America is a on long slow descent into becoming exactly the opposite of what the founding fathers were trying to create.

This is a country based on the principle that we would all be immigrants or children of immigrants and now we try to keep out people who just want to fucking mow our lawns so they can feed their kids.

And, we were based on the separation of church and state - because the founding fathers saw first hand - first in the UK and then with the Salem Witch Trials exactly how scary religion and government mixed together would become. And yet we now base many of our laws on "Christian" principles. It's not just the gays who are victims of this, but also polygamists and, really, anyone who thinks love is something more than financial obligation and the creation of 2.5 children.

We also four for "No taxation without representation" but in many states you lose your right to vote after minor drug convictions - but they still take taxes out of your paycheck.

Then, we have the idea of due process of law being fucked up the ass if you are considered a "terrorist" - which sure would have fucked with George Washington since he led a fucking terrorist revolution against the English.

Meanwhile, try telling a 15 year old girl who can't get an abortion because of parental notification laws that she is enjoying the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The entire northeast gave up on the right to bear arms a long time ago. (Pretty much as soon as minorities started moving into the inner cites.)

Many of the founding fathers made their livings growing hemp and/or tobacco, but just try to light up a cigarette at your local bar and god help you if you are a cancer or HIV patient who needs medical marijuana simply to be able to get hungry enough to eat.

If Jefferson visited America today, he'd spit on the ground and get on a boat to Paris.

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I was with you 100 % until you elevated smoking tobacco, in a public place, to the level of a civil right, being trampled by the state.
To deserve rights, one must have some, common sense, concern for the commonweal, a word that has disappeared from public discourse.

Pactice firing of your 22 calibre pistol in a firing range is responsible & your right, if that is your choice. Firing it in your backyard in a populated neighborhood is a viciously, irresponsible, act.

I too, read Ms. Datlow's blog & was appalled at the growing self-righteous, callousness & deliberate cruelty of our society, visited on the OTHERS, who happen to "march to the sound of another drum".
Not only the "founding fathers" but a majority of the commons, had come in 1788, to understand that this experiment of a republican government, could not survive, if one or another competing cult, demonination or religion could harness the dreadful power of the state, in its behalf. Those people had lived through 17th & 18th century experience, time & again, of despised believers escaping to the new world, to practice their beliefs & then upon seizing control of government, immediately repressing their "religious" competitors.
Beware the current takeover of our military forces & service academies by ignorant, hard right fundamentalist Protestant manipulations.

By the way, Jefferson did go to Paris, where he witnessed the beginning of the French Revolution, which he applauded. Later, after the radical Jacobin takeover, with its insane, cruelties & rumbling tumbrils, he was appalled. Uncle Walt

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I'm very familiar with Jefferson going to Paris (and was trying to make a subtle joke about the French Revolution.)

My theory on smoking in bars is this. I live in a city. And as in most cities there is no real "need" to drive a car ever. Public transportation will get you anywhere. Yet, people still do it which forces me to inhale tons of unneeded carcinogenic car exhaust (much, much more than comes from cigarettes) and makes my clothes smell bad every time I walk down the street. And it's bad for everyone. Which is why I choose to not own a car.

Remember , there's no way to avoid walking down the street because everyone at some point needs groceries. So, I can't choose to avoid car exhaust.

Now, consider cigarette smoke in bars. Cigarette smoke contains very similar chemicals to car exhaust, yet you have to choose to go to a bar (unlike walking down the street) and like with anything else in life when you make a choice to do something there are positives and negatives to that choice.

Further, making it against the law to smoke in bars, means that people stand outside bars to smoke - blowing smoke around people who are, again, just trying to walk down the street. That's tons of carcinogens those pedestrians would not be exposed to if people could smoke in bars.

So, I'll be fine with the smoking bans in bars, as soon as we ban all non essential combustion engine traffic in cities that are well served by public transportation.

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I'm glad you brought up the point about compassion. I consider myself Christian but find the total fundamental movement in America abhorrent. I can't understand how the love your neighbor commandment (considered to be the greatest after loving God) can just be tossed out the window.

I think I have more important things to think about and accomplish than worrying about telling people who and how to love. (Who am I to judge anyway? I think this world needs as many loving families as possible.)

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yukihada: You said it more succinctly and better than I did. Agreed.

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This should give you some small bit of hope.

[link]

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With all due respect Jeff, it was a secular university hospital with a written policy allowing the hospital to refuse anyone visitation rights to their patients (a policy upheld in the federal court that dismissed the suit) that kept the couple apart. The only act of compassion in this dreadful tragedy was when a Catholic priest thwarted hospital policy and was able to briefly reunite the couple during the administering of last rites (requested by the dying woman's partner in acknowledgement of the woman's wishes.)

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Rgardless -- it's total bullshit from the word go. And let's not pretend that the stupidity I mentioned in my original post is not that which is actually behind it.

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