should the personal be political?

There's been many threads on here since I joined debating the rights and wrongs of abortion, gay marriage, being gay, drugs etc. All of these are subjects which generate wildly differing viewpoints, rightly so as we are all individuals.

So should what are effectively personal choices and viewpoints be subject to governmental regulations and laws? Maybe once we would have all answered to the church, but now many of us are either aethiests or more free in our religious beliefs and that control is gone.

Should certain things in our society be left down to the individual?
Are laws needed to protect those who could be coerced into personal choices?

IMHO, and in one word, YES.

I do not believe in encroachment on personal rights. Primarily because I try to live by the Golden Rule. And if I take your personal right away, the next right taken will probably be mine.

Yes, I believe that certain personal things should be beyond the law of the land, and left to the individual's moral judgment.

EDITING NOTE: You asked several questions, some of which contradicted each other (I do that sometimes too). I wanted to clarify I am answering YES to the question of should certain things in our society be left down to the individual?

[Edited on 18-8-2003 by Valhall]

Depends on from what country you hail. I will answer on in reference to the U.S.

This nation was based on Judeo-Christian beliefs. The laws (not statutues, but constitutional laws) are based on the beliefs of the nation.
The condition of the nation is the result of a concerted effort to reengineer society. It is by no accident that people aren't turning to the God of their fathers, its not accident they are thumbing their noses at traditional standards and pursuing a more "enlightened" path.

And, what is called personal usually isn't as isolated as those wanting to engage in the "personal" activity would lead you to believe. Very litle happens in a vacuum.

I was under the impression that the US, like the UK was technically a democracy. And isn't a democracy supposed to allow freedom of expression and personal choice? As well as representing the majority beliefs of it's population?

It may be that society is changing because the people both want to and are free to change. And if you wish to stand by your traditional beliefs then you are still free to practice them in your own life

There's more to a "democracy" than that. But that is beside the point. Yes, you are correct in that if a nation wants to destroy itself, run itself into the ground, it may do so. As a matter of fact, there is no way one may stop it. History has proven that time and again, and the other thing history has proven is that we do not learn from it.

I can live the way I want rule of yours goes only so far. If I'm on a plane, and the majority of the passengers have been talked into taking an active participation in crashing the plane by the pilot and his crew, my ability to do the traditionally accepted thing of not interfering with the flight-worthiness of an aircraft will be short-lived. My family, friends and I are also part of this nation. When it is destroyed, when it has gone so far away from the direction the Founding Fathers intended that there is no way to bring it back, it effects me and mine as well, no matter what I do.

TC say I was american - how can my personal choice to have an abortion or sleep with another woman have a negative affect on your life? Do I prevent you from doing anything if I chose to do those things?

Ok I accept you may dislike the idea immensely and would not chose that lifestyle for yourself or your children - but how exactly does it take anything away from the quality of your life?

I don't see the relevance of your plane example either

And, how would it effect me if I lived in seclusion and it were perfectly legal to abort grown people like you? If you can't see the sickness of murder, the discussion is moot. The degeneration of the sociaty as a whole effects all some. The disease seeps into every family, and as time goes, weakens and destroys the nation. I see you haven't bothered to learn from history, either. Narcissism, gluttony and moral weakness is what brings down the great civilizations. You say such a lifestyle doesn't effect me. But where do you think we send our children, huh? To the public education system, which is run by the social reengineering liberals Hell-bent to rip every evidence of morality, traditional values and any other glue that bound society for dozens of decades. Many of us are taxed to the point we don't have the luxury to pay for the public education system as well as pay for a private education for our children. Our families are infected with the filth. The infection's effects are slow, the individual, the family and then the nation as a whole isn't diseased at once, the death isn't like a gunshot wound, it is like a slow and unnoticed cancer, gone without attention until the death of the patient is certain.

One day a hoard of naked warriors, painted blue, a band of comparative heathens, will rush into our congress as our congressmen sit there, stoic, as the blue barbarians tug at their senators' beards.

Yes, all choices of a personal nature should be left to the individual. Our gov't (US) has become our parents. Make no mistake, this is wrong! I never bargained for a parental organization who wants to punish me for being myself, or making my own decisions. More and more non-violent citizens are being criminalized merely for disagreeing with our gov't. We're f*cking adults, for crying out loud!
In the last 20 years or so, people have given up fun for "safety". We have all these feel good laws designed to protect us from ourselves. This goes right along with the article I posted here. They want us to be idiots. Idiots are easy to manage. It's just like herding sheep, or taking care of children, right? You tell the children what you think is bad, and you punish them if they don't obey. "Don't stick that penny in your mouth, or I'll have to spank you." This is a real problem when it's applied to consenting adults, who know the risks of swallowing a penny. We don't have freedom anymore. The Constitution is being perverted more and more. Each of our rights is being infringed upon just a bit more, on a daily basis. It's happened so gradually that some sheeple don't even realize it anymore.
We have sobriety, license, and insurance checkpoints. (I think the narcotics checkpoints were finally declared unconstitutional) We have seat belts laws, child seat laws, drug laws, suicide laws. We had planes flying over with infrared cameras that could "see" right into your house and get a search warrant if enough heat was detected. Some cop cars have these mounted on the roof, in some states. It's illegal to jump off bridges, buildings, etc., even if you have a parachute. Your tires have to have so much tread, or you could get injured!

Now, interestingly enough, Bush is going to crack down on Inet porn. More babysitting, and one more infringement of our Constitution. I guess it really doesn't mean anything anymore.

www.shortnews.com...

www.wired.com...

The gov't should not parent our children, no matter how many parents think so. The parents that subscribe to this type of thinking should be shot, IMO. They're the ones who are ruining America with their advocacy of the idiocy movement. If I had a child, it would be my responsibility to protect my child from things I consider unhealthy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not fit to be a parent, IMO. The main problem here is, it's not just the children they're parenting. It's every adult in America.

Look what happened at Waco. Those people were executed, just for being different.

[Edited on 19-8-2003 by Satyr]

For every action there is a reaction.Every thing you do in this life has an effect on someone else.It may not be an immediate effect but it will happen.Sleeping with another woman is not illegal here in the U.S.,but to answer your question arc.(pardon me TC I don't mean to intrude).Lets say you do sleep with someone besides your wife or girlfriend(don't take this personal it is only an example)and they become pregnant.What are the effects that follow?Your wife is distraught,an unmarried woman is having a baby,and not to mention the effects on all the family and friends.Now say the woman can't afford the child but decides to raise it anyway.We then are forced to pay for that child through our government.Anyway I have gone too long and these things are hard to put into words.I hope you see that "personal "decsions are not always,if ever personal.

Originally posted by Satyr

Look what happened at Waco. Those people were executed, just for being different.

[Edited on 19-8-2003 by Satyr]

Hey Satyr,
Sorry to get off topic,but I know or knew a guy named Wally Kennett who joined the Davidians.He was actually very close to David Koresh,and was the guitarist in his band.He happened to have been away the weekend that all the assault took place.
I haven't heard from him in years,but my best friend does occassionally receive emails from him.In fact he forwards them to me from time to time.He likes to talk about the government and their corruptness in great detail.Do a google search on his name and it will come up.

or suppose a small group of super rich OLD families got together and decided that to hang onto what they had they would have to re-engineer society.
i'm talking a little beyond the "liberal", "lefty" camp here.
suppose that some guy had this idea about dividing and conquering. at first it was merely physical. but the joy and success was so great that it moved into the realm of the mind.
this guy realized that if you had two really good arguments in your head, you were unable to make a decision. you would be compelled, however, to keep arguing in your neverending search for truth.
we all have the desire for truth.
it is an easy "button" to "press"(oh, there's that press word, again).

Originally posted by Daz3d-n-Confus3d
Hey Satyr,
Sorry to get off topic,but I know or knew a guy named Wally Kennett who joined the Davidians.He was actually very close to David Koresh,and was the guitarist in his band.He happened to have been away the weekend that all the assault took place.
I haven't heard from him in years,but my best friend does occassionally receive emails from him.In fact he forwards them to me from time to time.He likes to talk about the government and their corruptness in great detail.Do a google search on his name and it will come up.

Wow! Interesting stuff.

Kennett makes the surprising statement that the BATF was not really looking for an illegal arsenal when they raided Mt. Carmel, but rather, for information stored on a computer.
It was well known among the Davidians that two of their members--Jeff Little and Wayne Martin (Sheila's husband)--had been conducting an "investigation" into illegal government activities, and storing their findings on a computer.

Originally posted by Satyr
that all the assault took place.

Wow! Interesting stuff.

Kennett makes the surprising statement that the BATF was not really looking for an illegal arsenal when they raided Mt. Carmel, but rather, for information stored on a computer.
It was well known among the Davidians that two of their members--Jeff Little and Wayne Martin (Sheila's husband)--had been conducting an "investigation" into illegal government activities, and storing their findings on a computer.

Yes it is.And I knew Wally very well,he was always a little odd.Very strange ideas about life and religion.But one thing he was not and that is a liar.I don't think the guy could lie to you if his life depended on it.So his quote I believe at least in his mind is very accurate.He was odd but he was not crazy.