Laws Banning Bathing Suits On the Boardwalk

Just a few weeks ago the Asbury Park Police Department ended up pepper spraying an area outside of Porta (a well known bar). They did it to disperse the croud waiting outside for cabs and what not. There were no fights, no civil unrest, or any aggression towards the policemen. The officers response to my friend was, that they did not point the pepper spray at a certain person, they disperesed the spray through the air, therefore it was not like they picked just him out of the crowd. Then the officer continued to say how there are only 6 Officers on duty, and 2 blocks inland there are crack heads, people stealing, etc. and that they (Officers) need to take care of the crowd at Porta (the bar), in order to go back to "fighting crime". Really!? I'm not denying the fact that there is stuff going on 2 blocks inward. I live by Asbury I know this, but there are other ways of dealing with this. A little off topic, but had something to do with Asbury, and it happened a few weeks ago..........

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Originally Posted by aka pumpmaster

I prefer the term theocratic socialists. Conservatives above all else believe in limited government size and power. So called, social conservatives, by nature of their positions, MUST have much larger government to implement their policies. This is a a liberal/socialist mindset.

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you can prefer to rename all you want. you can try to create your own definition of "conservative" to fit your perception of yourself. it's nice to be able to envision a simplistic label for yourself to make the arguments simpler, but the reality is most people have a range of so-called "liberal" to "conservative" views, depending on the subject (how many so-called conservative surfers are environmentalists when it comes to their break?). also, there is just blatant lying and misrepresentation (orwellian doublespeak) by both sides, the right included. we have never had a bigger government and more personal rights invasion than under g.w. "small government" bush, clearly not a liberal in any sense (even though he is a pariah on the right these days...the stench of failure is strong).

the exposed flesh aspect is a standard "decency" issue championed by self-proclaimed conservatives. if you disagree with what they are saying, you need to suck it up and admit there are cracks and exceptions in that monolithic label of your own views... nice example of political opportunism though. the problem with ideologues is the inability to critically examine their own arguments and viewpoints....for them, consistency is more important than context.

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Originally Posted by Zippy

Yup, pumpmaster is right on. These kind of moves by government to limit freedoms almost always originate from the left but are blamed on the right. Much the same way that sensoring music and rating video games comes from the liberal left.

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pmrc not only included gore, but also wife of james baker (republican served under reagan) and was funded by mike love and joseph coors, who both self identify as conservatives and supported reagan. in other words, this was a wide range of 22 (mostly) older people who thought the new music was more frightening than their own music... now there's a new trend. (fans of bing crosby were scandalized by sinatra, fans of sinatra were frightened by elvis, fans of elvis were scared by the stones. and so it goes).

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Originally Posted by Zippy

Yup, pumpmaster is right on.... Seeking to take freedom away from one person will eventually mean freedom taken away from you and yours. We don't need to be policed and legislated by a government we need to police and legislate ourselves with common sense.

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i agree. the patriot act is one of the most intrusive bits of legislation ever. i am sure you are vigorously fighting it at all levels. see you at the rally.

big words don't make you any smarter in real life Dude.

If it's a matter of decency, are they also going to ban morbidly obese people from the beach?

To me they rank much higher on the gag reflex scale than some not-so-hot person wearing a bikini or board shorts. Now, add the two together and you have a full-on real-life reenactment of a scene from "Lean on Me" on your hands....

I think I'm proving Superfish's point here. I don't think people should be banned from an area for what they are wearing, but I would love for the porkers to be banned from the beach solely because I personally find them morally reprehensible (to use current political pundit buzz words), an affront to common decency and categorically disgusting. Really, if I wanted to see 350lb 5'3" people in booty shorts I would spend time in Wal-Mart....

Asbury being what it is, a super diverse place, i was waiting for this to happen. i have seen people wearing 'bathing suits' if you can even call them that, that are pretty, umm, interesting. interesting as in rated R, maybe X. the thing is they are not sitting on the beach, but walking the boardwalk. they want to be seen, want to draw attention, etc. Being local, i just stay away during summer.

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Originally Posted by Gfootr

Bruce will write a song and save the day.

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Bruce is the worst thing to EVER come out of NJ ...

Right On Spongedude! Calling someone an intellectual does not make their argument any less valid, c’mon Pumpmaster, you can do better than that, where’s you A-game? What did he say that was untrue? A forum is a public meeting place for open discussion, not a place to shut down others because we don’t like their ideas. Both people identified as liberals and conservatives founded the PMRC which led to congressional hearings on decency in music (Sensorship for you Zippy). Personally I was on the Frank Zappa side of that argument, but my parents let me play with mercury too. That’s why I wear Quicksilver wet-suits! Laws curtailing personal freedom, tearing down the manufacturing sector and weakening the 2nd amendment have been passed under the auspices of both political parties. NAFTA and GATT were passed by the 94th (I think) Congress with Newt Gingrich as the Speaker of the House and signed into law by Slick Willie. I mean c’mon, how is that not ironic?!?!? Mitt Romney, who is currently campaigning as a Pro-Life, NRA card carrying, anti-Obamacare, show me the birth certificate conservative was the Governor of Massachusetts! The only state in the Union that makes California look like a bastion of conservatism. The guy signed into law the framework for the Nationalized Healthcare Act. Anyone else hanging with baited breath on how the Court will rule today? I know I am, but only since my mother was dropped from her health care coverage last year for hitting her life time maximum. Guess what, when hit your max, you’re probably really sick and need it the most. Romney got elected on a Pro-Choice, gun control platform! Hell Nixon took us off the gold standard at Breton Woods, which lead to the expansion of credit and too the current extreme boom-bust macro-economic cycles. My point is that a politician will pander to whomever is in the room or waving a dollar bill at them.

Spongedude was simply pointing out how political ideologues have brought this country to its current state, which is one in which where there is no room for compromise, a principal that along with personal freedom I believe the people who founded this country espoused. “We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.” Without compromise how else can we form the SOCIAL CONTRACT that is government? Both parties and political ideologies are leading their most adherent followers with little more than buzzwords. The rest of the electorate doesn’t pay attention and the majority doesn’t exercise their enfranchisement. Think about it, “Keep your hands off my health care.”; “No blood for oil.”; ”Liberal Media”; “Social Conservative”; ”Gay Agenda”; “Welfare Queens”. What do these phrases evoke if not a visceral and emotional response, where is there then room for rational discourse so that we (meaning the people we elect to represent us) can then address these issues and fix them in a way the benefits the MAJORITY of AMERICANS in the most fiscally responsible way?

Here’s a vignette (sorry, let me start over, too big a word).

Here’s a story:
Couple of years ago I was working for a privately held software firm. Due to certain regulatory laws, it fell essentially under the aegis of a bank, one without depositors or any assets outside of a service it provided to other banks. The gentleman who owned the majority of the company and who also happened to be its CEO decided that it would be beneficial to the company (himself) if he could get the head of a certain national association on the company’s board of directors. The problem was, Texas had very stringent banking laws at the time. They made it very difficult for National Banks or officers of National Banks to invest in Texas Banks. This was one of the biggest reasons why Texas weathered the downturn of 07-09 so well. Since regional banks did not have the huge expansion of credit, there was not a 300% run up in housing prices over 5 years, instead it was a modest (!!!!) 20%. When the credit crisis hit, there was also a modest credit contraction. Very few Texas banks failed. Anyway, in order to get this old boy on the board, my boss’s boss decided to introduce legislation into the Texas House amending Texas Financial Regulatory laws (laws that had worked just fine since they were changed during the S&L crisis of the 80’s). In order to do this he, spent 2 million dollars of his own money financing a campaign to elect a Texas Legislator. The challenger faced an incumbent with an excellent voting record. A small town boy who had grown up on a ranch in a county between Travis and Bexar (hint) he had been elected twice on platforms to limit growth and try to keep San Antonio and Austin from changing the rural community that he grew up in into suburbia. The only weakness that the guy had was that he was a Democrat. So my boss’s boss hired his face man a PR guy that painted this small town, full time Rancher (Texas Leg only serves as a part time governing body) as a Washington stooge, who lived in homosexual sin with Obama, was going to give Texas away to the t3rr0r_ists and wanted to take away your guns. I kid you not. The poor guy fought back the only way he could, he told the truth, that banker’s were using deep pockets to get him tossed out of office so that they could elect a stooge (the guy was a sporting goods salesman) who didn’t understand the community and wouldn’t represent it to office, only so that he could introduce a single piece of legislation. Needless to say he lost. Money talks, steer manure walks. The legislation was introduced and passed and about 6 months ago I got a letter informing me as a share holder that the BIG BOSS had sold 11 million worth of this privately held stock, in a 1:3 split (which I can’t monetize the same way, NUTS) and the that purchaser would be a new board member. The face guy who won the election, well about a month after he won he was hired by this company as the “Vice President of Business Development”, probably so that he could pay back the campaign loans he received. I never saw him come to the office though.

That’s democracy in this country. Don’t get fooled by the talking heads.

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Originally Posted by aka pumpmaster

big words don't make you any smarter in real life Dude.

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me gon' talk more plain-like for y'all if it'll fry yer bacon

>>>That’s democracy in this country. Don’t get fooled by the talking heads. <<<

gaffer of san diego, by way of tejas....you speak much sense, with actual historical facts and little hyperbole. hence, few will listen. i am surprised how easily some are fooled into voting against their own best interest... oh well...on different note, maybe the west coast will be graced with some unradioactive swell....(btw, who is the radical liberal SOB who created the epa?? must be a big-government commie socialist)

stay classy my friend