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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Of course it seems silly that we *have* to have a doctor's diagnosis and
> prescription to get medication, but that is more than most people want to
> think about.
> 
> 

Ir is silly, but there's a clear reason for it.  Very, very few laws and 
regulations are in place to actually protect the consumer rather they are 
'guild 
laws' which ensure that some industy or the other has a monopoly.  The laws 
are 
there to thwart competition.  I have always thought that free enterprise (not 
to be confused with capitalism) was the best economic system, but we no 
longer have anything that remotely resembles free enterprise.

For example, in this state the funeral directors got passed for themselves a 
law that said no one could sell any funerary paraphenalia unless they were a 
licensed funeral director.  No urns, coffins, etc.  The reasoning was quite 
stupid and the law was in place to force families to buy coffins at hugely 
inflated prices from the mortuary.  People got around this law by making the 
traditional wooden coffins and fitting them with bookshelves.  Those not 
wanting to 
be  burden to their familes bought one for themselves and when the time came, 
you simply slipped the shelves out and put Uncle Hershel in the box.  Finally 
one discount house took the case to court and lost in every single state 
court, 
appealed to the district federal court and won.  The court opined that states 
could not pass laws whose only effect was to give one group an economic 
advantage or monopoly.  After the defeat of this law, the price of funerals 
dropped 
dramatically in the state.

The reason why these laws are so easy to pass is that almost no one gives a 
damn.  The very concept of personal freedom is fast passing away.  Take for 
example the laws Lynda pointed out in her last post.  Try to get a fire lit 
under 
any but a tiny fraction of the population about that.  It isn't that they 
thing having GMO plants growing in their region is good or bad, they just 
don't 
care and don't even want to know.

For the lifetimes of most of us, freedom will be a personal thing.  Don't 
look for any restoration of the Land of the Free.


James