Should govt. prohibit 'snake salvation' as it has Mormon's polygamy?

[Valley Oak]

A snake salvation preacher died just the other day from handling a poisonous snake. Should the government risk prohibiting this barbaric practice of religious expression as it has with the practice of polygamy of the Mormon's?

In my opinion, this horrifying practice should be outlawed.

The following article was published by the Huffington Post on 02/16/2014:

'Snake Salvation' Preacher Jamie Coots Dead From Snakebite (VIDEO)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/16/jamie-coots-dead-snakebite_n_4799851.html

[podfish]

A snake salvation preacher died just the other day from handling a poisonous snake. Should the government risk prohibiting this...

In my opinion, this horrifying practice should be outlawed.

no way. Let them eat snakes.
there's some famous quote along those lines...
but really, why involve the government just because they're engaging in risky behavior? The last thing I want is for government to tell me what's a reasonable chance to take and what's not. Next thing you know, they'll be outlawing nipple piercing.

[Valley Oak]

Is this kind of a "Darwin Awards" scenario where those who are stupid enough to do this in the first place deserve to die!?

I'm really tempted to go along but what about the children of these fanatics? Should we stand by and continue to allow their children's brainwashing and growing up to perpetuate this astonishing foolishness and perhaps die themselves?

I have serious doubts about that because if it was only a question of adults being idiotic enough to do something like this then, sure, let them knock themselves out. But it's not. This community of "holy rollers" are imbibing their children with this lunacy. That's the problem. The government has the duty to curb this. That is part of what government is for.

no way. Let them eat snakes.
there's some famous quote along those lines...
but really, why involve the government just because they're engaging in risky behavior? The last thing I want is for government to tell me what's a reasonable chance to take and what's not. Next thing you know, they'll be outlawing nipple piercing.

[podfish]

Is this kind of a "Darwin Awards" scenario where those who are stupid enough to do this in the first place deserve to die!?
I'm really tempted to go along but what about the children of these fanatics? ... The government has the duty to curb this. That is part of what government is for.

maybe I should watch the silly video before replying but I can't bring myself to. So I'll just comment re my raw prejudicial presumption of what's in it. That seems to be a well-represented technique of argument anyway!!
seriously, though, it's a slippery slope. I'd rather government prevents kids from playing football than learn to handle snakes - snakes are cool. And very few people actually do die from being bitten. (ok, unfair use of outside knowledge; this guy died 'cuz he tried to pretend he wasn't bitten and deferred treatment). I love seeing kids ride horses and race dirtbikes, even my own kids. And even me when I was a kid. Horses are the most dangerous kid toy I know. But keep the sheriff away from 4H and rodeo, dammit!

[Valley Oak]

You are absolutely correct! But there are "slippery slopes" everywhere in life, not just in politics. And life does not allow us to stay in the sidelines without the consequences of inaction or abstention. Life forces us to choose whether we like it or not.

The position we all take (or not take) on any issue is, inevitably, a clear reflection of our values. And where we stand on the spectrum (or the slippery slope) is equally a reflection of not only each one of us as individuals but also of our nation as a whole. We Americans.

We cannot avoid the obligations and liabilities of the many issues in life, both political and non-political, by isolating ourselves from it. That tactic does not work. The whole idea of government involvement is not a question of whether or not we want it to be involved. The government is already up to its neck in its duty to be involved in all affairs, public and private. The real question is how much involvement we want our government to have.

The pervasive attitude of not having government involvement is profoundly reactionary. I personally have a very strong preference for far greater government involvement in all areas of society, for a much larger government, for significantly higher taxation, and substantially more extensive public services.

The Koch Brothers, Republicans, Confederates-Libertarians, reactionaries, religious right, corporations, most rednecks, etc, are against government and taxation, especially the federal government. Hypocritically, arge swaths of the conservative communities in the U.S. wish to greatly strengthen government authority at the state level (states' rights ideology). They must be thinking that a strong (totalitarian?) state government is okay. Many American reactionaries believe that people should have the right at the most local, decentralized jurisdiction possible (including at the level of a mere neighborhood) to make decisions about fundamental human rights, such as punishment for crimes, the death penalty, and what basic rights African-Americans, gays, women, Jews, Muslims, etc, should have.

It is effing crazy.

maybe I should watch the silly video before replying but I can't bring myself to. So I'll just comment re my raw prejudicial presumption of what's in it. That seems to be a well-represented technique of argument anyway!!
seriously, though, it's a slippery slope. I'd rather government prevents kids from playing football than learn to handle snakes - snakes are cool. And very few people actually do die from being bitten. (ok, unfair use of outside knowledge; this guy died 'cuz he tried to pretend he wasn't bitten and deferred treatment). I love seeing kids ride horses and race dirtbikes, even my own kids. And even me when I was a kid. Horses are the most dangerous kid toy I know. But keep the sheriff away from 4H and rodeo, dammit!

[podfish]

The pervasive attitude of not having government involvement is profoundly reactionary. I personally have a very strong preference for far greater government involvement in all areas of society, for a much larger government, for significantly higher taxation, and substantially more extensive public services.

sure. I've often posted in favor of more, rather than less, government in providing services and regulation of corporate behavior - since those entities are now operating on the same scale as governments, anyway.
I find it reasonably easy to draw a line below fake people (like corporations) and breathing people (like people, or maybe like monkeys); I don't want government (or churches, or neighbors, for that matter) to have the power to turn their opinion of my behavior into enforced restrictions. Obviously, judging from history and sociology, it's not the opinion of the average citizen of the universe. But I've been warped by growing up in the American cowboy culture so I'm a thrill seeking irresponsible over-individualistic person. And I'm doing my bit to keep the world safe for me and other like-minded individuals while I'm here.... I just wish those who call themselves 'libertarians' didn't think that approach applied to fake people as it does to us mortal ones.

[podfish]

a funny spin from Slate (click here for the full article.. I might take a different slant in the debate about those restrictions):


This weekend, after 20 years of handling snakes, Jamie Coots received his final bite. A rattler got him in the back of the hand. It happened as Coots, a Pentecostal minister, was leading the Saturday night service at his church in Kentucky. Two hours later, he was dead.

The same thing happened two years earlier in West Virginia. Mack Wolford, another serpent-handling preacher, succumbed to a rattler’s venom.

After scores of deaths from messing with snakes, you’d think people would give it up. But they haven’t. Three months ago a 15-year-old boy died in Ohio. A local TV station said it happened when he brought a snake and “passed it to a 16-year-old friend.” A similar tragedy occurred the same day in California, when a homeowner “was showing his friend a snake.” “It’s a shock that something like this could happen,” said a neighbor. “I had no idea there was ever a snake in the home.”

On Dec. 1 a young man died in Florida after friends brought a snake to his apartment. “They passed it around,” according to the Sun-Sentinel, and the snake delivered the fatal wound when the man’s girlfriend picked it up. “It was a stupid accident," said the dead man’s grandfather. "It never should have happened." On Dec. 20 a 3-year-old boy died in Arizona after discovering his parents’ snake. A local TV station reported that “the parents told investigators the snake was inadvertently misplaced for a short time. That’s when the child found it.”

On Dec. 22 a 10-year-old girl died in West Virginia. The Charleston Gazette said it happened while she and a 9-year-old friend were handling a snake. A sheriff’s officer told the Gazette, “We're not blaming the parents, but we do urge everyone to make sure that your snakes are secure.” On Dec. 30 a 10-year-old boy died in Alabama. The sheriff’s office said he “was in a bedroom with his 12-year-old brother and 14-year-old male friend” and received the wound “while they were handling a snake.”

In November an Indiana man died while playing with a snake at an apartment complex. A 16-year-old Idaho boy died at a house “where people were handling snakes.” One young man in Georgia caused an inadvertent death “while playing with a snake.” Another suffered a fatal wound “while handling a snake” at a friend’s house. A 42-year-old Tennessee man died when his snake bit him.

How could people be this foolish? The good news is that when it comes to snakes, they aren’t. None of the stories I just told you, except for the ones about the two preachers, is literally true.

The bad news is that all of the stories did happen, and all the victims died. But they didn’t die from handling snakes. They died from handling guns. All I did was change a few words in the news reports: gun to snake, gunshot to snakebite, discharged to bit.

[Valley Oak]

The Citizens United case is horrible! The 5 conservative judges on the SCOTUS are the one who gave us this nightmare. The 4 liberal judges voted against it.

Libertarians support Citizens United!? Wow! If that's true then Libertarianism is pure poison and should be jettisoned ASAP and completely!

Think carefully about what it means to have the "gummint" telling you this or that. The government is already telling everybody how to do this and that and not to do whatever, as it should. If there is a church that is engaging in acts of violence, self-destruction, or teaching children to do these things, then that needs to be stopped.

Your fear is that government will begin to tell you how to worship, or that you can't do it on Sundays, or that you can no longer be a Xtian or a Pagan or a Satanist or whatever. That's not going to happen. It is easy to believe the scenario of the snowball falling down the mountainside and then destroying everything in its path because it "snowballed." And that government, if we're not careful, is going to behave the same way. But the truth is that government has already been doing its job of telling people what laws we need to obey and it has not overstepped its bounds. As a matter of fact, there are still many Mormon compounds in Utah (and other states) that practice polygamy. Why doesn't the federal govt. clamp down on this? How about the Utah State govt?

I don't see governments in other post-industrialized democracies going into a church and telling people that they can't pray. Who? China? Doesn't surprise me. But China is not a post-industrialized democracy. China is still in the process of industrializing. It is probably 50 to 75% there but China has not reached a true or complete state of post-industrialization. And China is not a democracy by any measure.

I understand your concern for religious freedom but the truth is that just because a law is passed prohibiting 'holy rollers' from handling snakes and trying to avoid people, including children, is the duty of the government and will not go down the slippery slope of telling other religions and churches how they can or can't practice their faith. There is a healthy limit to everything and the holy rollers have clearly gone WAY past that limit; and the government is lightyears away from approaching that limit if it outlaws playing with snakes and taking the lives of people and their unfortunate children.

sure. I've often posted in favor of more, rather than less, government in providing services and regulation of corporate behavior - since those entities are now operating on the same scale as governments, anyway.

I find it reasonably easy to draw a line below fake people (like corporations) and breathing people (like people, or maybe like monkeys); I don't want government ...

[Valley Oak]

Guns?

Okay, sure. Guns are waaay out of control in this country and we need to put A LOT of staunch, federal government controls of all kinds on guns. The USA has gone gun-crazy. I don't like guns. I don't own one, never have, never will. No need.

Guns and snakes sounds like some redneck rock band like Guns 'n Roses or Ted Nugent, who is an extreme right-wing freak.

a funny spin from Slate (click here for the full article.. I might take a different slant in the debate about those restrictions):

This weekend, after 20 years of handling snakes, Jamie Coots received his final bite. ...