brought to you by Bush, Ashcroft, the un-PATRIOT Act, and politicians of both parties wanting to look like they are doing something against terrorism. Special thanks go to the Supreme Court, the alledged protector of our rights, who refuse to speak out and rule against such laws because they always defer to the government on national security issues, until long after the security is safe again before they do.

No one could garnish my wages.
Asshat dead-beat fathers who owe child support should have their wages garnished. But courts shouldn't let greedy mothers get rich off of ex spouses either.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Baba Kueria
Posts: 3149

I'm curious as to what you see the future holding oxsan, extrapolating this for another 50 or 100 years, what rights the citizens of the 'land of the free' will have left, will they ever draw the line and say 'you shall erode our liberties no more' and if they do.. by the time it happens, will they have the right to protect their liberties at all?

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: US
Posts: 3560

it's very scary.

I wish I could remember the paradigm this describes, but alas, my brain is broken.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beyond Mason-Dixon Line
Posts: 16979

quote:

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Originally posted by billgerat
The population has drastically grown since then . . . .

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Wild Bill, I think the above observation of yours explains, at least in part, several of the instances cited by oxsan. I would also wager that advances in scientific knowledge most likely have contributed to those laws/regulations addressing health issues.

As for automobile liability insurance, you're dead-on correct. In fact, my biggest complaint is that my state (I don't know about the others) still requires only a minimum of 10/20/10 coverage. Incredibly, this was the same minimum coverage in effect when I was a child. Because of this, together with the fact that numerous people still drive without any liability coverage, I cannot overly stress the importance of providing yourself with plenty of UM coverage.

For most of my life, I drove without buckling up. These days, I always do, and not because the law says I must. In years past, I also rode countless hours in the back of a pickup truck. I wouldn't ever put my kids back there, though. It's just too damn dangerous. In fact, we buried a classmate of mine many years ago -- he was riding in the back of a pickup; the truck hit a bad chughole; and he bounced out, striking his head on the pavement.

As for taking one's homestead, vehicle and tools of the trade, we still have those exemptions in our state, i.e., they're exempt from liens of creditors.

And fireworks in city limits? Not a good thing, in my opinion, what with cedar shake shingles, dry grass, etc.. It ain't whether I can handle 'em responsibly; rather, my dumbass neighbors are the ones who scare the buhjeebus outta me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not disagreeing with everything on my friend oxsan's list. But, on numerous occasions, I've had to admit to myself that "the good ol' days" weren't always so good.

Amen.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35962

If I make a contract with someone and I don't pay it, they should be entitled to my possessions, to sell in order to make up the debt, as far as I am concerned. Don't owe what you can't repay; if you want a loan or deal of the sort where your possessions can't be seized, then write that into the contact and pay the higher amount.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3878

I did njot mean for my list of laws and rules to imply that I thought all of them bad or good. I do feel however that they are an indictment of our society and an indicator that we are progressing backward. Why is it that the assumption of personal responsibility for one's acts and condition has deteriorated to the point that a force thousands of miles away and remote from knowledge of your motivation and intent must make rules to keep you safe? Rules I might add that do not work effectively. Take the mandatory insurance law lauded above. I don't want to have to pay my car repair expenses when it is someone elses fault either---but I very carefully assure that the "uninsured and underinsured driver" clause is included in my insurance and I pay extra for it because the mandatory driver's insurance law does not work. A Dallas Chief of Police once told me that he estimated that 40% of the people driving on city streets after ten PM were uninsured. And let's say that one of them injures me or my car and is caught without insurance. His penalty is criminal not civil. He will be fined $200 plus perhaps a few days in jail plus suspension of his license but that won't help me pay my medical expense and/or car repairs. I don't know what the answer is. I can sue him , of course, but there is the question of lawyers fees and no guarantee that I would get any reimbursement if I won the suit. Is it no fault insurance? Is it tougher penalties on driving without insurance or with a suspended license? Is it a "victim's fund" to compensate the injured and damaged? Frankly I feel that our society today has lost something in the realm of assumption of personal responsibility. I have driven exactly 60 years and 21 days in all 50 states and somewhere very close to 40 foreign countries. I have never had a car wreck, never collided with another vehicle and haven't had a ticket in over thirty years yet I have to pay just as much insurance each year as the "standard"or average driver. We can figure out how to go to the moon but we can't determine how to make people responsible for their actions in a meaningful way.

I did not mention it in the list above but the present ruling of some agency (I think EPA) is that you can't sell or buy a toilet commode that exceeds 1.6 gallons per flush. In my particular bathroom that it a ridiculous ruling. I have to flush my toilet as much as five times (8.0 US gal.) in order to get rid of whats in it.
I paid $360 for that commode. The commode in my utility bathroom which I bought in Mexico for $29 flushes 2.1 gallons per flush and I never have to flush it but once. But it is illegal---Don't tell. And no smart replies about my toilet problems being a special case.

The law that you can't buy a top loading washing machine is now in effect. Why? Because side loading washing machines use less
water. Of course, they allso accept less clothes so you have to do more loads and to get the clothes clean have to wash some loads twice.

I drive an SUV but I only use about thirty gallons of gasoline per month--less this month. You have to be an arthritic getting in or out of a Honda Accord to appreciate what we don't like about little cars. If you want to save gas limit the amount of gas each citizen may buy not what he does with it. Gasoline was rationed in WWII.

It is the idea that government has that the judgment of some bureaucrat at a desk in Washington or some Congressional intern is more accurate about what I should do than my own judgment and investment in my own safety and the safety and welfare of those about me.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3878

quote:

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I am curious as to what you see the future holding

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oxsan


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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3878

"Back then you didn't have the legion of addicts you have now"

I wonder why?

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oxsan


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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35962

But you don't see the Patriot Acts as governmental restriction or invasion of your privacy? And this is a federal matter, to boot, not even state government, let alone local government. Not asking a leading question as such, as I can leave the US if I want to as I have another nationality, just wondering.

The fact that even if you defaulted on a financial obligation, your house couldn't be taken away, looks more like the government protecting you from your (the generic 'your') own incompetance than a freedom, though. Removing that law is more in keeping with the government not interfering, it seems to me; making that law is more of a 'nanny state' thing.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3878

I DO see th Patriot Acts aas an invasion of my privacy and as a government restriction. I just feel that the threat of terroristic and criminal action AT THIS PARTICULAR TIME to present a threat greater than the Patriot act. I will readily join forces with others to remove the Patriot Act when the world becomes less dangerous-------and I know that you think that will be never---but I don't.

The protection of the homestead , a horse, a saddle and bridle, and the tools of trade from confiscation of debt upon bankruptcy is an old old law. mIt dates back to a resentment of the UK practise of imprisonment for debt which left a debtor no way to pay off the debt and was thus self defeating.
Bankruptcy here was looked upon as a temporary thing that could be recovered by repaying the lender and left the debtor able to repay and regain his place in society. It assumed a responsibility on the part of the debtor. About unsecured debt in general I will say that I put as much blame on the lender as I do on the debtor. I receive from four to ten offers a week in the mail to loan me from five to twenty thousand dollars unsecured. Those offers are ridiculous on the part of the lenders and if they
get burned on some of them I have little sympathy for them

As far as my defaulting on a debt and its consequences (I noticed your use of the "generic you") I have never defaulted on a loan in my life and never will. This is because I have a feeling of responsibility that I am wishing had been cultivated in my fellow citizens.

Incidentally the law in Texas was changed just a year or so ago (at the urging of the banks and finacial world) to permit debts encumbering the homestead and repossession of the homestead by the financial institution if you (generic) failed to pay. Naturally a vast horde oif people mortgaged the old homestead, spent the money for beer and pretzels and the banks now own a hell of a lot of real estate. I still mourn the loss of personal responsibility which was the topic of the post.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
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I have often wondered where personal responsibility went, and to what extent it has decayed. It would be nice just to blame the government (and I do think that they have played a part), but I think that quite a lot of it is down to the fact that social pressure, such as disapproval of irresponsible behaviour, is not as powerful as it was. I guess that the fact that we can all transplant ourselves to another part of the country where no one knows us, or our past, means that social pressure from the local community is not so powerful; if someone felt that they were likely to spend their whole life carrying the weight of their past actions within their community, they might be a little more careful about them. We are also, perhaps, less dependendent on our community; yes, governmental support is part of that, but also television and (now) internet makes it pretty easy for some of us to spend less time interacting with other people immediately around us.

People did get to pay off their debt in debtor's prison, but they were working a lot to achieve that. Lenders introduced this whole obnoxious credit check business (which is almost insane in the US now, it seems to me) so that they didn't end up loaning money to bad risk borrowers, of course. I guess that it benefits the reliable amongst us, because lower losses for lenders means lower rates of interest in a competitive lending market, but it is at the same time rather obnoxious. The economy is now so dependent on borrowed capital that it would be hard to change that, even though it means that economic slowdowns hit even harder (as people cannot repay, quite often, when they lose their job). I am also regularly regaled with pre-approved offers to borrow money; although I don't like it, it is how our economies seem to work (and although governments have allowed or encouraged it to become that way, there can't have been too much of a chorus of protest about it). The only people who won't really borrow money, that I can think of, are practising moslems (even though usury (in the old sense of the word) is not something that christians, strictly speaking, should be participating in from either end of the deal, and although jews were cast in the role of lenders no one worried about the fact that christians borrowed from them).

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3878

I don't really blame the government at all. It is, or should be, a reflection of the views of our society and every two years we have an opportunity to change it if it doesn't do right. Government is not the culprit; government is the result of our inability to be responsible citizens. As you point out mobility is a big factor. I was a real nomad in my childhood and I can recognize that I avoided some responsibiulities because I was going to move in a few days so it didn't make a damn what the locals thought of me.
The decay of the family , the church, and the schools as influential instructors and arbiters of morality and social conformityare another big
cause in the US, and the conversion of our society from a "doing" society to a "spectator" society is another reason. Another big item is the lack of adversity. We now have it too easy. The Depression was a great morality teacher and it inculcated a sense of responsibility in those who went through it. There are lots of things that contributed to the general lack of responsibility in the US---the government just took advantage of them to get control over the people. I'm going to lobby against that now.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beyond Mason-Dixon Line
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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
Wild Bill: "Back then you didn't have the legion of addicts you have now"

oxsan: I wonder why?

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Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:

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Originally posted by oxsan
. . . Another big item is the lack of adversity. We now have it too easy. . . .

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3878

JEB, I remember living in Borger. Texas and in Dumas, Texas when they were oil boom towns and the streets were unpaved and the sidewalks were boards on the mud to walk on. It was a rough town. I got beat up at school nearly every day. Dad would not allow mother to go downtown alone. It was a dry county as was the whole panhandle but you could buy whiskey most anyplace. But Borger and Dumas were were not your average town. They were isolated examples of lawlessness that seemed to follow the derrick builders, drillers, and roughnecks of the oil field where ever they went. In the other twenty five towns where I went to
school I did noit get beat up every day and mother could go to town in perfect safety. And I did not experience any siugn of drug addiction even in the mean towns of Borger or Dumas. Of course I was only eleven at that time and it may have existed and I didn't know it but I doubt that it was where I was.; My grandparents kept laudunum and morphine around for pain killers if someone got hurt. It would take a doctor several hours to get to the farm usually. And I was fed paregoric for toothache, but there was nothing like drug addiction ever in my childhood that I was aware of.
I knew about Marijuana (we called it loco weed) but it was "something the Mexicans smoke" to us. I think that the article just wasn't about the panhandle of either Oklahoma or Texas.

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