These are the faces of Free Enterprise. Capitalism still gives more opportunity to more of the people than any other system we’ve seen.
Hat tip Bitter
The Face of Free Enterprise
May 20, 2010
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Posted by Peter
Projection
September 8, 2009A while back Tam linked a comment calling the NRA (along with pro-lifers, tea party goers and others) “our Taliban.”
I want to take a look a little earlier in the comment, where the writer says “It is not only possible, but likely that these people think the Second Amendment makes it legal to shoot someone who disagrees with you for violating your First amendment right to free speech.”
Sorry, buddy, it’s not us that go ballistic when someone disagrees with us. You are completely entitled to your opinions, and as much as I disagree with them, I will fight as long as I can to defend that right. It’s the Left that is usually complaining that OUR free speech somehow infringes on theirs. It’s the left that complained that the Dixie Chicks boycotts where an infringement of their speech, instead of an exercise of ours.
There seems to be a tendency, seemingly more pronounced in the left, to consider any act of disagreement as hate, a suppression of free speech, or something worth shooting people over. I have opinions, and inherant in that is thinking that people that hold differing opinions are wrong. And guess what? They think I am wrong, too. Who cares? Learn to live with the idea that there are people out there that think you are wrong.
Disagreeing with people isn’t hate. Trying to change their minds, or sway public opinion isn’t suppressing free speech, it is exercising it. You want to call me America’s Taliban, fine, but be prepared to back it up, because I am going to exercise my right to free speech, as well. You want to accuse me of wanting to shoot people that disagree, that’s your right, but that’s not how I work, and not how most, or all, of the people I know work. Be careful what you accuse people of, not because we might get violent, don’t worry, I won’t, but people unable to back those sorts of allegations end up looking foolish.
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Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – Force vs Freedom Edition
June 12, 2009Laws are force. Government enforcing those laws are force. Removing restrictions on people being able to defend themselves is not force. It is freedom. – Joe Huffman
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Posted by Peter
Thoughs on a smoking ban
May 21, 2009A few days ago, Gov. Doyle signed a smoking ban into law, prohibiting smoking in all but a very few grandfathered businesses, and in all new ones. One of the local talk shows had a segment where they asked a group of people about it, and a surprising number were like me.
See, the smoking ban is good for me. I don’t smoke, and can’t stand the smell. In fact, there is at least one pretty good restaurant that I won’t go to, because I end up smelling like a chimney for the rest of the work day. After the ban takes effect next summer, I will be able to eat there without that concern.
Yet I oppose the ban. To me, a business should be free to choose that the business that they get from smokers is more valuable than the business they lose from people like me that don’t want to smell it. Likewise, a growing number of businesses realize that there are a lot more people that don’t smoke, and make their establishments smoke free to try to draw them in. It may cost some dollars from smokers, but they made a business decision that they were better off without it. I don’t have an inherent right to a smoke free environment in any restaurant I want to go to, and smokers don’t have a right to light up wherever they want. Restaurants can, and have, set rules on smoking, and that has worked pretty well.
I believe we should let the market decide this one, and it was good to hear a lot of people agreed with that. Let’s hope that more people start looking at things that way, and start holding poiticians to that standard.
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Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – No Explanation Necessary Edition
May 5, 2009Here’s the thing about rights… we don’t have to explain it to the government when we choose to exercise them. I don’t have to justify my blathering on this blog and the overall societal value because I have a right to speak freely. I don’t have to explain it to my government when I assert my 5th amendment right against self-incrimination. I don’t have to justify my right to due process or to assemble in protest. And I don’t have to explain myself if I want to strap a sidearm to my hip and go about my business. It’s my RIGHT. – Owen, Boots & Sabers
Amen.
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Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – Will to Resist Edition
May 1, 2009The disarmament of a society can happen without taking away their tools of resistance, but by taking away the very will to resist in the first place.
If you give a pacifist a gun, you can still kill him with a baseball bat. He won’t shoot you, won’t raise his hands against you, won’t defend his own miserable life. He will stand there and die even though he has the very means to resist. – Robb
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Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – Shouted Down Edition
April 15, 2009See, it doesn’t matter what your arguments are. It doesn’t matter that you are against something based upon principle or ethics or religion. All that matters is that if you don’t embrace or agree with the liberal, leftist agenda, be it on illegal immigrants, gay marriage, Islamic terrorists, personal responsibility, et cetera, whatever it is that you have to say is simply “hate speech” and you will be shouted down. This is the new liberal interpretation of the First Amendment. – Jeff Soyer
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Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – Offensive Edition
March 30, 2009I’ve always been of the opinion that most things worth saying are going to offend someone.
I’d be disappointed if what I’ve said on my blog didn’t offend someone. – Mike W, in the comments
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Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – Hate Speech Edition
March 15, 2009It’s easy to say “Free speech doesn’t equal hate speech!” It sounds very nice and pleasing and respectful.
Unfortunately, sometimes that’s EXACTLY what free speech means — it means that your ideological enemy has the right to say exactly what you hate. – Lissa
Guess what, guys. Protecting free speech is all about. You don’t need your right to talk about springtime, sunshine and fuzzy bunnies BECAUSE IT DOESN’T OFFEND ANYONE. OK, maybe a couple of people, but not enough to have that speech infringed on. The right of free speech is about saying things that others would want to silence someone on. Trampling on speech because it is against someone’s beliefs is wrong. The civil rights movement was contrary to the beliefs of a lot of racists, good thing we didn’t shut them up because they might offend someone.
3 Comments | Freedom, politics, Quote of the Day | Permalink
Posted by Peter
Quote of the Day – Freedom Lovers Edition
February 11, 2009What our new president and his attorney general obviously want is control. Studying other gun-grabbing regimes of the past, they know the first thing that needs to be done to turn us from citizens to subjects is to disarm us.
My advice to American freedom lovers: Buy more guns and ammo, and join the National Rifle Association. – Ted Nugent
Hat tip Alan
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Posted by Peter
