Seat Belt Laws Save Lives, Kill Liberties

boblonsberry.com ^ | 1/27/03 | Bob Lonsberry

[stopsign]

And all who agree with this law, and other laws like it. Seat belt law? Good or bad? Well for me if it wasn't a law I would wear it. And for sure put them on my children. But to be a law for anyone over 18, No, It should be your choice.
And what about this, If it is Big Brother taking care of us sheep, Then why isn't their seat belts on school busses?

[stopsign]

Hello

[4CJ]

Giddy Dolt freedom grabbing bump!!! What about airbags? Giddy pushed those through as well

Duh... just about every politician votes (wonder why? - pandering/prostituting for VOTES!) for this kind of excess - you can't legislate morality, but you can refuse to REWARD those that do. Social (as in SOCIALISM) programs will destroy this county if the politicians don't.

My kingdom for an honest poitician!

[stopsign]

Goodness!
Can I retract my post? Yours is so much better. (:)

[MIgramma]

I, for one, would like to see some HONEST statistics re: seatbelts.

My daughter's mother-in-law is a retired nurse and she constantly told our grandkidsNOT to buckle up.

She said that she had seen too many severe injuries CAUSED by seat belts. (she fakes her own) Last year, our oldest granddaughter was riding in a car with three other girls.

There was an accident.

She was the only one of the four belted and the only one who wound up hospitalized, with a broken pelvis, from the seatbelt.

I personally know six people who would not have been here today IF they had been buckled in.

[Notwithstanding]

There is no enumerated list of "other" rights in the constitution.

To say that everything else not mentioned can be claimed to be a right by virtue of the 9th amendment is funny - such thinking is where we get the idiotic notion that there is a "right" to be free from insensitive language, etc. (insert any other PC crapola "right").

[Leisler]

"The rest of us should not have to pay for your freedom to live dangerously "

Why not? We are forced to pay for gooberment skool'n, publik housing, and so on. What makes you think you are not going to be made to pay, regardless? Lower rates, hah! What's next, honest lawyers?

[Spyder]

I never figured out why in FL you can ride a motorcycle and NOT wear a helmet, but you have to wear a seat belt in the car or you get a ticket

Hawaii has the same - we figured it was ensure that there'd be more organ donors since it's so hard to get donor organs here in time with the long flight.

[Leisler]

"...As it is, the State forces the insurers not to discriminate ..."

Dollars to donuts, the insurance companies were there first, demanding the state pass laws saying everyone must buy their products. That the government has, like a organized crime family, taken over the insurance industry, well...that's what happpes when you make a deal with the devil.

[Notwithstanding]

Spunkets: "...I pay the damn taxes and they're my roads too. As long as I drive w/o crashing and in a respectable manner, keep your damn jackbooted road agents the hell off my tail..."


me: You need a civics lesson - "paying the damn taxes" does not make you the lawgiver (that would be the legislature). Likewise, your notion of what your obligations are while driving on public roads is a fantasy or a fraud. I am glad there a re police to enforce the traffic laws. In your world, public roads are evidence of the nanny state and state troopers are equivalent to jack-booted thugs. I am glad you are not in the legislature.

[Carry_Okie]

Dollars to donuts, the insurance companies were there first, demanding the state pass laws saying everyone must buy their products.

I don't have the history, but I don't have so much respect for insurance companies as to think it's likely. What seems more realistic to me is that the trial lawyers started making realistic actuarial estimation of a potential loss such a crapshoot that the insurance companies ended up running to the nanny state for protection.

[unixfox]

Does ANYBODY really think the govt gives one shit if you live or die? I think not, they could care less.

Example...In Texas we have seatbelt laws, but you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Getting pulled over on a motorcycle for speeding without a helmet will only get you a ticket for speeding. Get pulled over in a car (which if you haven't noticed is by far much safer than a motorcyle)for not wearing a seatbelt and you can bet the cost will be more than the speeding ticket.

IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY !!!! LIVES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT !!!!

[Rainmist]

The thought of catapulting thru my windshield as glass rakes my face doesn't appeal to me much, I wear mine. In the mid-80's a co-worker wasn't wearing hers and she went out the driver's side window, disfiguring the left side of her face from the forehead down. We were all in our mid-twenties. She came in a few times to visit and she looked like a monster, even after plastic surgery, god it was so shocking and sad. I once had a State Trooper tell me that in all his years as one, he's yet to unbuckle a dead person.

[spunkets]

" You need a civics lesson - "paying the damn taxes" does not make you the lawgiver (that would be the legislature)." You seem to have avoided addressing what you originally claimed. That the roads are owned by some etherial, "public funders" and I am no more than a priviledged user. ie.

"If you value your freedom to drive with no seatbelt more than the privilege to use tax-funded roads then you can always drive up and down your driveway and walk to the store."

The legislature has a duty in a Free society to refrain from dictating personal choices that are of no consequence regarding the safety and smooth flow of traffic of, and for, other drivers, pedestrians, or property on the highways. Notice I attached the the conditional, Free. That conditional places a definite bound on what the legislature can and can not do. When the legislature operates beyond the bounds of rights protection and fails to nourish and promote Freedom, it becomes a tyrannical body.

Seatbelt laws happen to be pure tyranny. They are most often justified to lower the cost of forced health programs by the state and preferential treatment for particular commercial operations. Those programs are another tyrannical act, because they don't exist without the force of government action and their sole purpose has nothing to do with rights protection, but are simply bogus charity schemes. Schemes that are used by autoritarian socialists to maintain economic benefit and power. It's nothing more than theft and a bribery for votes scheme.

"Likewise, your notion of what your obligations are while driving on public roads is a fantasy or a fraud."

My obligations while driving on the road are to follow the traffic laws, respect others rights and refrain from crashing, period. I have no obligation to wear a seatbelt. If you think Freedom is fantasy, or fraud, you are welcome to, but I do not. Freedom is a gift from God and those others that respect that gift.

"In your world, public roads are evidence of the nanny state and state troopers are equivalent to jack-booted thugs.

According to you. The fact is that public roads exist for transportation purposes, that's it. The laws that govern the use of those roads are restricted, in a Free society to those laws that promote the Free flow of traffic and protect individual rights. There is no justification to impose personal safety rules, such as air bag and seatbelt mandates.

"I am glad you are not in the legislature."

Your in the company of all the other authoritarians that hold Freedom in contempt.

"America: Home of Abortion on Demand - 42,000,000 Slaughtered"

It's a communitarian thing. It promotes cost effective population control, lowers health care bills and other various and sundry socialist expenditures. For a person that cares so little about individual rights, such as the sovereignty of will that is an essence of human life, why would it concern you? Do you want them as subjects to belt up and impose dictates, mandates and prohibitions, or to live as Free individuals to pursue their own interests, make their own decision and determine their own destiny?

[Leisler]

Yes and yet another varible.

I have never read any history of the insure/state/lawyer cycle. Of course lawyers are creatures and creations of the state, same as most insurance co's.

[Adder]

"How dare the state set limits on how the vehicle is operated. things like speed limts and lane restrictiosn"
___________________________________________________________
I did not say that the state couldn't...I quibble with your word "must" in your previous post. Once again I reiterate: I recognize the province of the state to regulate driving vis a vis the safety of other drivers, etc. Things like no inebriation, no reckless driving/speeding and the like. Where we part ways is your seeming contention that the state has some right to tell a driver to wear a seatbelt simply because it has dominion over the roadways. Seatbelt laws do nothing to promote safer driving. They do not prevent accidents; they do not reduce reckless driving; they do not produce lower speeds.
It is not a matter of whether seatbelts save lives: I believe they do and use mine religiously. It IS a matter of the state mandating behavior modifications in a realm where it has no true right or business. You might want to check out Wendy McElroy's column today which adresses this issue nicely,[see foxnews.com].
Five year olds indeed. The ones who sound like five year olds are the ones who continue to promote and defend the nanny state that increasingly seeks to treat its citizens like five year olds.

[Eagle Eye]

There is no enumerated list of "other" rights in the constitution.

EXACTLY!

The 9th clearly tells us that there are other rights NOT listed and that those rights are every bit as important as those that are listed.

Some of the wisest founders hesitated on the BoR because they knew that sometime down the road boneheads would claim that the listed, enumerated rights were the only ones that existed, that if it wasn't in the Consitution or amendments then that right didn't exist.

Boneheads is my word, not theirs, and there are plenty of them on FR.

To say that everything else not mentioned can be claimed to be a right by virtue of the 9th amendment is funny - such thinking is where we get the idiotic notion that there is a "right" to be free from insensitive language, etc. (insert any other PC crapola "right").

It isn't funny, it is so stupid that only a small group of people could even fathom that idea. I would have never thought of it had it not been for you! Congratulations, you are in a small group of people.

In your opinion, are there rights not listed that are retained by the people? If not why, if so, what might some be?

[A2J]

The amount of laws is ridiculous.

And we have our friendly neighborhood attorneys to thank for them.

Until tort reform becomes a reality, the number of laws will continue to increase.

[Notwithstanding]

Once again, a libertarian has it partially right, but fails to see precisely where this argument MUST take us:

The ninth amendment leaves these "unenumerated" rights to the states or individuals to hash out (this amendment simply says the feds need to let the states govern these areas). Thereby allowing states to legislate as the people allow through state constitutions and legislative acts.