Not sure where this originated. Fredericka mailed it to me.
[quote]According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who
were kids in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s probably shouldn’t have survived, because…
Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and
fluorescent ‘clackers’ on our wheels.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or
airbags.Riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.
We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank
fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were
always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then
went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as
we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all.
No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no
mobile phones,no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.
We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and
there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again…
We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue -we learned to get over it.
We walked to friend’s homes. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you’re one of them. Congratulations! Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good. [/quote]
“The source of contention between conservatives and liberals, the point at which the real fight begins, is when liberals say, ‘Government has enormous power; let’s use that power to make things good.’ It’s the wrong tool for the job. The liberal is trying to fix my wristwatch with a ball peen hammer.” - P.J. O’Rourke
“The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you’re one of them.”
Therefore innovation and new ideas are bad.
I’d like to see a study of mortality rates, childhood disease, etc. before I buy into the idea that the good old days were all they were cracked up to be.
This is simply a question of how much freedom should we sacrifice for our security. Living in Taiwan, I’d say that most of us prefer to give as little away as possible.
Take the States for example: One cannot even drink wine in a public park. Whereas here in Taiwan, no one, besides the curious locals, will bat an eyelid if I popped a cork in Da An park.
I do, however, believe that aircraft safety here :shock: is something that needs stricter regulation.
One of the reasons I enjoy Asia is the personal freedom you can enjoy. And the lack of hygiene regulations (compared to the West) means that you can eat tepid-greasy-squid on a stick from a roadside stall. Cool.
But, when it comes to work, the regulations are often absurd.
There’s this weird sort of assymetry going on: regulations on personal behaviour and small businesses are relatively light. Large scale businesses are faced with huge amounts of red tape.
One Taiwanese remarked to me that the way the law works in Taiwan is: for a businesses the law prescribes what you may do - anything else is out of bounds; for an individual, the law prescribes what you may not do - everything else is fair game.
In the West, its getting to be the other way round: whereas the environment for companies is relatively flexible, I get the sense that more and more regulations that are there “to protect” the consumer are simply narrowing down their choice.
In the spirit of Blueface’s excellent PJO quotation, I would suggest that much could be achieved by fully privatising China Airlines. Eva, a private company, does not seem to have the same problems.
This is not to say that more regulation may not be needed. However, it does nicely illustrate BF’s point that the liberal view all too quickly turns to Government to solve the problem, when in fact it is often Government that is the problem. (In this case, its influence in the management of China Airlines.)
[quote=“imyourbiggestfan”]One of the reasons I enjoy Asia is the personal freedom you can enjoy. And the lack of hygiene regulations (compared to the West) means that you can eat tepid-greasy-squid on a stick from a roadside stall. Cool.
But, when it comes to work, the regulations are often absurd.
There’s this weird sort of assymetry going on: regulations on personal behaviour and small businesses are relatively light. Large scale businesses are faced with huge amounts of red tape.
One Taiwanese remarked to me that the way the law works in Taiwan is: for a businesses the law prescribes what you may do - anything else is out of bounds; for an individual, the law prescribes what you may not do - everything else is fair game.
In the West, its getting to be the other way round: whereas the environment for companies is relatively flexible, I get the sense that more and more regulations that are there “to protect” the consumer are simply narrowing down their choice.[/quote]
I have heard German law (upon which Taiwanese law is supposed to be based) described as a system where everything that is not illegal is compulsory. I’m still trying to work out what that means…!