Seat belt laws, helmet laws, gambling laws, all laws designed to protect people from themselves

[Toots]

Is that a good thing? What gives anyone the right to protect me from myself? If these are good laws then why not smoking or eating fatty foods? I could even understand if they wanted to make smoking in public illegal as it doesn't only protect you from yourself but also protects others. How do any of those other things protect others, unless you think they will have to foot the bill if the person not wearing a helmet has no insurance and can't pay.. Otherwise why do we tolerate one and not the others? While I think government is necessary and a good thing sometimes I feel it is very overbearing.. :shrug:

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Wait! I've got to run out for some popcorn.

OK, ready.

[Toots]

27. Apparently you don't need any popcorn no one touched on the main point

If those laws are good why is there not a law against smoking. The exact same logic applies. Smoking effects the communal pocket book even more than helmetless people do. Also more head injuries in auto accident than motorcycles but no one requires them to wear a helmet. The head always smacks into the steering column. Well before airbags anyway..

[panader0]

2. Don't leave out smoking weed..... Help me.....................

[pnwmom]

3. Seat belt laws don't belong on the list

because they protect other occupants of the car.

They also protect -- by reducing potential damages -- any other vehicle that ends up in a collision with an unbelted driver. As you say, that applies to helmet laws, too.

As an automobile driver, I don't want to share the roads with motorcyclists or bicyclists not wearing helmets. It's too dangerous.

[soothsayer]

22. close. it doesn't make it more dangerous for YOU, it makes it more COSTLY if

they get in accidents sans helmet/belt. It's in no way riskier for you if I'm not wearing a helmet.

[closeupready]

4. The best government is the government which governs least.

That's always been my feeling. Except in cases where it is necessary, such as, for example, OSHA or DoD.

[pnwmom]

5. I suppose that means you don't believe in universal health care?

[closeupready]

19. I believe in a government which is as small as possible

while also guaranteeing a minimum standard of living. Since universal health care would help us maintain that standard, I would support it wholeheartedly.

Being a Democrat, in my opinion, does not mean you must support big government. Am I wrong?

[Madspirit]

15. This

This is Democratic Underground not Libertarian Underground.
Lee

[closeupready]

21. Tell it to Thomas Jefferson.

n/t

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2737055&mesg_id=2740972

[whistle]

6. And protect society from having to pay the bills that result from such

...irresponsible behavior of others. How much does it cost tax payers to pay medical costs, higher insurance rates and disability for someone with a brain injury due to not wearing a helmet when involved in a motorcycle accident

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. They're not designed to protect people from themselves.

They're designed to protect me insurance rates from idiots who don't buckle up/ wear helmets.

I've got nothing to say on gambling laws. Now THOSE are a load.

[uppityperson]

8. seat belt and helmet laws don't protect people from themselves.

They protect them from injuries in accidents, they protect others from getting hurt from flying people also. They protect people in accidents from killing other people, if the other people are seatbelted/helmeted.

[soothsayer]

23. well, the big thing is that they protect your insurance from going up

[bleedingheart]

9. sometimes its not about you...

ever think those laws are there to protect the people around them and to make sure that those they leave behind aren't screwed?

The guy who doesn't wear a helmet...gets killed due to a head injury and he leaves behind a wife with kids and no money....cuz he spent all his money on his Harley and didn't think about perhaps getting enough life insurance so that if he did bite the dust...she might be able to feed those kids...

The woman who gambles away her family's food money....

The drunken parent who drives from bar to bar with his kids...(a horrid situation)...but if there is an accident...perhaps a seat-belt on that kid might just save them from going through the windshield...and hopefully the parent gets caught before that happens...

You know who lobbies for the government to intervene...

the folks who typically have suffered...and who want to save others from suffering too...

[NotGivingUp]

10. they're all a crock of shit. nt

[Hekate]

11. Sign a donor card.Promise to pay your own rehab when you go thru a windshield...

...or take a dive off your motorcycle. Trying to protect people from themselves is enlightened self-interest -- why should I pay for your enormous hospital bills via my own premiums being raised, just because you cannot be bothered with taking the most basic safety precautions?

And don't forget that donor card.

Hekate

[EST]

12. Although a case may be made that protecting fools from their own folly

is not the place for government, when voluntary behavior on the part of others-stupid, voluntary behavior-starts to impinge on the rest of us we have to protect ourselves.
When that behavior consists of such heedless and irresponsible actions such as going without seat belts and helmets or getting blotto drunk without making arrangements to be responsible by putting someone else in charge, then laws have to be made that apply whether one is being watched or not.

Governments are not, or should not be, some sort of disembodied entity, like a god or demon that casts down directives. Government is us-people who have to get together and address problems and solutions that are too big to handle with purely individual efforts. None of the laws that you have selected actually denies the actor his right to engage in the activity addressed, merely narrows the conditions under which it may be practiced.

Most of us are sick and tired of and would like to reduce the shock and pain, not to mention the expense, that we experience when we have to go out on the highway and pick up the bits of brain from some drunken lout who refuses to wear his helmet on the way home from the bar. Then we have to go and tell his wife and four kids that daddy isn't coming home.

No matter how it shapes up, the costs of planting this poor soul and cleaning up the damage he's caused is borne by all of us.

I will draw the line at marijuana laws, however. The obvious benefit provided its consumers compared the the relatively minor damage it causes, absent the overheated opinions of those who choose to make it their business to run everybody's business, places it out of the category of seatbelt or helmet laws. Again, laws restricting its use are not unwelcome, no imbibing while driving or in the middle of a crowded restaurant, but those sorts of laws, like seat belts and helmets, are perfectly reasonable and understandable, as well as acceptable, by most responsible people.

Living in a society can and does provide rights and benefits, as well as responsibilities, on the six and a half billion people on the planet and its high time we acknowledge this fact and formulate reasonable standards to accomplish this fact.

[Sukie1941]

13. And you certainly have a right to your opinion

as do I.

I really don't care if you want to kill yourself on a motorcycle not wearing a helmet, or if you gamble your family's income away. And I sure don't care if you smoke yourself to death or get hugely fat.

What I do care about is that you don't get one penney of insurance (because I am paying into it, too) from your bike accident, that you don't run up the cost of health care if you have a fat-ass and/or smoke coffin nails, and if you want to gamble your life away, don't let your spouse and kids live on welfare that I pay for.

Get it?

[depakid]

16. I get it- You don't believe in the social contract

and I suspect there may be other libertarian claptrap behind this attitude, too. There usually is.

[Madspirit]

17. I Get It!

...spouse and kids on welfare...wow...

You have NO compassion. Just starve those little kids. This is Democratic Underground, not Libertarian Underground.
Lee

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Sukie is not putting forward a libertarian viewpoint

She's saying that if people want to be libertarian ("don't tell me to wear a helmet"), then they have to go the whole hog - no welfare for those put at risk from your actions, no payout from insurance companies funded by sensible people who wear belts and helmets, and so on. If people expect society to look after them, they have to accept some rules of society.

On edit: which was roughly your point in reply #14, wasn't it?

[AlCzervik]

20. makes sense now, you weren't concerned about Al Gore getting fat because of his health

you are concerned that you might have to pay for his medical treatment when he "Keels over in office". Thanks for clearing that up.

[NotGivingUp]

24. delete

[Madspirit]

14. OK

No seat belt for you BUT you must promise to:

a.) Put enough money on a Bond so when you are a brain-dead rutabaga on life support NO ONE else has to pay for it, including insurance. I don't want MY rates to go up.

b.) You must not be married or have kids or any family members who will grieve or be without a parent or SO, when you get all smashed up.

c.) ...and you can only drive on off-roads where your flying body won't hit ME.

OK?
Lee

[NotGivingUp]

25. so many freeper responses...telling other people how to live their lives. nt

[Solon]

26. Problem is that it affects more than just the individual, but society as well...

at least in the case of the seatbelt/helmet laws. Every time someone gets into an accident, and suffers an injury that would have been prevented by wearing a seatbelt or helmet, society has to pay the tab. Whether its through increased insurance rates, health, life, and vehicle insurance, in addition to lost income, public assistance, whatever, society pays the tab. So in a case like that, the laws are good.

We could abolish such laws, however, it should be with stipulations, such as allowing insurance companies to refuse to pay anything for any preventable injury that results from these accidents, things like that. Freedom should come with responsibility.