The Nanny State Strikes Again

Fox News ^ | 12/26/03 | William A. Niskanen

[jagrmeister]

Yes, let's abandon Bush over a trivial seat belt law. You really have your head screwed on straight. This is a financial measure since people not wearing seat belts would get injured, incur huge hospital bills, and it would drive insurance prices up. Sometimes they weren't even insured. I'd rather pay less for insurance rather than having to pay more for someone else's lack of responsibility.

[ovrtaxt]

I'm self employed, ahve been for ten years. I don't have ANY health insurance, and I have a wife and 2 kids. We can't afford the $500 monthly. We can afford $500 at it's base value, but we have found that we always come out behind in the long run. It's easier to just pay cash at the doctor's when we need to.

This is not by choice. Medical costs are driven too high by the insurance companies and malpractice lawyers. What about competition in the policy market? The free market is strangled because of excessive government regulation. That leaves most people screwed.

The source of the problem needs to be fixed. Throwing money at it is a liberal solution.

[Blood of Tyrants]

So you are telling me that the president is not in control of his administration? And it is not reasonable to assume that the people he surrounds himself with KNOW his position and would do their best to implement HIS positions instead of their own?

Give me a break. Bush has signed EVERY piece of legislation that has come across his desk including MANY that a conservative would have vetoed in a heartbeat.

[MEG33]

Well,the dissatisfaction is getting aired.Who would you suggest is the proper nominee?

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...Let me spell it out for you. We hope and will be fortunate that Bush will beat the Dem nominee...

And let me spell it out for you. Big Government programs like this (and there's been a steady stream of them, from this Administration) lessen, not improve, that likelihood. Hey, forget Dean. Bribing the states with $400m for this seat belt stupidity is something I'd expect from a President Kucinich. But you could say the same thing about CFR or the AWB sunset. Your 'Bush or Dean' security blanket is at base an easy copout from the task of addressing the shortcomings of this president, FO. It's a little mantra which helps you postpone the problem- until it's too late, and we're into the election cycle. Midterm, a website like this should be discussing policy with all vigour possible.

[FairOpinion]

Bush has to choose his battles.

He can't turn everything into a WW III issue within his adminstration.

[ovrtaxt]

Hospitals will not generally kick them out, and so pass the costs along to - guess who? All of us!

I would prefer a law that says 'If you get in to a wreck, and you didn't wear a seatbelt/ helmet, and you live, you are entitled to NO government help or compensation of any kind.

[freekitty]

Have they really thought this through?

I didn't know we lived the era of Hitler's Germany.

[Ciexyz]

Mineta must go. Appoint him Ambassador to Bahrain or some such place.

[freekitty]

I have got to say this.

What a dumb, dumb and dumb idea. The Administration should be ashamed of itself. This is crazy.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..well,the dissatisfaction is getting aired.Who would you suggest is the proper nominee?...

I don't have one, Meg. Yet. The party structure is very formalised and money-oriented and alternatives don't like to put their heads up too early for fear of attracting attack dogs. You could say the same thing about alternatives on FR. :) But I really think that when something as absolutely pathetic as this initiative is floated by a supposedly conservative administration then it should be hammered by posters on a website like FR. Not suppressed with the 'Dean or Bush' thing, which is a lightweight redux of the 'Gore or Bush' we had a couple of years ago. That's our best role, providing a lightning rod of dissatisfaction when the President strays into pure liberal territory- as he has done, way too often.

[MEG33]

Good heavens,how old are you? We are not living in Hitler's Germany,or Stalin's USSR,or Mao's China,or Kim's North Korea,or Castro's Cuba,or Saudi Arabia,or Iran.

[MEG33]

Is your nominee going to have "no seat belt laws" in his platform?

[DoughtyOne]

My wife was on the way home the other night and got caught in a sobriety check-point. Every vehicle was being stopped on this particulare road-way, so the drivers could be questioned and evaluated for driving while intoxicated. I don't support stopping all innocent citizens to find a few who may be guilty. I seem to remember a phrase, that we are innocent until proven guilty. I don't remember when, but at some point it became, your are guilty until proven innocent. I refuse to accept that.

For those of you who think this was bad enough, it gets better. Once stopped the officer who spoke to my wife asked her where she had been and where she was going. My dear officer, that none of your fu--ing business!

[Ethan_Allen]

"Even a prisoner has a recognized right to refuse unwanted medical or health measures."

...USED to....

"Forced Drugging By Government"
http://www.supercivilization.com/forum/message/2147/


"American Conscience: The Saga of Dr. Charles Sell & The Strange Case of the U.S. Versus Doctor Sell"
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/june2003/markr620-1.htm

More on google under 'drugging of doctor sell waco'

{The reverse situation is seen in the Terri Schiavo case, a prisoner of the judicial-medical racket in Florida, where she never said she wanted to be starved and dehydrated to death, yet the government insists it is the government's right and duty to protect her 'due process' 'rights' to have her husband order ho$pice killer$ finish off what began under suspicious circumstances 13 years ago. Nevermind the husband has a legally-binding conflict-of-interest, since he wants her dead so he can get on with life with his honey and their two kids, and whatever is left of the over $1-3(??) million dollars he received specifically for Terri's rehabilitation. If the government was seriously interested in protecting the LIFE of Americans, it would have the Attorney Generals of every state, and Attorney General Ashcroft spend that $400 million investigating the forced euthanasia of unwilling, helpless Americans to fulfill the long-standing wish-list of the Rockefellers and their ilk. They are just looking for more avenues to apprehend and prey-upon law-abiding Patriots. Just my opinion, of course.}

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..is your nominee going to have "no seat belt laws" in his platform?...

You've missed the point. If once-cutting edge conservatives like Freepers don't kick up a stink about rank stupidity and waste like this, at the time it happens, seat belts will be the last thing on our minds by the time Bush runs for re-election. The message sent by suppression of concern is that we'll take any statist claptrap he cares to send down the pipe because of a collective fear of Dean. I think some of the Bush boosters around here need to make up their mind. If Dean's such a non-threat, then why can't criticism of the President's liberal tendencies be aired, for fear of 'Bush or Dean'? I'd like to see some of the Libertarians and Buchanan supporters who've been hunted off FR back on here, now. This seatbelt craziness is yet another vindication of their reservations about this president. FR should be a hotbed of outrage when something as stupid as this comes from the White House.

[SAJ]

c-j -- If you ever get up to STL, look me up. Dinner's on me. GREAT stymie of an obnoxious, officious public ''servant''!

[BSunday]

CINO, RINO, ALBINO....What's next, the feminazi's are WINO's? LOL PS patent pending on that one, no theft allowed!

[Peach]

Still can't answer the questions, I see.

If you think I'm missing a point you have about socialism/nanny state, why don't you make it?

You've yet to answer my question OR explain this grand point you keep mentioning. I can only gather the reason is because you cannot do either. However, should you prove me wrong, I will be happy to read what you post regarding these matters.

[MEG33]

I seem to notice quite a few are still here!I worry when they seem to share Dean's views on the Iraq war.

I am amused by the cries of statist when I've lived through every kind of rationing,rent control,price controls,no cars to buy,no refrigerators to buy,no new tires available to buy,blackouts to keep from getting bombed,forced interning of the Japanese,people begging for work at the kitchen door to get food to eat and every able bodied male drafted.

The sky is not falling.We have a threat and it isn't Bush.