Posted on 05/31/2006 9:42:50 AM PDT by from occupied ga
Virginia's secretary of transportation sent out a letter announcing the state's annual "Click It or Ticket" campaign May 22 through June 4. I responded to the secretary of transportation with my own letter that in part reads:
"Mr. Secretary: This is an example of the disgusting abuse of state power. Each of us owns himself, and it follows that we should have the liberty to take risks with our own lives but not that of others. That means it's a legitimate use of state power to mandate that cars have working brakes because if my car has poorly functioning brakes, I risk the lives of others and I have no right to do so. If I don't wear a seatbelt I risk my own life, which is well within my rights. As to your statement 'Lack of safety belt use is a growing public health issue that . . . also costs us all billions of dollars every year,' that's not a problem of liberty. It's a problem of socialism. No human should be coerced by the state to bear the medical expense, or any other expense, for his fellow man. In other words, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another is morally offensive."
My letter went on to tell the secretary that I personally wear a seatbelt each time I drive; it's a good idea. However, because something is a good idea doesn't necessarily make a case for state compulsion. The justifications used for "Click It or Ticket" easily provide the template and soften us up for other forms of government control over our lives.
For example, my weekly exercise routine consists of three days' weight training and three days' aerobic training. I think it's a good idea. Like seatbelt use, regular exercise extends lives and reduces health care costs. Here's my question to government officials and others who sanction the "Click It or Ticket" campaign: Should the government mandate daily exercise for the same reasons they cite to support mandatory seatbelt use, namely, that to do so would save lives and save billions of health care dollars?
If we accept the notion that government ought to protect us from ourselves, we're on a steep slippery slope. Obesity is a major contributor to hypertension, coronary disease and diabetes, and leads not only to many premature deaths but billions of dollars in health care costs. Should government enforce, depending on a person's height, sex and age, a daily 1,400 to 2,000-calorie intake limit? There's absolutely no dietary reason to add salt to our meals. High salt consumption can lead to high blood pressure, which can then lead to stroke, heart attack, osteoporosis and asthma. Should government outlaw adding salt to meals? While you might think that these government mandates would never happen, be advised that there are busybody groups currently pushing for government mandates on how much and what we can eat.
Government officials, if given power to control us, soon become zealots. Last year, Maryland state troopers were equipped with night vision goggles, similar to those used by our servicemen in Iraq, to catch night riders not wearing seatbelts. Maryland state troopers boasted that they bagged 44 drivers traveling unbuckled under the cover of darkness.
Philosopher John Stuart Mill, in his treatise "On Liberty," said it best: "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise."
Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics.
You are not good at this; pick a point and stick with it.
The real cause of injury and death from cars occurs when mistakes are made by drivers and since the government has accepted the reality that people are unamenable to instruction, cajoling or even reward, punishment is the last course left and they have all but exhausted the means of enacting it, let alone enforcing it.
What is neglected at the peril of the innocent is a real set of statistics on those who commit suicide by car and for whom seatbelts are as important as wheels on a rocket.
Hey, there's no arguing with that illogic.
No it isn't.
One significantly reduces the risk that others will be harmed, and the other doesn't.
You really should read the article. It has lots of interesting ideas on this subject.
I ride in the passenger seat mostly. Hurts to drive TYVM.
Cite source, please.
1) Common Sense - if you go headfirst through a windshield, you are likely to have more medical costs than if you stay in your seat.
OR for those who need more proof:
"In the past 26 years, safety belts prevented 135,000 fatalities and 3.8 million injuries, saving $585 billion in medical and other costs. If all vehicle occupants had used safety belts during that period, nearly 315,000 deaths and 5.2 million injuries could have been prevented — and $913 billion in costs saved." [NHTSA, Economic Impact of Crashes, 2002]
You are also free not to wear one in your car.
Your Car, Your Property, Your decision.
Unlike you I don't try to spread my socialist dogma on everyone else and insist that they do as I say because it will lower my insurance rates. Number one that's a bald faced lie. Not one insurance rate has ever been reduced due to the population as a whole wearing seatbelts.
You need to get a clue as to what liberty means. You need to get a clue as to what freedom means.
Seatbelts being mandatory is not freedom, it is not liberty and if you spout off that it is and support this socialist trash, then you are no better than Hillary Rodham, Billy Boy, John Mclame and the rest of the socialists that pollute this country.
But But But I thought it was JUST brakes that affect stopping distance??? Thanks for agreeing with my point even if you do not thin you did.
Point being, vehicles have evolved in the tools used to make them better. Seat belts are the same thing, really.
I do not take issue with mandating the seat belts. I take issue with the punishment and how it is enforced. I offer an alternative, that being make it a part required for operation, then the issue is moot for every argument in this thread.
Even dumber in good old FL, they enacted the seatbelt law, and abolished the helmet law for motorcycles. It makes no sense.
On public roads.
Impose insurance which is basically a fine before the infraction.....but you oppose a seat belt mandate?
Interesting.
That is truly frightening.
Raising more little sheeple who need a nanny government to direct their lives. And worship at the altar of authority that makes senseless laws to protect the timid.
I'm glad that you have now switched positions to protecting the lives of those who happen to be near a car that hits a deer when it's driver isn't wearing a belt.
This stuff is priceless. You can't make thsi stuff up! LOL
My taxes help pay for public roads, therefore I have as much right to put my car on it as you socialists do.
Without Seatbelts I might add.
See my post #325. Saving over a half a trillion dollars in medical costs is not a bald faced lie.
How is a seat belt law different from a speeding law? They are both safety issues, they are both personal decisions and they both affect other peoples safety. Socialism has nothing to do with either of these laws.
Why is it OK to have speed limits, but not seat belt laws.
If you read back you will see where I addressed that very point old pro.
I said require cars to have passengers belted in order to operate, That to solve the enforcement issues.I guess you missed that.
Wheels are very important to the delivery of a rocket to its launch site.
These campaigns disgust me. They are PR/advertising for levies (read: taxes) for police departments - but nobody ever asks about the disbursement of fines collected from all the scofflaw speeders. The pattern is consistent: a bunch of gloom-and-doom articles in the paper Thursday before the holiday and a bunch of gloating articles from some chair jockey in the paper following the holiday about "What a great weekend it was" or "our program is working."
Oh well...if you commit the mortal sin of going a tick over the holy speed limit (never mind about speed traps and other inconvenient facts) at least you can sleep soundly at night knowing that all drugs and contraband have been taken off our nation's highways and the rapists, murderers and yes, illegal aliens, have been jailed and/or deported.
If you favor the helmet law, you belong int their club. There's not a dime's worth of difference bewteen the seatbelt law and the helmet law. They are both intrusive where the government doesn't need to be.
In other news Hank Hill died of massive coronary infarction upon reading this.
Sure when you are sitting in your driveway. Once you enter onto a public highway you are bound by those rules. Care to say otherwise? The road does not belong to you right?
I agree it is a blad faced lie. I oppose the insurance lobby entirely. I said so clearly in this thread.
By your logic then speed limits are the same thing. license plates too.
Seems that you have confused liberty and freedom with anarchy.
But hey, send any clue you care to.
Well I mandate that every car should have a roll bar and Simpson five-point safety racing harnesses like my car.
And all drivers and passengers must were Snell approved full face helmets, and chaps so they don't burn their legs on the side pipes.
And motorcycles should have training wheels.
For more information, e-mail: Info@NannyState.GOV
Yes on all counts except the being hit by an animal. I even went into a two wheel drift on a freeway interchange (going from northbound 167 to northbound I-405) almost sideways and kept from overcorrecting myself into a spinout. This was in a Plymouth Reliant with bench seats and I was NOT wearing a seatbelt.
But then, your argument is like the old “what about abortion in cases of rape or incest” red herring. Fact is, merely your assumption that I had not encountered the things on your list points out the rarity of such things.
I actually learned to drive, at age 14, on a washboard country road in a 1954 ford pickup with slippery flat vinyl bench seat. Never lost control.
Now in my Chrysler 300 snuggled into bench seats, if it was violent enough to cause me to fly out of seat would indicate my wheels were not in contact with the ground.
But I ramble. The abortion red herring analogy was enough…
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