Friday, May 2, 2008

Small Pleasures.........endangered species?

What makes us happy? Well, perhaps going outside and barbequing a delicious steak. Or maybe you like sweets and covet a chocolate bar? A daily martini before dinner? After running errands for a couple of hours, on your drive home, you think of that fresh cup of coffee with a cigarette. Your children love your home baked cookies packed with their school lunch. And oh, how they enjoy the excitement of the Valentine’s day school party and a scrumptious cupcake.

Your little boy rides his scooter down the sidewalk feeling free with the wind blowing through his hair. Maybe Dad likes a good cigar once in a while, or lights up his pipe. You’re somewhat overweight, but you prefer sitting and visiting, and you’ll exercise tomorrow, maybe, who cares?
You get the idea. It’s the little things that add pleasure in small ways that we take for granted. As to the big pleasures, like the day you get married, or have a baby, buy a house, or even a new car, those are big deals. Those times are few and far between, and the newness wears off. But, it’s the small things that make life pleasurable on a daily basis. We just don’t think about them, until......some "expert" tells you that your small pleasure is bad for you, or unacceptable. After all, you don’t need it. At least that’s what you’re told. At first it’s just advice, then an organization is formed to educate the public about your habit, or vice. Your small pleasures.
Your child should really be wearing pads and a helmet when he rides that scooter. Never mind that the sheer joy of feeling free is no more. In California, your child can be cited with a $25.00 fine if he dares to ride with no pads and helmet.

Sweets? Oh no, you don’t need them and you might gain weight. Your children don’t need them either. Got to break them of that while they're young. Smoking? Well we all know you’re a pariah if you smoke, and don’t forget about the pollution you cause.

This is about freedom. Or to be more exact, losing freedom. It is not alarming at first. A warning label, public announcements containing "suggestions". Experts begin to appear on those morning shows or radio shows. These "experts" are associated with organizations. And all of them are there to "help" us become healthy and acceptable. They’re looking out for our best interests. Our children? Well, while they’re "helping" our children learn how healthy sex is, they are also now in activist mode in their zeal that our kids eat healthy. So, look for that traditional Valentine’s Day class party to be centered around not only the meaningless valentine for every child, but carrot sticks! What fun. But, healthy and low calorie. They don’t need fun.

Schools in different cities and towns have eliminated teeter - totters, dodge ball, and the latest to fall, tag. Never mind that teens are beating each others' brains out on ‘you tube’. The "experts" haven’t figured out the reason for that yet. Maybe the teens eat the wrong foods. Children are too empowered with adult decisions and behavior, yet they're not allowed play children’s games. Maybe the poor kids are just confused.

In California they want to put warning labels on coffee. In Japan, businesses are weighing their employees on a regular basis. How long before you’re being weighed at work? Obesity is the new cause de jour.

In any case, this is how it’s done folks one freedom at a time, one step at a time. It worked with smoking, it’ll work with anything. The populace will become so accustomed to being told what to do, and have demonstrated already how obedient they are, even when something we’re told makes no sense. This will not stop. It’s here to stay. Oh, by the way, that barbeque? Sorry, too polluting. The martini? Alcohol is fattening and addicting. A double whammy. Besides, you don’t need it.

There are fools in every legislature in the country. We surely don’t need fools!
If you wait for your ox to be gored, ( pun intended) chances are, it will be too late. My advice? Vote the fools out until they get it right, and remember who is boss. You are! Unless we resist and continue to enjoy our small pleasures, and unless we show up at our children’s schools, with a lawyer if necessary, and unless we say "get off our collective backs", America will be a joyless, colorless place. By the time the global warming folks get through with us, we’ll be lucky if we’re not taxed on our breathing.

Unless we have freedom, and that includes tolerating others’ small pleasures we may not like, we have nothing. America will no longer be that "shining city on a hill", it will be just another unhappy place.


Priscilla

20 comments:

Brooke said...

GREAT post!

The Nanny State needs to control every aspect of our lives, and is the antithesis of liberty.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

No offense, but people who live in states that go blue in every presidential election should be fitted with warning stickers that say:

"Warning: Potentially Stupid."

Ottavio (Otto) Marasco said...

So true, great posting...

Not just America, we're about to get warning labels on wine over here. The nanny staters are coddling us silly. Never mind us, individuals, they're lining us up to think act as one collective unit, brings to mind an image from Metropolis film. A dehumanising process, little pleasures...

Anonymous said...

Wowee, Z! My kids don't wear helmets and pads, and I just thought I was a bad mama.
I've turned off the morning shows here in my home. I'm tired of the 'experts' telling me what I don't need to hear. I can decide what's good for me and mine. God gives us instincts. Elitists can have their utopian society and I'll live in my imperfect, dodge-ball playin', brownie-eatin' world.

Anonymous said...

"If you wait for your ox to be gored, ( pun intended) chances are, it will be too late. My advice? Vote the fools out until they get it right, and remember who is boss. You are! Unless we resist and continue to enjoy our small pleasures, and unless we show up at our children’s schools, with a lawyer if necessary, and unless we say "get off our collective backs", America will be a joyless, colorless place. By the time the global warming folks get through with us, we’ll be lucky if we’re not taxed on our breathing.

Unless we have freedom, and that includes tolerating others’ small pleasures we may not like, we have nothing. America will no longer be that "shining city on a hill", it will be just another unhappy place."


I can rest easy now...Pris and I are in Happy agreement once again...ALL is RIGHT in the world...: )


Great post Pris!

Pati

Anonymous said...

Aw Pati, you could always rest easy. Happy agreement is nice though, huh?

Thanks.


brooke, american Interests; Thank you.


beamish; Please, "I'd like my warning label to say; Rebel!


pinky; My sentiments exactly. That's how my grandson rode as well. I think the police have more important things to do, than bust an 8 year old! Thanks.


Pris

The Merry Widow said...

Pain is an excellent teacher, plus you learn that pain won't kill you.
I despise the nanny state thinking, and my children carried pocketknives into the woods near here, and I didn't follow them in either!

tmw

Anonymous said...

Zin;

Bonsoir tres Chere Madame;

There is an article on FPM, tonight;
WAR WITH IRAN II,

And your comments there, will be apreciated

SAM

Z said...

beamish, Rebel is the word. And there are more of us here than you think. Except, we're doing the same thing conservatives in other states are doing. nothing.

Everyone else; so what're we going to do about this? Anything?

Anonymous said...

FreeThinke says:

Pris, I am in total agreement with you about this, but in my stubbornly Libertarian view what you've said here is in near-perfect accord with everything Nor'wood, CJ and I have been saying at the lengthy controversial FLDS thread below (102 posts at last count!), despite our apparent disagreement there.

I don't want to bring that unsavory topic up here, but the same PRINCIPLE of Freedom of Choice, whether it applies to the small pleasures you enumerated or what-many-define-as large sins is the same.

Someone (I am too old and too lazy at this point, so it can't be I) should write a book called The Supervised Society. If written well, it would provide a clear demonstration of how we have been led to IMPRISON ourselves voluntarily and all in the names of Fairness, Equity and Public Safety.

If we are not careful, we could very easily monitor and supervise ourselves into STASIS.

"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."

~ Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"They that can give up essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

~ Franklin (1706-1790)

God bless candy, liquor, good food, junk food, and tobacco–––in moderation, of course.

The ancient Greek proverb advising us to practice moderation in all things is one of few universal truths I know.

And as Tiny Tim would say, "God bless us every one."

To that I dare add: EXCEPT the BUSYBODIES.

FT

Anonymous said...

Great post, all I know is that the spirit of the Puritans from the old Salem Witchcraft Days is alive and well in America and has mutated into PC and Nannyism.

I await to see Prickers going about the towns and tithing men..oops, no, the IRS is already out in the field.


WVdottr

Anonymous said...

FreeThinke

And what do you think of the socialistic implications of THIS? Good? Or Bad?

Wine: Vintner's VisionIt's The Pets Page!Bad Reporter: Geldof Accused96 Hours: You'll Like IkesWeird: World's Longest Lei
Buzz up!
All salmon fishing banned on West Coast
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, May 2, 2008


Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez immediately declared a commercial fishery disaster, opening the door for Congress to appropriate money for anyone who will be economically harmed. . . .
It followed the recommendation last month of the Pacific Fishery Management Council after the catastrophic disappearance of California's fabled fall run . . . of king salmon.

It is the first total closure since commercial fishing started in the Bay Area in 1848.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency last month and sent a letter to President Bush asking for his help in obtaining federal disaster assistance. . . .

The disaster declaration allows state officials to work with Congress on obtaining appropriations for businesses and fishermen and women, some of whom will lose as much as 80 percent of their annual income. . . . .

The commercial salmon season off California and Oregon typically runs from May 1 to Oct. 31. The recreational season was to have begun April 5.

E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com

COMPLETE ARTICLE at:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/02/BABT10F7PE.DTL&tsp=1

The Merry Widow said...

FT-If this had been freer days, the flds would have been shot and hung.
They did it in Ohio, and joseph smith and his brother went down. And the mormons were driven out by those neighbors who didn't appreciate having their; wives, daughters, sisters and mothers disappear into a mormon harem!
The fdls would have been run out of town and the men shot.
It was a little less bloody than what could have happened even a century ago!

tmw

Anonymous said...

All they need to do is complete the circle of socialized medicine, and the total-it-arian nanny state will be complete!

Anonymous said...

Merry Widow, the way we treated MANY people in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries–––particularly the the carryings on in Salem, our disregard of the full humanity of Indians, Negroes, Mormons, and many European Immigrants–––was a mortal sin, a disgrace and a complete betrayal of Christian ideals and the stated aims of our Founders.

Acknowledging our past crimes against parts of humanity takes nothing away from the great glories we achieved at the same time.

This is LIFE–––a complex maelstrom–––and amalgam––– of good and evil, brilliance and stupidity, broad-mindedness and bigotry, health, vitality and disease, idealism, venality and corruption.

Our job is to take what is good from the past and build on it, while remembering the evil deeds that we may learn from them what not to do.

Georges Santayana, a fine poet, essayist and past president of Harvard University (or was it Yale? I'm not sure) famously said, "He who cannot remember the past is condemned to repeat it."

How hideous it would be if we reverted to the barbarism, superstition and brutality from which all humanity originated.

Contrary to popular conservative opinion we have actually improved a great deal since the days of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. We may lack their toughness and singleness of purpose, but we also lack their arrogance and their callous disregard for much of human life.

It has taken the teachings of Jesus Christ two millennia even to BEGIN to sink into human consciousness. Humanity is still in its infancy when it comes to understanding and exemplifying the Christ Ideal.

Comparing the atrocities and betrayals of Christian ideals of the past to soften our thinking about the (perhaps less savage) atrocities and betrayals of today does not excuse present wrongdoing.

All it says is that while we may have improved a bit, we still have a very long way to go.

Self-righteousness, which is really Vanity in disguise, should be listed among the Seven Deadly Sins if is not there already.

FreeThinke

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Well, I hope there is a rebellion.

Certainly there has to be enough intelligent people in California to exceed the number of people that will vote for Democrats.

Am I dreaming?

It's time to start treating Democrats as the threat to national security that they are.

I mean come on.

We're at friggin' war and the best the Democrats can come up with is the ex-President's wife and "I'm happy to be here?"

Democrats do not want to be taken seriously.

So don't.

Anonymous said...

tmw, In my family giving a boy his first pocket knife is a ritual. It indicates confidence and trust.


Z, My suggestion; call and e-mail your representatives, including your Governor, White House, and school districts. If ignored, get involved in campaigns and vote 'em out.


Just some guy, Ugh!


dottr, Thanks


beamish, yes, I'm afraid you're dreaming, but hope springs eternal!


pris

Anonymous said...

FT,

"Pris, I am in total agreement with you about this, but in my stubbornly Libertarian view what you've said here is in near-perfect accord with everything Nor'wood, CJ and I have been saying at the lengthy controversial FLDS thread below (102 posts at last count!), despite our apparent disagreement there."


Methinks this is a case of apples and oranges, my friend.


Pris

Anonymous said...

Not apples and oranges, Pris. It's all about Power and Control on every conceivable level. and how TYRANNY results when we "consent" to letting self-styled "experts" and government officials decide how we ought to live our PRIVATE lives.

I think we all agree the State must forbid and punish MURDER, RAPE, MAYHEM (assault, battery, maiming, rioting, etc.) THEFT, VANDALISM, BLACKMAIL and persistent HARASSMENT.

Beyond that I do not think the State should have any "rights" at ALL.

I do believe that individual communities should be able to set standards for themselves without fear of being "molested" by the Federal or State governments, but even there what consenting adults choose to do in PRIVATE behind closed doors should be COMPLETELY OUT of BOUNDS for ANY kind of "regulation" or "supervision" at ANY level of government.

I might be comparing Macintosh apples to Cortlandt, Winesap, Delicious, Granny Smith and Fuji apples, but in essence they are ALL "apples."

I hate to say it, but your "small pleasures" might be someone else's idea of "mortal sin" and vice versa. We should set standards and rule our own homes according to the principles we believe in, but I don't think we have a right to make "one-size-fits-all" legislation as to how EVERYONE ought to raise his children and rule his home life.

FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

We do indeed repeat the past. Look at that community in Washington State where almost everyone got indicted for child -sexual abuse.

Talk about witch hunts.
I think the town was Wenatchee.

One over zealous ( don't you love the word?) cop and some disgruntled teen age girls and bam.

WVdottr