Posted on 06/01/2009 3:15:15 PM PDT by GraceG
Imagine you're having a backyard barbeque. A cop walks in and announces, "This is a random health and safety check to see whether you've removed the skin from the chicken before you served it." Though delicious in taste, we all know that chicken skin contains considerable unhealthy fat. If you're caught serving chicken skin, the cop gets your ID and issues you a $50 ticket.
If something like this were to occur, most Americans -- I hope -- would see such an action as ludicrous, offensive and a gross violation of our liberties. But not so fast. Let's think about it. Each year, obesity claims the lives of 300,000 Americans and adds over $100 billion to health-care costs. Doesn't that give government the right to dictate what we eat? If you're the least offended by the notion of government dictating our diets, pray tell me how it differs in principle from seatbelt laws and especially the new federal enforcement program called "Click It or Ticket."
Under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, the federal government is spending $500 million to aggressively enforce seatbelt laws. According to a July Consumers Research article written by Eric Peters titled "The Federal Government Wants You to Buckle Up," about 11,000 law enforcement agencies across the country have set up random checkpoints and have issued hundreds of thousands of tickets to unbelted drivers and passengers.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Now I am not against Seatbelts or laws requiring them to be put in cars for the consumer to use, but what i am against is the whole "Big Brother" Aspect of the Seatbelt laws that make it possible for a police officer to pull you over and give you a ticket for now wearing a seatbelt.
Theoretically they could pull you over because they didn't think you wearing a seatbelt. Then claim that even though you have you seatbelt on that you put it on when you were pulled over. They have a ready made excuse for pulling over cars that are otherwise traveling safely and within the confines of traffic laws.
In the commercials they now show they claim that the ticket will be 200 dollars, that is even higher than most some speeding tickets. What a great way of Revenue generation for the local city and state governments. What a great way of extorting money from the populace.
I am all for individual rights and as long as you are not hurting anyone else then what is the harm if you go flying into your own windshield when you get in a wreck? Besides taking yourself out of the gene pool and hurting your own family it is your own damned fault for not putting on your seatbelt. Why is this the government's responsibility to keep you from doing a completely stupid thing.
Why do we have to protect the stupid people from themselves with such draconian "safety" laws. This is the same as Helmet laws on motorcycles, Helmet laws on bicycles, jay walking laws, and other "common sense" laws that should be handled by common sense and not the government.
I wear my own seatbelt because it is common sense, I don't need the government telling me to do so. I don't like this overwhelming "nanny statism" government knows best. Help the helpless and screw the clueless! It is a form of Soft Tyranny cloaked in the wording of "Public Safety".
There are no seat belt or speeding laws on private property.
I spoke to a judge about this and she told me this was a great money making program for the courts.
Its always, always about money for someone.
Has this ever been challenged on that ground?
just away to pay the LEO salary.
I wear my seat belt because I am not stupid.
I agree there needs to be no law.
>>I spoke to a judge about this and she told me this was a great money making program for the courts.
Its always, always about money for someone. <<
It is all about the Money isn’t it!
I say, Help the Helpless and to Heck with the Clueless. But our government encroaches on our rights in the name of helping the clueless.
They recently passed a law here in Fla regarding seat belts. The fine is not higher and a police officer can pull you over merely if he notices you are not wearing your belt.
I have a problem with this as well; I feel that adults (18 and over) should not be required to wear a seat belt. They should be able to do whatever they want. Children, however, (18 and below) should have to wear one.
Especially when someone says it isn’t the money, it IS the money.
Many jurisdiction( ha! ) have a 50% or under arrest rate......for murder. With conviction rates of around half too, so an effective conviction for murder of around 25%.
Your Tax dollar at work. ( Not! )
But, try not wearing your seat belt, or what ever idot rule.
Police are the step and fetch it of the legislatures, which each day issued more diktats making what one was free to do, illegal. Police obey.
If they can make you apply a metal tag to your property, like a plastic tag on a cow’s ear, they can make you wear a gold star on your cloths, or what ever they choose.
What kind of person would do the butler work for legislatures?
Lots of police say, “It’s not me, it’s the courts...etc”
OK, you know you are the legislatures boys.....and the rest of the ‘system’ is junk. Double bad. And still you show up for the paycheck.
In addition, seat belt laws allow pullovers that you wouldn’t normally be able to do, leading to searches for contraband and the like...maybe a lucky vehicle impoundment to generate some cash for the upcoming 4th of July BBQ!...magritte
Stick it!
money, kinda like pumping up property values on your taxes when the market sucks.
when we have enough and throw them all out, they will say, we were wrong.
throw has another meaning.
They’ve enforced laws about smoking on private property.
Same difference.
Any law whatsoever can be justified because it’s for our “health and safety”.
It’s dangerous as hell.
When we allowed the Gov’t to pay for our healthcare we allowed them to start setting the risks they are willing to assume. Motorcycle helmet laws because the state was picking up the tab for most of those head injuries. When we accept the goodies we are bound by the strings.
Heh - don’t know about the other states, but here in Indiana, the seat belt commercials are “brought to you by the Governor’s Council on Impaired and Dangerous Driving”. I always thought I was a relatively safe driver, but now *BAM*, suddenly I’m impaired and dangerous...
I wear my seatbelt only because the government will fine me if I don't. I'm willing to accept the consequences of choosing to live my life contrary to what many feel is common sense, and I'm getting very tired of our elected government punishing me if I make the "wrong" choices.
The editorial in Pravda had a line that really struck me: "The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world how free he really is. And the world will only snicker."
With the freedoms we've lost over the decades that I have personal memories of, it saddens and angers me how little opposition there was to the loss of liberty.
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