[Cabbie]

I find this debate amusing

Anyway about that anti seat belt guy. Just reading the article seems to depict him as a bright fellow. I guess it just shows that common sense and intelligence does not necessarily go hand in hand does it, eh?

[vyper]

I find the passion amusing.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Rictor
As for nuclear weapons, those are specifically designed to inflict harm. They serve no other possible purpose. And given the potential for harm, they can hardly be compared to not wearing a seatbelt. If a nuclear bomb had the potential to kill one person or a few at most, it would be a different matter. But it's not, so there you go.

Fine. Make it a home made nuclear plant. Or an unlicenced distillery.

Originally posted by Rictor
The people in your car are presumably your friends and family.

Unless you're a minicab driver.  Shouldn't they have a law to prevent people from endangering them by not wearing a seat belt? Remember that a large percentage of passengers they carry have had a few drinks and probably wouldn't buckle up just cause the driver said so. Threat of a fine is another matter though.

If mini cab drivers shouldn't have a law to protect them where do you draw the line then? Can I open up the cabin door on an areoplane to say hi to the pilot?

[Unknown Target]

Originally posted by aldo_14

Ok, how about another question; in what way is legally requiring people to buckle up a bad thing?

I'd like to know an answer to this, too.

[vyper]

How is legally requiring them to go to the gym a bad thing?

[aldo_14]

Gyms cost money.  Some people can't go to the gym for medical reasons.  People don't have time to go to the gym.

[vyper]

I think you missed my point.

[Rictor]

Fine. Make it a home made nuclear plant. Or an unlicenced distillery.

Fine, I will. Just to spite you.

Ok, how about another question; in what way is legally requiring people to buckle up a bad thing?

Becuase people should be able to do whatever the hell they want, as long as they are only endangering themselves and those who agree to be endangered. The role of the government is not to provide positive reinforcement (quit smoking, wear your seatbelt, watch your diet), only negative reinforcement (don't murder people, don't set buildings on fire etc). The distinction may be subtle, but the implications are immense. Once your start telling people what they should do, instead of what they shouldn't do, there is almost no end.

So, children are now something else then grown up Human beings? Why protect a baby and not yourself? If you are so adament that babies should be protected, why not a law to protect EVERYONE?

Has it ever occured to you that I may not want to be protected?

I make an exception for small children because you can't expect a 5 year old to consciously know the risks involved, whereas an adult can. Thats the whole problem, treating adults like children. I realize that smoking and alcohol and red meat and not wearing a seat belt are hazardous to my health, I just don't give a ****. And as an adult, no one can tell me otherwise. Life is hazardous to my health, so what.

-------------

as for the threat to others, outside the car (since those inside the car have, by their very presence, consented to the situation), well until someone shows me otherwise I am inclined to believe that the threat is no greater than any number of everyday occurences, and not great enough to warrant legislation. You have to draw the line somewhere, thats agreed, but where we disagree is as to where.

If 1 person per year dies of poodle attacks, that is not enough to warrant outlawing poodles. But if 500,000 a year die from poodle attacks, thats a different story.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Gyms cost money.  Some people can't go to the gym for medical reasons.  People don't have time to go to the gym.

Well, theres a very simple solution. Structure everyone's days so that they have time enough to go to the gym, and give them enough money to pay for it. And make sure that they each have a personal fitness coach to monitor their progress. Better yet, a two-way screen in their living rooms would enable them to do excercise right from their lown home, with their coach watching them from the other end.

You're missing the point entirely.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by karajorma
Unless you're a minicab driver.  Shouldn't they have a law to prevent people from endangering them by not wearing a seat belt? Remember that a large percentage of passengers they carry have had a few drinks and probably wouldn't buckle up just cause the driver said so. Threat of a fine is another matter though.

If mini cab drivers shouldn't have a law to protect them where do you draw the line then? Can I open up the cabin door on an areoplane to say hi to the pilot?

In my experience Cab drivers care less than anyone. Hell, you only have to watch how the f****sdrive:
"3 point turn in the middle of a busy main road ? Yeah! F**k it!"

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor


Well, theres a very simple solution. Structure everyone's days so that they have time enough to go to the gym, and give them enough money to pay for it. And make sure that they each have a personal fitness coach to monitor their progress. Better yet, a two-way screen in their living rooms would enable them to do excercise right from their lown home, with their coach watching them from the other end.

You're missing the point entirely.

If you can tell me a way of making people compulsarily excercise that doesn;t require them reallocating their time to do so, then I'd be much surprised.  

It's a very simple cost-benefit analysis.  Cost of national excercise program is high (public funded gyms, cost of time which is allocated to do said excercise, cost of said fitness coach is high) for a probably high benefit to public health and safety.

Cost of seatbelt law is negligable to none (less than 5 secs to buckle up, only required when already travelling, can be handled by the same officers as patrol for speeders, dangerous drivers, etc), with a singnificant benefit to public helath and safety (namely saving lives).

I would think that was a very simple point.

Explain to me again; how does having a seatbelt law hurt people or society?

[Rictor]

You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? How can you so completely and utterly miss the point? Its not about cost-benefit, its about choice.

If it was possible to implement a compulsory national fitness program without re-shuffling anyone's schedule and without cutting funding to any other social program, would you be in favour? Really, would you?

There is only one drawback to legislating seat-belt usage, and that is choice! You know, the freedom to do what you want, go where you want, and generally mind your own business. Choice is a good and worthy thing in and of itself, that chould be defended. I don't want to do whats best for me. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing. I don't want to do what the government tells me I should. I want to do what I want to do.

By the same merit, you would presumably have no objection to putting security cameras on every street, in every alley and building, because what are the drawbacks? None, except privacy. And the obvious benefit is that things such as crime, child and spousal abuse ann generaly anti-social behaviour could be reduced. What sane person would oppose such a measure?

[aldo_14]

You can exhange any principle to a level which is destructive, be it choice or imposition.  What you're doing, is advocating based on the most extreme position you can imagine, without any degree of consideration for the single specific situation which we are discussing.  By your extent, all laws can be considered an imposition on our choice.

Freedom of speech is a key part of free society.  Freedom of the press is.  

The right to chuck yourself out of the window into a passer by when you crash, isn't.

[Rictor]

"By your extent, all laws can be considered an imposition on our choice. "

Bingo!

However, certain laws are required if society is to be kept from tearing itsefl apart. Laws are merits, and faults (one of which is the simple fact that they exist). So what is needed is to determine whether the benefits are worth the cost in freedom.

In this specific case, I think they are not. How many people die every year as a result of people not wearing seatblets, excluding the people in the car? Not too many I would imagine.

The thing is, people's lives are a tangible thing, and so the case for them is quite easy to make. No one likes to see people die, so you instantly have something to appeal to. But freedom is an abstraction, and so you can not easily communicate its true worth, especially when it is supressed in such small doses. Thats the reason, I think, why of people are on the side of the debate that they are.

[Flipside]

The difference is defining 'want' and 'need' in situations such as this. Who is going to be the first group pointed at when something disastrous happens involving someone who wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

We laugh because it is law, and this person wasn't obeying it out of choice, and because of that, he died.

What would our reaction have been had there been no such law? If we knew that seatbelts saved but didn't make them compulsory to wear?

I can imagine we would be saying that it's stupid not to have a law against it.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor
"By your extent, all laws can be considered an imposition on our choice. "

Bingo!

However, certain laws are required if society is to be kept from tearing itsefl apart. Laws are merits, and faults (one of which is the simple fact that they exist). So what is needed is to determine whether the benefits are worth the cost in freedom.

In this specific case, I think they are not. How many people die every year as a result of people not wearing seatblets, excluding the people in the car? Not too many I would imagine.

Gee...you'd almost think that was because there was a law against not wearing seatbelts, wouldn't you?

Originally posted by Rictor
[BThe thing is, people's lives are a tangible thing, and so the case for them is quite easy to make. No one likes to see people die, so you instantly have something to appeal to. But freedom is an abstraction, and so you can not easily communicate its true worth, especially when it is supressed in such small doses. Thats the reason, I think, why of people are on the side of the debate that they are. [/B]

and how much does the right to not wear a seatbelt count in defining our personal freedoms and humanity?  And what is the cost?  3 seconds at the start and end of a journey?

It doesn't affect  our right to travel, where we can travel to, what reasons we can travel for.  In fact, the only effect it does have, is maybe a slight chafing.  In exchange, we run the increased risk of not dying in an accident.

Is that really losing us our freedom?

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Rictor

Has it ever occured to you that I may not want to be protected?

Whoop-dee-f*cking-doo!

If you don't want to be protected go hang yourself or something since you obviously have a deathwish.

I don't care if you don't WANT to wear a seatbelt. IT IS NOT[/u] ABOUT YOU! It is about all those other people that you endanger by not wearing your seatbelt.

[Rictor]

Gee...you'd almost think that was because there was a law against not wearing seatbelts, wouldn't you?

If it ceased to be illegal not to do so, would you still wear your seatbelt? What do you think about society (or your society) at large? If the benefits are as obvious as you claim, why would reject them?

Is that really losing us our freedom?

We are losing some freedom, whether or not it is too much is a subjective matter.

My problem is not with this or that issue specifically. My problem is with the process, and it is a steady process, of giving up individual freedoms in order to "benefit society".

What I see is an unmistakable trend of people people handing over their rights, mostly for minor things such as this (or the smoking bans), which on the surface benefit everyone. However, I am not naive enough to believe that this will stop anytime soon.

Imagine that you asked someone like Kazan (or to a lesser degree you and kara) to write down EVERY societal change that they would like to implement (all for the good, of course). Now, imagine that you magically implemented EVERY single thing on that list.

How long do you think it would be before they found a new cause to fight, for people's own benefit of course? Now long before they found some other thing which should be adjusted, some new law that should be made, to make society a better, happier place? Alright, so they make a new list, and you implement EVERY desired change. Now long before they make a new list?

When right are taken away in a matter of days or weeks, it called dictatorship. When they are taken away in a matter of decades or centuries, its called living in a modern Western democracy. Its is a sure and one-way process, which is why I am loathe to give even an inch.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Tiara

Whoop-dee-f*cking-doo!

If you don't want to be protected go hang yourself or something since you obviously have a deathwish.

I don't care if you don't WANT to wear a seatbelt. IT IS NOT[/u] ABOUT YOU! It is about all those other people that you endanger by not wearing your seatbelt.

find me as statistic that says that the number of deaths per year due to non-seatbelt wearing exceeds the "oh look, two whole people died, aint that a damn shame" level?

[karajorma]

The problem is that Rictor lives in a black and white world where any percieved infringement on liberty no matter how important or worthwhile is the thin edge of the wedge which will result in a totalitarian thread.

What can you say to someone who hears the sounds of nazi jackboots in an attempt to prevent the spread of child pornography?

 I only argue with him now to watch him defend more and more ridiculous viewpoints cause after the child porn thread it was fairly obvious that this was a pretty deep well

Originally posted by Rictor
When right are taken away in a matter of days or weeks, it called dictatorship. When they are taken away in a matter of decades or centuries, its called living in a modern Western democracy. Its is a sure and one-way process, which is why I am loathe to give even an inch.

Really? Wanna explain why the facist dictatorships in Europe both before and after WWII all fell if it's a one way process?