No, it's intrusion
I'm all for it. Honestly, why should the government not be able to regulate the rules of the roads that they (using our money) build and police? You have to have insurance to drive a car. You have to have a license to drive a car. You have to have a license plate, and up to date tags, to drive a car. You have to wear a seat belt to drive a car.
Okay.
Now, if we could just get the knuckleheads to insist that all motorcycle drivers must wear a helmet in every state, it would be a real win.
Our government is supposed to be controlled by US, not the other way around. Laws are for criminals and to protect OTHERS from those that would cause harm...period! I agree EVRYONE should wear a seatbelt, I do not agree that the government can force you to not do something because they feel it's better for you. Speed laws are for everyone elses protection, drinking and driving laws are to protect everyone else, seatbelt laws protect and involve no one but YOU and the government has no right to tell YOU what to do for yourself! We don't live in Russia, and the US exists because of European governments driving their people away by overreaching in power and control, our constitution was written to keep government in it's place, to keep freedoms that others would take away, rather dangerous or not. There are a million things that common sense would tell a person is not safe and may cause great harm to yourself, the government has no right to start attacking those things, it is not their place and WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to be deciding what our government can or can't do. Again, I completely agree with everyone wearing seatbelts, I always wear mine, but I don't need the attorney general threatening my bank account if I don't, or forget sometime.
Oh Dirk...you make me so sad when you talk that helmet crap. The only person that suffers from not wearing one, is the rider...it should be his/her choice. It's not like a car seat for a child, THAT'S VERY IMPORTANT
Laws are not just for criminals and to protect people from harm. To put it in simple terms, laws act as a type of protection that keeps normal people from doing things that are detrimental to others or themselves. Perhaps I chose the wrong word when I said the government's roads; I should have said the state's roads. This is basic political philosophy: you are a part of the greater whole that is the state. The state's only reason to exist is to protect you from harm, even if that harm comes about due to your own stupidty. Clearly the strongest opinion is that seatbelts save lives and so the state requires you to wear a seatbelt if you want to to benefit from it's infrastructure. If you don't like obeying what essentially is the majority opinion in the United States then, really, pack up and move to a country in Africa that does not enforce seatbelt laws and does not have the same high level infrastructure that the States does. This is no different than the state reserving the right to have a depressed/suicidal person's freedoms violated because they might harm themselves; both apparently have no reprecussions to anyone but that one person, so the government should not be involved? Ridiculous. A logical person would say that seatbelts save lives and know that, despite that, they might not always wear it, and so they give the state the right to dictate that anyone who drives has to wear it in order to make sure they don't make a mistake that will end up killing them.
Does this mean I agree with the methods in which these laws are enforced? Not necessarily. But I think being forced to wear a seatbelt is a much better alternative than choosing not to wear it and ending up in a hospital where you will bitch about how unfortunate you are and how the state didn't do enough to protect you. The state really can't be violating your freedoms by keeping you alive (the lives lost according to revidffum are a small minority of cases and are insignificant compared to the lives saved), and honestly if you really think the government is being intrusive by forcing you to wear a harness when you are sitting in a still position and driving 100 km/h, you're going to be horrified when you realize how "intrusive" the government is when you're outside of the car.
That wouldn't happen. Only a retard would do that.
This country has put so many laws on the books "for the good of the people" but law enforcemnet and prosecutors use those laws to just abuse people. I get why it's a good idea, of course it's safer 99% of the time, but seriously, when is it that the government stops telling you what's good for you or not? More people die because of eating Mcdonalds and Smoking than die because they didn't have their seatbelt on! Skydiving isn't safe, neither's rock climbing, or hunting, or riding a motorcycle....this is supposed to be the land of the free, but for some reason other people get to tell me I can't ride in the back of my own truck when i don't have enough seats. I don't know one person who has ever had their truck flip over, so why is everyone restricted....blagh balh blah!! I know I need to shut up but it juust happens that this cop not far from here had his kid find his gun in the car and accidently shot his sister. they are charging the cop with 2nd degree manslaughter. So explain this too me....the cop and his family are going through the worst possible hell they could go through, he's never been comitted any sort of crime his whole life, he shows no pattern of negligence or even irresponsibilty until this incident which only happened because he was in a hurry to get to a wedding, how does it make ANY SENSE to put this man in jail and destroy the rest of the family??!! How does it benefit society or the community in ANY WAY?! The prosecutor is doing it under the guise of " enforcing the law"....what about the spirit of the law!? the laws are there to protect the community, not to destroy people because you can! There is a huge difference between carreer criminals who show patterns of terrible decision making, or irresponsible people who take terrible risks with other peoples lives....hell in this case it really should be applied if he HANDED the loaded gun to the kid and left, that's the type of situation and person those laws are for. How about a 'Common sense prosecution" law. The situation MUST meet certain criteria to prosecute under any particular law...
1. Is this a first time offender
2. Has this person, even if never convicted, shown a pattern of irresponsiblitiy
3. Would their incarceration benefit the community, or is it necessary for the communities protection
4. Is it worth the cost to the community to prsecute, and incarcerate
5. whatever else people can think of....
there needs to be some way the people of this country can control the system that is supposed to serve and protect them. I'm probably not comming back to this thread, any comments for me go to my thread http://board.freeones.com/showthrea...et-the-addiction-begin!&p=6732105#post6732105
Laws are not just for criminals and to protect people from harm. To put it in simple terms, laws act as a type of protection that keeps normal people from doing things that are detrimental to others or themselves. Perhaps I chose the wrong word when I said the government's roads; I should have said the state's roads. This is basic political philosophy: you are a part of the greater whole that is the state. The state's only reason to exist is to protect you from harm, even if that harm comes about due to your own stupidty. Clearly the strongest opinion is that seatbelts save lives and so the state requires you to wear a seatbelt if you want to to benefit from it's infrastructure. If you don't like obeying what essentially is the majority opinion in the United States then, really, pack up and move to a country in Africa that does not enforce seatbelt laws and does not have the same high level infrastructure that the States does. This is no different than the state reserving the right to have a depressed/suicidal person's freedoms violated because they might harm themselves; both apparently have no reprecussions to anyone but that one person, so the government should not be involved? Ridiculous. A logical person would say that seatbelts save lives and know that, despite that, they might not always wear it, and so they give the state the right to dictate that anyone who drives has to wear it in order to make sure they don't make a mistake that will end up killing them.
Does this mean I agree with the methods in which these laws are enforced? Not necessarily. But I think being forced to wear a seatbelt is a much better alternative than choosing not to wear it and ending up in a hospital where you will bitch about how unfortunate you are and how the state didn't do enough to protect you. The state really can't be violating your freedoms by keeping you alive (the lives lost according to revidffum are a small minority of cases and are insignificant compared to the lives saved), and honestly if you really think the government is being intrusive by forcing you to wear a harness when you are sitting in a still position and driving 100 km/h, you're going to be horrified when you realize how "intrusive" the government is when you're outside of the car.
Where you got the idea that governments are there to protect us from ourselves is beyond me. I think perhaps you should research that. But you're right, there needs to be laws to keep us from killing ourselves so let's start with the that list, by order of number of fatalities.....
#1. HYPERTENSION/OBESITY/HIGH CHOLESTEROL= 12.2 MILLION annual preventable deaths------Oh yes, it's VERY preventable. Mcdonalds, KFC, Carls Jr.-----ALL should be illegal! How could the government continue to not protect it's people from such obvious stupidity!
#2. TOBACCO=5 Million annual preventble deaths---Please oh please...government that exists to protect us from our own stupidity...please help us help ourselves!!
#3 PHYSICAL INACTIVITY=2 million annual preventable deaths---How can this senselessness continue?
#4 ALCOHOL=1.9 million annual preventable deaths---Oh they tried in the US, but we're way too stuipid to know what's good for us and demanded to be allowed to risk our lives!
So Car death accidents....42,000+ in 2009 55% were NOT wearing seatbelts but.....5,000 of those were PEDESTRIANS/BICYCLES involved, and 20,000 died simply from driving a car, even WITH a seatbelt. Perhaps we should have a law that you can't drive, it's incredibly dangerous. In fact the same article states that it is the number one cause of accidental deaths of children, so really, parents who would risk their childs life in such an irresponsible fashion need to wake up! Oh, no, nevermind, the government is responsible to make them stop risking their childs lives.
THE POINT IS THAT IF IT IS THE GOVERNMENTS JOB TO PROTECT US FROM OURSELVES THERE ARE OBVIOUSLY MORE PRESSING AND SERIOUS THING TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT, AND WHO IS IT THAT DECIDES WHAT WE CAN AND CAN'T DO THAT MAY BE UNSAFE? SKYDIVING, RIDING A MOTORCYCLE, SKIING, HANG GLIDING, HIKING, ......IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENTS JOB TO FORCE US TO DO WHAT IS GOOD FOR US, IF IT WAS, THEN MAKING MCDONALDS AND MARLBORO, AND JACK DANIELS ILLEGAL WOULD HAVE 50X THE PRIORITY... SHOULDN'T IT?
On a side note....... for all you gun control advocates, accidental gun deaths (642 deaths in 2009)don't even make the CDC's top 100 list of causes, even though OVER 50% OF ALL HOUSEHOLDS HAVE A GUN. You are 39 (yikes) times more likely to fall and die (Aprx. 25,000 deaths in 2009) (
AND WITH ALL THAT SAID, I BELIEVE IT IS A GOOD THING TO MAKE PEOPLE WEAR THEIR SEATBELTS, I JUST DON'T BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE THE GOVERNMENTS DECISION
Where you got the idea that governments are there to protect us from ourselves is beyond me. I think perhaps you should research that. But you're right, there needs to be laws to keep us from killing ourselves so let's start with the that list, by order of number of fatalities.....
#1. HYPERTENSION/OBESITY/HIGH CHOLESTEROL= 12.2 MILLION annual preventable deaths------Oh yes, it's VERY preventable. Mcdonalds, KFC, Carls Jr.-----ALL should be illegal! How could the government continue to not protect it's people from such obvious stupidity!
#2. TOBACCO=5 Million annual preventble deaths---Please oh please...government that exists to protect us from our own stupidity...please help us help ourselves!!
#3 PHYSICAL INACTIVITY=2 million annual preventable deaths---How can this senselessness continue?
#4 ALCOHOL=1.9 million annual preventable deaths---Oh they tried in the US, but we're way too stuipid to know what's good for us and demanded to be allowed to risk our lives!
So Car death accidents....42,000+ in 2009 55% were NOT wearing seatbelts but.....5,000 of those were PEDESTRIANS/BICYCLES involved, and 20,000 died simply from driving a car, even WITH a seatbelt. Perhaps we should have a law that you can't drive, it's incredibly dangerous. In fact the same article states that it is the number one cause of accidental deaths of children, so really, parents who would risk their childs life in such an irresponsible fashion need to wake up! Oh, no, nevermind, the government is responsible to make them stop risking their childs lives.
AND WITH ALL THAT SAID, I BELIEVE IT IS A GOOD THING TO MAKE PEOPLE WEAR THEIR SEATBELTS, I JUST DON'T BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE THE GOVERNMENTS DECISION