In one of the many blogs I read there was an entry about a clever way to try to get around the social pressure, and sometimes actual rules against... wait for it.. those evil clotheslines.. Er, what? Clotheslines? Really? There are people who have so little going on in their lives that they hate clotheslines?
Well, yes. Sadly I actually know some people for whom this is an important issue. Why? I cannot fathom why...
However it comes down to control pure and simple. All rational persons want a measure of control over their lives. To be rational in the most basic sense means to seek to avoid the five basic harms: Death, pain, loss of freedom, loss of ability, and loss of pleasure. Yes there are times when it is rational to trade off one for the other (when the pain is too great, it is rational to seek death) but without going into the complexities of how these all can relate, we are safe in recognizing that we all seek to avoid these five harms. This is normal, and is behavior found in all moral agents..
But somewhere along the lines in our culture we have gone FAR beyond these basics. We tend to seek to control every aspect of our lives.
So how do we get from clotheslines to seeking to control every aspect of our lives? Well the only complaint about clotheslines is that someone (either the complainer or someone else) may actually see the clothesline.. So the complaint really spelled out is that such persons want to control not only every aspect of their own lives so as to avoid those five basic harms, but they want to go so far as to control the very particular photons which may come into contact with their eyes! Worse yet, they want to control the photons which may come into contact with the eyes of others...
They want this control so badly that they seek to be controlled so as to never be faced with the possibility of others not being controlled.. This is at the core the only explanation for governments, including but certainly not limited to Home Owner Associations...
If that is not frightening to you.... well, honestly I have no idea what to say other than to say that I wish to control no one, nor do I ever want to be controlled.
People, learn to respect others enough to allow them to live their lives.
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