SanFranciso To Regulate Psychics.......Guess What This Could Lead To???

SanFrancisco wants to pass legislation to regulate what kind of trickery and cons the psychics can use to induce their clients to hand over their money.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/12/20/BA83837.DTL

That's the story and this is what I think legislation like that might set a precedent for:

Regulating re-frickin-ligion!!

Think about it - Benny Hinn no allowed to do his fake healings and 'slaying in the spirit' - right before he passes the plate to his emotional and hysterical crowds???

Go ahead, SF - ban the magic - ban the cons - Christianity will take a direct hit if you do. IMHO


What do you think of that?

My psychic said she has an answer for me as soon as my $50. check clears. Get back with ya.

[truelies]

Be fair now. This is the SF City Gov 'protecting' the dear sheeple, not a bunch of conservative Christians crying for Censorship.

About the only thing I would regulate about that business is the scams they pull with the 800 numbers switching the unwary from the free call to the $10/minute line WITHOUT permission. I work with a woman whose 14 year old daughter and a friend ran up a $1000 bill messing around with a physic hotline one evening. She had a heck of a time getting some of the bill voided.

I am sorry for folks that get ripped by anyone - and it is sad to say - but many people are just too superstitious and trusting and can easily be taken advantage of.

But I was furious about 7 years ago when my husbnd's aunt, Opal, purchased a piece of cloth from a TV evangelical show that had purportedly been prayed over by some great evangelist. I can't remember which one it was now.

She just knew that if she pinned it on the bed of her brother - who was in the late stages of Alzheimers that God would heal him. And she donated a hell of a lot of money for it.

Of course he died, and not long after that.

To me - that is every bit as bad as what the psychics do. Maybe even worse - but the same elements are in play. Superstition that causes a person to believe falsely in something that has no basis in scientific fact. And their grief and pain and desperation is preyed on by unscrupulous con artists.

So, YES, I can see laws like this setting a precedent. If these laws (which may never come to pass) had been in effect when Aunt Opal's brother died - I seriously would have thought about filing a suit against the evangelist that took so much of her money and gave her nothing in return.

Psychics - pastors - (not all, obviously) have unreasonable control over others using superstitions and myths.

Anyway, that's how I see it playing out.

[Persephone]

This time I think you have a good point. If the gov't gets in the business of protecting people from their own gullibility, where would it stop? TV evangelists are among the worst to take advantage of their "congregations" in this way.

Personally, I think they should all be bound by truth in advertising laws. But when it comes to matters of faith, who gets to define truth? That's what it all comes down to, isn't it?

For a second there, I thought you were saying they were gonna try to regulate physics... :-\

[Meshuga Mikey]

WILL THIS SHEEEEEET BE JES FO WITE FOLKS OR FO EVERYBUDDY~!????



http://people.delphiforums.com/artcruncher/KwanzaThis.gif

Yo Fren Jorg~!!

[greginboise]

Wonder if they saw this coming?

[jeny]

Wonder if they saw this coming?


LOL, oldest joke in the book, still makes me giggle.

[Lazarus]

My psychic said she has an answer for me as soon as my $50. check clears. Get back with ya.


I think it is unconstitutional.

[Meshuga Mikey]

Wonder if they saw this coming?


LOL, oldest joke in the book, still makes me giggle.


I saw your glasses on a memeber of the AARP, she was wearing them during one of the New Voter training sessions they're holding daily from now until the Next Election~!!!

[Lazarus]

For a second there, I thought you were saying they were gonna try to regulate physics... :-\


Then we might get an atomic dud. ;)