YesNoYes

No, you can’t have a big soda, but yes, you can have a donut. You cannot have three scoops of ice cream on a cone. You cannot have caffeinated beverages less than two hours before you go to sleep. You cannot go swimming until three hours after a meal and one hour after liquids. (Oops that’s what someone’s mother said), or maybe it was the Mayor of a major American city whose priorities are making decisions about what is good for you, rather than stopping the tourist buses from blocking access to buildings and the street. Who gets to decide what you, as an adult, can and cannot do. And a better question is, what’s next? No you cannot smoke in a public place, but how do you define private when nothing is private anymore. No, you can’t have an abortion, but you can have a child that you cannot feed, house, or for whom you cannot provide. No you can’t marry someone you love because they are the same sex, but you have to stay married to someone who beats you, because women are generally known to whine over nothing. Oh, and no you can’t have sex more than once a week, but yes your husband can rape you because, after all, you are married hopefully to someone of a different sex. Did I mention that statute that allows officers of the law, as well as military personnel to arrest American citizens if they think they are causing trouble? How do you define trouble? Guess you have to ask someone at Homeland Security… they seem to be in charge of everything – man, woman, beast, property, speech, the air, the sea, and probably bunny rabbits eating farmer Jones’s garden. Where did all the freedoms go? Not all the freedoms, in the sense of, you can’t be naked on a beach unless it is designated. But free to make reasonable decisions about your life, your family, and the way you choose to live your life. Yes, I am exaggerating a bit, but what do any of these things have to do with the economy or jobs, the war, or a crisis in leadership? Why do our elected officials want to control our lives, when they do nothing to help us make our lives easier, or more productive. My mother always said, “live and let live.” Clearly no one who is making those ridiculous “alloweds” and “not alloweds” talked to her. Maybe a question better than where did all the freedoms go, is --where is common sense when we need it most? We’re just sayin’…. Iris