ClimbingPanther

MIDDLE EARTH THE SQUARE ROOT OF -1 VIRENDRA'S BRAIN ... ... ... things that are imaginary

I love hearing stories of MRNP rangers issuing permits on the spot instead if insta-citing people. What a happy place, and what better way to promote happiness AND the law! Props, Darth, for perpetuating a friendly atmosphere there. All the rangers I've ever interacted with there have been delightful.

was the title of this thread purposefully spelled descriptively?

makes for a good inside jok ethough

I nearly spewed my peanut butter & jelly sandwich all over my computer! You are my favorite person EVAR, archy.

humans KNOW 'buddy' is not involved because he's ...uh... busy

can I have a poster of that for my wall?

kevbone, you sure know how to start a thread that will go the distance

v, my man, where have all the grab-bag thought fragment posts gone, that in times past have defined you??? I want you back!

why'd it take you so long to respond, you workin' or sumpin?

extort the $250 out of the judge by ransoming his broom handle

yeah, but in communism, everyone wishes they were dead.

his attention is a monopoly owned by me, along with raindawg and a few others

isn't that illegal too? baa 8D

OK, tru dat, i repent of the restaurant argument

does a child have a right to grow up without secondhand smoke? maybe you should push for banning smoking in private residences too. edit: I think this is a way more worthwhile cause than being concerned about restaurants, etc., where people have a choice to enter or seek employment. We rightly force parents to protect their children with seatbelts, why not keep the kid safe from secondhand smoke as well?

A restaurant isn't exactly the perfect example of a public place. You don't have a right to enter any business. They have the right to ask you to leave. I'd say a public place is more like a park or a city street or a beach, you know, a place we all kinda own. I think if smoking is banned anywhere, it should be banned in a truly public place where kids have the right to play without getting lung cancer, long before it's banned in a private business where we don't have a "right" to be, just a privilege granted by the owner. But somehow we got it backwards. Good job, butt-head referendum writers. Oh, by the way I don't smoke and I think it's disgusting and incredibly stupid, but that's not why we make laws, now is it?

Yeah, I know, but are you telling me those other people have no choice but to stand by and inhale secondhand smoke? Not hardly. The power of the consumer should be the measure a business uses to determine their policy on smoking. If nobody wants to be around it, they will ban it to stay in business. And if the impact of every activity on insurance premiums were a good measure of what the government should tell us we can & can't do, then a lot of dangerous activities like climbing ought to be regulated & legislated to minimize its impact, and recoup by taxation the cost to our society. Maybe we should just have a study to determine the most benign form of exercise and legislate that everyone must participate at the perfect level to reduce our premiums and make sure everyone's making the right choices in their life. The smoking issue is certainly worth at least some argument and thought to figure out what's the approach most consistent with freedom, and a blanket referendum to ban it indoors was not the best choice.

I want to see a candidate who runs on principle, not issues. I want to see a philosophy of government that fits with the Constitution that is the foundation of this country. Can I get an "AMEN?" The petty issue-wrangling that we see over and over in debates & advertisements is just an example of pandering to our collective desire to get our way, rather than to preserve the principle of freedom & rights.

So, by majority rule, it's OK to take away the rights of everyone, including those who voted against it? This is "democracy" run amok, with people voting how they feel on an issue instead of voting by the principles of freedom the country is based on. I didn't include seatbelt because there's a safety issue for other motorists, but if you fall off a bike, you're either going to get hurt or die and the helmet has no bearing on anyone's destiny but your own and you should be able to self-determine. And for kids' seatbelts, it's the gov't protecting kids from their parents' stupidity until they have the legal freedom to self-determine. any guess to what percentage of emergency services motorcycles make up? [edit: oh, and if you want to talk per capita, then please give me some per capita stats on climbers & their SAR usage, b/c I'd bet it's at least somewhat higher than other user groups] anyway, what's acceptable to the public is not the gold standard for the philosophy of law & government, but it is being used as such all too often. that was my main point, regardless of the strengths & weaknesses of a given issue.

you make every one of your post-30K posts count, don't you.

bone, when two conflicting "rights" cross, such as an adult's right to life, and another adult's right to pursue what makes him happy which happens to be murdering the first adult, the government must choose which "right" to protect. you could argue that the government ought to protect the second person's right to be happy and let him kill the first person, or you could argue that the first person's right to life trumps the second one's happiness. please articulate how an adult's life is more important than an adult's happiness, yet an unborn child's life is not. and stop talking about Iraq, that is a diversion from your apparent inability to discuss the issue at hand.

when laws are passed to "protect us from ourselves" or remove the right to do something that has no effect on another's rights, then the government has taken advantage of the power we bestow it. like the idea of restricting climbing on Hood. and motorcycle helmets. and homosexuality. and religion. and stores' stocking choices. and a business' smoking policy. and so forth.

kev, the whole "forcing your opinion" thing is a crock and everyone knows it. there are certain things we give the government the responsibility to do, such as protect our ...ahem... right to ...ahem... life. that's why the government, like, forces stuff on us like, don't murder people, and stuff. the role of government is to protect these rights from people who want to take them away. from the moment you depart from complete and total anarchy, somebody's "opinion" is being "forced" on another, but it's for the good of the values of freedom this country was founded on.

you want specific? 0 the specific gravity of what's between your ears. oh snap!1