Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pezz who wrote (298)	8/21/1998 3:17:00 PM
From: Jim Roof	Respond to of 67261

<<ut I think most would agree that it is Government responsibility to assure a safe and peaceful society.Surely you would agree that there is a line that must be drawn as to government intervention in our lives.>> I could not agree more. However, there is a problem that arises out of the government's attempt to do so when coupled to basic human nature. Here is an illustration. We have freedom of the press and freedom of speech yet, when taken to the extremes these freedoms can turn into liabilities. When freedoms are interpreted by liberal courts in such a way as to equate nude dancing as 'free speech' then what we are really doing is laying the foundation for 'free speech' to be encroached upon. Years ago many Southern Baptist ministers were against the censorship of Playboy and Penthouse because they had enough foresight to see that once government intrusion is accepted in any form then it could just be a matter of time and a few court cases before all must pay the price. The 'moral' to this story is - freedoms enjoyed absent the sobering restraint of responsibility can, and more than likely will, turn into vices. <<Their is no contradiction in the obvious laws against gunning down children and the keeping the government out of our private sex lives.We can do both,no problem.>> My point regarding the gunning down of children is not so much based upon the idea of law as it is the idea that we have raised a generation for whom there is no moral authority to that law. These kids who do these things see no ultimate consequence for their actions. For them there is no 'fear of God'. Their understanding of life having sprung from random reactions in the mud leads to life ending in a return to nothing at all. If we begin and end absent of meaning then who can rightly claim that any lasting meaning can be found somewhere in the middle? <<2. chaste,virtuous.The government should stay out of the latter.>> It has taken our nation a little over two hundred years to reach that conclusion. Chastity and virtue, while not always practically evident, have at least for many years been upheld by our nation's laws. It has been only in about the last 40 years that the idea that such things are not the stuff from which laws should be crafted has been in vogue. What do the teen pregnancy rates, drug use statistics, juvenile crime figures and gang violence statistics say about the ultimate wisdom of such a course? Jim