Do bad things? Since when is an accident "doing a bad thing"? What if my brakes fail? What if I hit a patch of black ice? And hey, I'd like you not to die if you hit me, too.
That's a ridiculous way to look at my argument, Nasor.
Safety vs. Freedom
- Thread starter Roman
- Start date
Do bad things? Since when is an accident "doing a bad thing"? What if my brakes fail? What if I hit a patch of black ice? And hey, I'd like you not to die if you hit me, too.
That's a ridiculous way to look at my argument, Nasor.
Challenger78
Valued Senior Member
Are those same people prepared for their children to die by their own gun ?
Usually, peoples wishes on their government are expressed through democracy. Here in australia, if people were so concerned about their freedoms, and percieved anyone who wants to take them away, we'd vote for the shooter's party .
Isn't that what the government is meant to do. Protect its citizens from harm ?, Hell, they protect against foreigners, unemployment,war, might as well protect us from each other.
I'm aware that sounds very much dystopian, but I'm not talking about censorship, moral conditioning, or anything else, I'm talking about the simple registration of firearms, and the act of keeping your firearm unloaded.
It's simply called "training". Our kids are around and see our cars used all the time as they grow up. And when they're old enough and trained, we let them drive 2,000# "murdering machines" on the highways. Are we all prepared for our children to die in an auto accident?
Ask yourselves; Which is more dangerous in the hands of kids? Guns or cars?
Aussies can do anything they want ....but don't try to sell me on the gun control laws for the USA. I don't care about Aussies, I care about Americans and American freedoms.
Well, sure ...if you want to view government in that way. But then it simply brings up the question of "How far are you/the government going to take that ideal?" If we were all locked into padded rooms, we'd be perfectly safe, but is that what we want our government to do? No, of course not. But it seems that people are, more and more, willing to give up many simple freedoms in the misguided idea that it'll make them safer.
The USA has registration for firearms.
And an unloaded gun is nothing but a metal paperweight. You can throw it at robber, but it's much easier to pull the trigger and blow the sonuvabitch straight into Hell.
Baron Max
You aren't counting properly. My freedoms are the same as your freedoms, and benefit us both in many situations (not just at the moment of accident). We also both have sensibilities.jdawg said:
You wish to trade both of our freedoms and my sensibilities for your sensibilities.
My health is not directly involved. As noted above, it's a far more complicated calculation than assumed by the authoritarians. The gains from mandating helmets on foot travelers in the winter and people who shower standing up, for example, would probably outweigh the net gain from saving nominal lives in motorcycle accidents.
If you don't wear wear a helmet on a motorcycle, or a seatbelt in a car, you obviously don't have much care for your own safety, or the sensibilities of those around you. And no, we don't have the same amount of freedoms. To assume so is ridiculous. You are free in Maine to not wear a helmet, which only applies to you, because I would never put myself in such danger. So that is not a freedom we share. That's a freedom you have; the freedom to be a complete retard on your bike.
No, I will simply trade your freedom for you health and my sensibilities. And if you want to call that a freedom...
Can you put a number to that, or does it just sound pretty in your argument? Why is it that no one can argue honestly on this site?
Make this a good thread- it had real potential from the very start. Thanks all who take up words across the great divide.
Überall sind sie sicher, und frei immer sind- aber nie in ein platz. Vielen Dank und Gedank- Alle (Auf Wiederlesen).
Überall sind sie sicher, und frei immer sind- aber nie in ein platz. Vielen Dank und Gedank- Alle (Auf Wiederlesen).
Notes Around
A trucker who drove the west coast of the U.S. once told me a story about lawyers in California. In the years since, the scandal eventually made headlines for a day or two, but the story goes that personal injury lawyers would somehow convince immigrants—usually Mexicans—to pack into cars and go out on the freeways and fuck with the trucks. Swerve into their lane, cut them off, that sort of thing. And every once in a while, there would be a wreck. The personal injury attorney would step in, sue the trucker and his company, and make money off the settlement. On the one hand, I don't think it was as widespread as the trucker thought; that sort of behavior is ridiculously cold. To the other, though, truckers working the California highways came to have a saying: "If you hit 'em, make sure you kill 'em." The implication being that, otherwise, you'd pay out for the rest of your life. At the very least, you wouldn't be driving anymore, because nobody would insure you with a big settlement hanging over you.
Which raises the obvious question: Who pays those settlements?
The answer, of course, is insurance companies.
And the same holds true with mundane accidents.
In my youth, before the seat belt laws were passed, it was a fairly common sight during afternoon cartoons to see a morbid PSA campaign that most of the kids actually liked. It involved two crash dummies talking about their work. At some point, the Department of Transportation put out an advert that featured slow-motion footage of a crash test, showing the dummies pitching into the steering wheel and dash as the car crumpled and glass shattered. You could tell, watching the way those dummies bent, that the bodily damage was horrific.
Sixteen miles an hour. That was the claim. Sixteen whole goddamn miles an hour.
In other words—and I don't know how things are in Australia—you can be seriously injured in a parking lot collision.
As an insurance company, you could literally pay out more than you ever would have earned in premiums on an account from a simple parking lot collision. Add in the street collisions, and that number skyrockets.
Spinal damage, a head injury, cracked ribs. Maybe with a seat belt, the insurance company would only be paying for whiplash, and some stitches from flying glass. Assuming the person survives the crash and resulting head-meets pavement encounter, what do you think an insurance company would rather pay for?
Even in the 1980s, in the United States, a certain question held true: Who do you think really has more influence in Washington, DC? We, the People, or they, the Lobbyists? Senators and Representatives might come and go, but, for the most part, the new guys can be bought, too.
In a similar context, one way to bring accidental gun violence under control—e.g., among "responsible gun owners"—would be to institute mandatory liability insurance on the guns. It won't ever happen, of course, but there are a lot of things—both good and bad—that come about in the Capitol and the state houses because of insurance companies. In terms of political clout, the insurance industry is even stronger than the banking industry. On balance, at least twenty years ago, more insurance companies had ownership stakes in banks than vice-versa.
If the seat belt laws had just been about "personal responsibility" and such, they never would have passed. Republicans actually used to have something of a libertarian streak about them, before gay rights and 9/11.
It was also in the 1980s, I should mention, that we got around to mandatory helmet laws.
I'm not sure what to tell you. I, too, would rather not kill someone in an accident. But, truth told, the emotional injuries of self-inflicted guilt are fairly low on the list of reasons for advocating seat belt use, or passing such laws.
Put it into another context: A child locates an unsecured handgun, and kills another. Or himself. Frankly, I think the psychological injuries the gun owner may or may not experience from such an outcome are among the least important of relevant considerations.
Undoubtedly, though, seat belt laws protect everyone. Or nearly everyone. But that's no reason for government to get around to passing a law.
General Comment
It seems to me something was supposed to go here. But then I hit the regular site outage (ten minutes or so every 10:30 GMT), and got distracted reading about the Official Bad Art Museum of Art. Sorry. I'll think of it in a minute.
Maybe.
In the meantime, I'll simply note that, when it comes right down to it, I'm puzzled whenever I come across paranoia about seat belt laws. Sure, I'm cynical about their origin, but there's no question they're a good thing. And, to be sure, something else is true: Nobody can force you to be responsible with a firearm. But remember, every "responsible gun owner" is responsible until he or she isn't, and then it's too late.
And it's worth reminding that sometimes the laws also pertain to our responsibilities to others. For instance, we have child booster-seat laws in some states. And, to be honest, I would have hated these laws when I was a kid, because they apply up to twelve years old in some cases. To the other, why not look to the auto manufacturers and say, "This is what a booster seat accomplishes. There is no reason people should have to buy after-market goods to make travel in a 'family sedan' safe for children. Fix the problem." Really, the primary function of a booster seat seems to be to change the elevation of the shoulder belt over a child's body. Christ on a pony, these people can fit a television set, earphone jacks, and a snack tray with two cupholders into the back seat, but they can't devise an effective safety restraint system for children? No wonder the Big Three are swirling down the drain.
Still, though, one of the police reports I got to read as part of my teenage driving education was a traffic ticket noting that the officer initiated the stop because he couldn't figure out why a four year-old was standing on the front seat with his hands on the dashboard as his mother drove down the street. Coupled with the redacted incident report about the dead toddler whose skull was embedded in the windshield, I can only say that so many years later, I'm much relieved that my daughter can buckle her own seat belt, and can only smile affectionately when she points out that I have forgotten to buckle the lap portion of my own. (Automatic seat belts are a mixed blessing; it's a lot easier to forget to buckle up when the car lays the shoulder belt for you.)
And, lastly, I will note an uncredited news article from one of our local media outlets (honestly, I just can't find it is all). Apparently, Seattle police are in the middle of their annual seat belt vigil, in which they're driving around actually looking for seat belt offenses. While this might seem somewhat ridiculous to some people—and I would not necessarily disagree—the department claims to end up making all sorts of secondary arrests, mostly DUIs. And I'm of the opinion that there is some merit to be argued in such an outcome. It is, in fact, the first good argument I've ever heard for seat belts being a primary offense.
Asguard said:
A trucker who drove the west coast of the U.S. once told me a story about lawyers in California. In the years since, the scandal eventually made headlines for a day or two, but the story goes that personal injury lawyers would somehow convince immigrants—usually Mexicans—to pack into cars and go out on the freeways and fuck with the trucks. Swerve into their lane, cut them off, that sort of thing. And every once in a while, there would be a wreck. The personal injury attorney would step in, sue the trucker and his company, and make money off the settlement. On the one hand, I don't think it was as widespread as the trucker thought; that sort of behavior is ridiculously cold. To the other, though, truckers working the California highways came to have a saying: "If you hit 'em, make sure you kill 'em." The implication being that, otherwise, you'd pay out for the rest of your life. At the very least, you wouldn't be driving anymore, because nobody would insure you with a big settlement hanging over you.
Which raises the obvious question: Who pays those settlements?
The answer, of course, is insurance companies.
And the same holds true with mundane accidents.
In my youth, before the seat belt laws were passed, it was a fairly common sight during afternoon cartoons to see a morbid PSA campaign that most of the kids actually liked. It involved two crash dummies talking about their work. At some point, the Department of Transportation put out an advert that featured slow-motion footage of a crash test, showing the dummies pitching into the steering wheel and dash as the car crumpled and glass shattered. You could tell, watching the way those dummies bent, that the bodily damage was horrific.
Sixteen miles an hour. That was the claim. Sixteen whole goddamn miles an hour.
In other words—and I don't know how things are in Australia—you can be seriously injured in a parking lot collision.
As an insurance company, you could literally pay out more than you ever would have earned in premiums on an account from a simple parking lot collision. Add in the street collisions, and that number skyrockets.
Spinal damage, a head injury, cracked ribs. Maybe with a seat belt, the insurance company would only be paying for whiplash, and some stitches from flying glass. Assuming the person survives the crash and resulting head-meets pavement encounter, what do you think an insurance company would rather pay for?
Even in the 1980s, in the United States, a certain question held true: Who do you think really has more influence in Washington, DC? We, the People, or they, the Lobbyists? Senators and Representatives might come and go, but, for the most part, the new guys can be bought, too.
In a similar context, one way to bring accidental gun violence under control—e.g., among "responsible gun owners"—would be to institute mandatory liability insurance on the guns. It won't ever happen, of course, but there are a lot of things—both good and bad—that come about in the Capitol and the state houses because of insurance companies. In terms of political clout, the insurance industry is even stronger than the banking industry. On balance, at least twenty years ago, more insurance companies had ownership stakes in banks than vice-versa.
If the seat belt laws had just been about "personal responsibility" and such, they never would have passed. Republicans actually used to have something of a libertarian streak about them, before gay rights and 9/11.
It was also in the 1980s, I should mention, that we got around to mandatory helmet laws.
• • •
JDawg said:
I'm not sure what to tell you. I, too, would rather not kill someone in an accident. But, truth told, the emotional injuries of self-inflicted guilt are fairly low on the list of reasons for advocating seat belt use, or passing such laws.
Put it into another context: A child locates an unsecured handgun, and kills another. Or himself. Frankly, I think the psychological injuries the gun owner may or may not experience from such an outcome are among the least important of relevant considerations.
Undoubtedly, though, seat belt laws protect everyone. Or nearly everyone. But that's no reason for government to get around to passing a law.
• • •
General Comment
It seems to me something was supposed to go here. But then I hit the regular site outage (ten minutes or so every 10:30 GMT), and got distracted reading about the Official Bad Art Museum of Art. Sorry. I'll think of it in a minute.
Maybe.
In the meantime, I'll simply note that, when it comes right down to it, I'm puzzled whenever I come across paranoia about seat belt laws. Sure, I'm cynical about their origin, but there's no question they're a good thing. And, to be sure, something else is true: Nobody can force you to be responsible with a firearm. But remember, every "responsible gun owner" is responsible until he or she isn't, and then it's too late.
And it's worth reminding that sometimes the laws also pertain to our responsibilities to others. For instance, we have child booster-seat laws in some states. And, to be honest, I would have hated these laws when I was a kid, because they apply up to twelve years old in some cases. To the other, why not look to the auto manufacturers and say, "This is what a booster seat accomplishes. There is no reason people should have to buy after-market goods to make travel in a 'family sedan' safe for children. Fix the problem." Really, the primary function of a booster seat seems to be to change the elevation of the shoulder belt over a child's body. Christ on a pony, these people can fit a television set, earphone jacks, and a snack tray with two cupholders into the back seat, but they can't devise an effective safety restraint system for children? No wonder the Big Three are swirling down the drain.
Still, though, one of the police reports I got to read as part of my teenage driving education was a traffic ticket noting that the officer initiated the stop because he couldn't figure out why a four year-old was standing on the front seat with his hands on the dashboard as his mother drove down the street. Coupled with the redacted incident report about the dead toddler whose skull was embedded in the windshield, I can only say that so many years later, I'm much relieved that my daughter can buckle her own seat belt, and can only smile affectionately when she points out that I have forgotten to buckle the lap portion of my own. (Automatic seat belts are a mixed blessing; it's a lot easier to forget to buckle up when the car lays the shoulder belt for you.)
And, lastly, I will note an uncredited news article from one of our local media outlets (honestly, I just can't find it is all). Apparently, Seattle police are in the middle of their annual seat belt vigil, in which they're driving around actually looking for seat belt offenses. While this might seem somewhat ridiculous to some people—and I would not necessarily disagree—the department claims to end up making all sorts of secondary arrests, mostly DUIs. And I'm of the opinion that there is some merit to be argued in such an outcome. It is, in fact, the first good argument I've ever heard for seat belts being a primary offense.
tiassa, CTP insurance is different in each state but lets look at victoria. In victoria the CTP is basically a tax, rather than going to a company which makes money of it it goes to a goverment organisation called the Trafic acident commission to fund there work. Some of this money goes to the monash uni crash uni, ALOT gets spent on providing health services and the rest goes into there crash reduction programs, like advertising campains and the physics unit in year 10 on car crashes.
Alot of these ads are on Youtube and i can post some of them for you if you like but the point is that the one thing goverments DONT want to be doing is increasing tax, especially when they cant spend those taxes to buy votes. If they could save money on this trust me they would be, they would LOVE to come out and say "hey we are reducing the cost of CTP" but they cant.
Your right, a 40km\h acident is concidered to be major trauma. It comes under CHAMPIONS criteria, just like a fall from twice your own hight does. This isnt to say that they are talking about car park crashes but rather than during most crashes people break which slows the car, in general alot below 40km\h
I have seen what happens when someone goes through the windscreen, not to mention that im going to be spending the majority of my placements this year cuting down suicides and scraping up car crash victoms.
I have posted the statisics on deaths by people not wearing there seatbelt. Whats not widly known is alot of deaths in the US from airbags are a direct result of the lack of seatbelt laws. In australia they deploy alot slower because the car companies know that they will be used in conjuntion with a seatbelt, this is the best possable combination. In the US however the car companies have to assume that they will deploy to stop someone flying around the car. This is why they come out with such force.
Lastly i would like to point out something i rember quite clearly from the physics unit. During a crash at 30km\h if you are holding a baby in your arms it will hit your arms at 4 times its own weight due to the momentium. Now just think about that, if a child hits at 4 times its own weight so will you when you hit the steering wheel or the windscreen.
How much force do you think that Chris Reed hit with when he came off his horse?
Now a horse goes NO WHERE near 100km\h
Alot of these ads are on Youtube and i can post some of them for you if you like but the point is that the one thing goverments DONT want to be doing is increasing tax, especially when they cant spend those taxes to buy votes. If they could save money on this trust me they would be, they would LOVE to come out and say "hey we are reducing the cost of CTP" but they cant.
Your right, a 40km\h acident is concidered to be major trauma. It comes under CHAMPIONS criteria, just like a fall from twice your own hight does. This isnt to say that they are talking about car park crashes but rather than during most crashes people break which slows the car, in general alot below 40km\h
I have seen what happens when someone goes through the windscreen, not to mention that im going to be spending the majority of my placements this year cuting down suicides and scraping up car crash victoms.
I have posted the statisics on deaths by people not wearing there seatbelt. Whats not widly known is alot of deaths in the US from airbags are a direct result of the lack of seatbelt laws. In australia they deploy alot slower because the car companies know that they will be used in conjuntion with a seatbelt, this is the best possable combination. In the US however the car companies have to assume that they will deploy to stop someone flying around the car. This is why they come out with such force.
Lastly i would like to point out something i rember quite clearly from the physics unit. During a crash at 30km\h if you are holding a baby in your arms it will hit your arms at 4 times its own weight due to the momentium. Now just think about that, if a child hits at 4 times its own weight so will you when you hit the steering wheel or the windscreen.
How much force do you think that Chris Reed hit with when he came off his horse?
Now a horse goes NO WHERE near 100km\h
Tiassa said:
I would not call it the least relevant issue, Tiassa. I had a friend growing up whose little sister had taken their father's gun from the closet one night, and when he tried to take it away from her, it went off, and killed her. I can't tell you what my friend went through after that. Years later, I'd sometimes find him in the nurse's office at school crying for no reason. When we reconnected in our 20s, he told me it was the memory of what happened that night that brought him to the nurse's office so often. I mean, it's not the least relevant. It's absolutely something worth discussion. Emotional trauma isn't nothing. It can ruin your life.
As for passing a law goes, I stick by what I said. I should not have to suffer the memory of you dying on the hood of my car simply because you weren't smart enough to wear a seat belt. My emotional well-being should be considered, because it matters.
I don't find self-interest isn't the strongest rhetorical appeal
You're transferring the burden there. The friend is not culpable, but, rather, another victim of the father's irresponsibility. I mean, yes, other people's psychological welfare is certainly a consideration, but it still comes lower on the list.
Because you are the most important thing in the world.
Fine with me, but one self-interest simply matches another. In theory, seat belt laws benefit society at large. Again, I concede that yes, other people's psychological welfare is certainly a consideration, but you can accidentally hit another car, or the other car can hit you, and the other person can still be wearing a seat belt and still die. And you might still wonder if maybe you could have done something to avoid that outcome.
I guess it's just that reducing arguments to self-interest as you have just isn't something that moves me.
JDawg said:
You're transferring the burden there. The friend is not culpable, but, rather, another victim of the father's irresponsibility. I mean, yes, other people's psychological welfare is certainly a consideration, but it still comes lower on the list.
Because you are the most important thing in the world.
Fine with me, but one self-interest simply matches another. In theory, seat belt laws benefit society at large. Again, I concede that yes, other people's psychological welfare is certainly a consideration, but you can accidentally hit another car, or the other car can hit you, and the other person can still be wearing a seat belt and still die. And you might still wonder if maybe you could have done something to avoid that outcome.
I guess it's just that reducing arguments to self-interest as you have just isn't something that moves me.
OK, fine. But his father--though I heard less of it--was obviously scarred for life. Though you could argue that my friend, had he not tried to take the gun away, would not have to suffer in the way he had, even if she did end up dead anyway.
Of course. But the seat belt provides some protection, and lowers the chances that you'll die in an accident. So it benefits everyone. I'd be arguing the same thing if we found out tomorrow that carmakers were going to halt production of airbags.
You say that as if society isn't just a big group of "me's". And I'm not trying to move you. Wasn't the point of this topic to offer our opinions on the matter? This is mine.
(Insert title here)
And well should the father have regrets. Still, though, the fact of the death of the child trumps the father's emotions. What, after all, are we trying to achieve?
I side with the first. The second is not to be completely dismissed, but it should not be the primary concern.
As to your friend, I would ask you to consider an outcome:
I would suggest that, had he not attempted to take the gun away, and had she died anyway, he would still be wracked by issues of conscience.
Fair enough. It's just that self-interest isn't the most convincing argument. Maybe it is for some people. Maybe they're so wrapped up in themselves that it's the only way to get them to do the right thing.
Certainly, the simple act of buckling a seat-belt reflects self-interest. I don't deny that. But, in the context of passing a law, it isn't a particularly strong argument.
The self exists in a relationship to society. This is the point that is absent in such naked expressions of self-interest.
And no, you don't actually have to move me. But, if the point of this topic is to offer our opinions, would you suggest that anyone who disagrees with yours should just keep theirs to themselves?
As I recall, I offered my opinion on the subject, and you responded. Should you have kept it to yourself? Should you have gone out of the way to inform me of the "big difference" between the general benefit of society and your personal self-interest?
Either way is fine with me. Just be consistent, and don't arbitrarily invoke principles.
JDawg said:
And well should the father have regrets. Still, though, the fact of the death of the child trumps the father's emotions. What, after all, are we trying to achieve?
• The child should not be dead.
• The father should not feel badly.
• The father should not feel badly.
I side with the first. The second is not to be completely dismissed, but it should not be the primary concern.
As to your friend, I would ask you to consider an outcome:
"I knew. I saw. I did nothing. Could I have prevented this?"
I would suggest that, had he not attempted to take the gun away, and had she died anyway, he would still be wracked by issues of conscience.
Fair enough. It's just that self-interest isn't the most convincing argument. Maybe it is for some people. Maybe they're so wrapped up in themselves that it's the only way to get them to do the right thing.
Certainly, the simple act of buckling a seat-belt reflects self-interest. I don't deny that. But, in the context of passing a law, it isn't a particularly strong argument.
The self exists in a relationship to society. This is the point that is absent in such naked expressions of self-interest.
And no, you don't actually have to move me. But, if the point of this topic is to offer our opinions, would you suggest that anyone who disagrees with yours should just keep theirs to themselves?
As I recall, I offered my opinion on the subject, and you responded. Should you have kept it to yourself? Should you have gone out of the way to inform me of the "big difference" between the general benefit of society and your personal self-interest?
Either way is fine with me. Just be consistent, and don't arbitrarily invoke principles.
Not valuing common freedoms is no excuse to deprive others of them.jdawg said:
Obviously to whom? You?jdqawg said:
Kindly shove your sanctimonious and inevitably ignorant view of my circumstances and sensibilities up your ass, OK?
I do want to call that freedom, and that's its name. Liberty, if you prefer, will do. When you are trading things of mine for things of mine, according to your sensibilities and in violation of my sensibilities, at no cost to you and significant cost to me, that encroaches. You need a better justification for that than a supercilious attitude.jdawg said:
No more than you can put a number on your allegations - which aren't as pretty, being the excuses of petty tyranny.jdawg said:
Speaking of which:
I regard that as a good argument against making seat belts a primary offense. I've been pulled over - OK, paused in a parking lot - for a seat belt that I was wearing. The cop can always claim he didn't see it. It's equivalent to the random stops for whatever - they find people who are late on their child support, etc. The cops use such laws for harassment and fishing expeditions, at the expense of the decent and harmless and well-behaved citizenry.tiassa said:
My brother, for example, gets pulled over a lot on shaky grounds, without getting tickets - he fits a profile or something. He gets treated discourteously, as a rule. As he puts it, the only thing saving his butt the rest of the time, allowing him to drive around in peace, is that they need probable cause. With a primary offense seat belt law, they have probable cause at their discretion. They will abuse the privilege.
What would be the reaction to a mandatory helmet law for car drivers, people taking standup showers, canoeists, bicyclists, winter pedestrians, or any of the dozens of other categories of person that bring concussions into emergency rooms by the thousands? The benefits there are far more clear - the counterbalancing spinal chord injuries etc and greater risk behavior etc that make the calculation for motorcyclists difficult would be much less of a factor. It would be all gain, according to the sensibilities of those who like to run other people's lives for them.
Point is, canoeing without a helmet (and without wearing a life jacket, and in a canoe design of one's own choice) is more fun, more free, more like what a human being wants to do. The risks are in fact low, the benefits high for some people. It's not the kind of decision the State can make well.
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Safety vs. Freedom
I am confused (Not hard to do) but this post veered off onto discussing the issue of mandatory seat belts and helmets and the main argument for passing such laws seems to be the high cost of medical care and insurance that is eventually passed onto everyone in society in the form of higher taxes because of the increase costs involved to treat the increased medical complications or damages from those who are not wearing such protective restraints or head gear.
If this is really the reason for the laws then why hasn’t smoking been legally banned as the higher health costs from smoking is just as great if not greater than those who don’t wear seatbelts and those costs are passed along to tax payer too. (Just my thoughts)
Gun ownership, safety vs. freedom, a criminal once convicted is legally banned from owning or possessing a gun (because he has shown poor judgment), even if his crime didn’t involve a gun. This criminal is no longer considered a person but still a criminal and his right to protect himself and his family are stripped even though the constitution guarantees him the ability to have and bear arms, but has been amended constitutionally because of his conviction.
Now if a burglar/person is attacking this exconvicts home or his family he can still use anything he wants to protect and deffen hmself as long as it is not a gun, even when the burglar has a gun, I wonder who will win Hmmmm..
I am confused (Not hard to do) but this post veered off onto discussing the issue of mandatory seat belts and helmets and the main argument for passing such laws seems to be the high cost of medical care and insurance that is eventually passed onto everyone in society in the form of higher taxes because of the increase costs involved to treat the increased medical complications or damages from those who are not wearing such protective restraints or head gear.
If this is really the reason for the laws then why hasn’t smoking been legally banned as the higher health costs from smoking is just as great if not greater than those who don’t wear seatbelts and those costs are passed along to tax payer too. (Just my thoughts)
Gun ownership, safety vs. freedom, a criminal once convicted is legally banned from owning or possessing a gun (because he has shown poor judgment), even if his crime didn’t involve a gun. This criminal is no longer considered a person but still a criminal and his right to protect himself and his family are stripped even though the constitution guarantees him the ability to have and bear arms, but has been amended constitutionally because of his conviction.
Now if a burglar/person is attacking this exconvicts home or his family he can still use anything he wants to protect and deffen hmself as long as it is not a gun, even when the burglar has a gun, I wonder who will win Hmmmm..
True. But to say that emotional trauma is secondary to death is like saying eating is secondary to drinking, isn't it? The way I see it, emotional trauma may not trump the death of the child, but that isn't to say it's negligible.
Yes, of course.
My point is that we're all selves. If you serve the greater good, chances are that you're also serving yourself. Perhaps a case can be made that self-interest drives the protection of the greater good?
[/quote]Certainly, the simple act of buckling a seat-belt reflects self-interest. I don't deny that. But, in the context of passing a law, it isn't a particularly strong argument.[/quote]
I guess we'll have to disagree on that. I personally think that it's a solid argument, especially since, in this case, it reduces your risk of death.
Perhaps, but I think it's always a part of the discussion. I mean, drunk driving laws protect society, but it could also protect the lawmaker. Isn't he or she also serving his or her own self interests by passing a law that protects society?
No, of course not.
I'm trying to be consistent. I just felt that you were dismissing my opinion as invalid simply because it didn't jive with yours. I just wanted to make it clear that it obviously won't move everyone, but that it's just my opinion. If I sounded abrasive, I apologize.