Rights and wrongs

I was reading about how in Portsmouth, NH a man was found sneaking into the building where Obama was speaking and he was carrying a gun. Then it happened in Arizona. These people were presumably not interested in shooting the president: they were just exercising their rights to carry guns. One of the gun-toting citizens said that if you don't use your rights, you lose them.

Which made me think. The major stripping of our rights began, in truth, with the Patriot Act, none of which I want to cite here, but which does contain language that basically lets a person be arrested and thrown into jail without any hope of getting out if they are there under "certain circumstances." Someone told me about how a kid, just a kid playing a prank, was arrested and couldn't get out of jail because of his violation of the Patriot Act. What did he do? He was lurking around the first President Bush's boathouse in Maine. How this affects national security one can only imagine, and of course the kid was stupid (but that is his right as a teenager; you're stupid due to the American Teenager Act, duh). What is interesting is that I can't find any information on this on the internet. None.

Anyway. I am getting a little freaked out by the growing pressure to mandate immunizations, the latest being this swine flu that is, as we all know, a growing pandemic sure to wipe out the world. How do we know this? Because "they" say so. The problem with the whole concept of mandating is that it shouldn't be necessary. If I believe that I am going to die UNLESS I get a shot, then of course I am going to get one. What muddies the water for me is that the government is SAYING I MUST, without providing proof of a pandemic or any other good reason why I should have it.

When the polio vaccine became available, it was a good thing! Eradicating polio, which is not a fun disease at all, was a wonderful goal. But why a chicken pox immunization? And why is that mandatory? Chicken pox is not a killer disease. The hepatitis B shot is another one that really ticks me off. Both Hallie and Maddie did not "qualify" for mandatory status on this shot; but Charlie did. As an infant he had the shot and it completely affected him. He was jaundiced for weeks and my otherwise healthy child was suddenly not as healthy. Why would I give him another shot of something that was clearly bad for him? Why am I not given the choice, as his mother, to decline a shot that I don't feel is good for him?

Oh sure, I can claim religious exemption, but that is a lie. Why am I forced to lie to avoid something that really isn't that necessary at all? THAT is the stuff that goes on all the time and we just ignore it or think that it's not that important. I was just reading about how it actually isn't a LAW that you have to provide government-issued identification to fly on an airplane. And what really blew me away was that this is something I HAVEN'T questioned. Oh no! I too, am becoming complacent in the face of regulations and laws that should not be there at all.

I remember after 9/11 when they were pulling people out of line (mostly good looking young girls) to do more invasive searches of them. I vowed if that happened to me; I was going to put up a fuss. I wasn't going to allow them to search me for the sake of searching me. I was going to demand that the people stand up for their rights! Now I just fly through security and the like because I have decided that I will play their game ... I will take off my shoes despite the utter stupidity of this, and I intend every time I travel that it will go smoothly, and it does. I do it because it's just not that important to convince mere employees, airline or government, that it is stupid. Do they care? No. But start taking anything else off, and I'll sing a different tune.

But back to the no identification needed. Apparently "they" say it is a federal law because it is just easier to say so; and no one really disputes it. The real reason that they require identification is so that people will not sell their frequent flyer miles. But if you choose, you can fly without identification, you will just be classified as such and you will get an orange sticker on both your checked bags and ticket; and your bags will not go onto the plane until you do. Many airline employees do not even know this. The TSA has apparently updated this and said that you MUST have identification to fly, but if you LOST something (as in lie and say you have lost your wallet or it was stolen) then you can fly without ID. See, I hate that. Why are we being forced to lie?

I don't know if it is important or not. What I do know is that it is an example of something that builds and we don't even question it.

That scares me. Especially in this climate of government overload.