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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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Swimming pool regulation is out of control in Australia. Friends of mine have a huge rural property with a lake (fish and everything, even a small dam). The council wants them to increase the fencing on their swimming pool lest some child walk for about 10 minutes up to the house, get over an insufficiently high fence or through a fairly substantial hedge and drown. So much easier to just drown in the unfenced, easily available lake!

There's a bunch of passive-aggressive and plain aggressive letters going back and forth. It's a complete waste of everyone's time. We would be much better off with fewer regulations on irrelevant stuff like this - focus all that fire and fury on serious matters like gain-of-function.

Is there some irony that we're talking about burdensome Australian swimming pool regulation in a gun-control thread?

Edit: the joke being that (so I hear) Australian gun control regulation is also burdensome

HelmedHorror brought it up. My broader point is that regulations have all kinds of stifling and inhibitory effects that aren't easily noticed, plus they're interpreted by deliberately malicious and unreasonable cretins.

Sorry, to be clear I thought what you had to say was interesting and relevant. It had to be said though, I was hoping it would just be one of many comments and wouldn’t be disruptive

Such a plot point was an ongoing saga in a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Haven't heard this one before. Excellent.

Announcer: Surely one death by drowning is one too many?

Mitchell: That's a ridiculous thing to say.

"Everyone has to die, and in a balanced, fair, and democratic society, some of them should drown."