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From: bprice@bmcg.UUCP (Bill Price)
Newsgroups: net.auto,net.singles
Subject: Re: Seat belts
Message-ID: <1652@bmcg.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-May-85 17:20:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: bmcg.1652
Posted: Wed May  1 17:20:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 4-May-85 08:05:51 EDT
References: <429@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <335@calmasd.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: bprice@bmcg.UUCP (Bill Price)
Organization: Burroughs Corp. ASG, San Diego, CA.
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Xref: linus net.auto:5579 net.singles:5908

In article <> holmes@dalcs.UUCP (Ray Holmes) writes:
>gail@calmasd.UUCP (Gail B. Hanrahan) writes:
>>The REAL issue is, should the government(s) be making laws
>>*requiring* people to wear seat belts just because it's "for
>>your own good"?  Can we next expect legislation requiring us to
>>take vitamins, as well?  [sarcasm]
>There is a difference here; the government has to pay to clean up the mess!
>					Ray

Gail has the important point, although she (he?) understates it a bunch.  
Ray, on the other hand, falls into the standard Welfarist traps:  the
fallacy that "the government" can be financially responsible for anything,
and the fallacy that "the government" should be responsible for cleaning up
the debris from everybody's foolishness.  Ray is not alone:  all the
traffic here supporting the seat-belt coercion argues from the same
fallacies.  [NOTICE, please, that I'm not talking about the merits of seat
belts--I'm talking about the merits of government force vs people acting
adult.]

To dismiss the first fallacy:  "the government" doesn't--and can't--pay to
clean up the mess.  The government, if we adhere to the second fallacy,
merely acts as disbursing agent, to make us victims, uh, taxpayers, pay to
clean up the mess.  In the process, of course, it has extracted an
outrageous commission.

To dismiss the second fallacy:  if the government is (and should be)
responsible "to clean up the mess", and that justifies coercion that is
said to prevent the mess from being made, then the same logic requires laws
to prevent any sort of mess.  (Notice that I just said 'requires', not
'allows'.)  The government must, then,  make other laws to protect itself
(!) from the folly of its children:  for example, it must require that each
and every one take his vitamins, lest malnutrition make us ill, in need of
care from the governments hospitals.  Nor may we eat any unapproved
foodstuffs, nor fail to eat the required foodstuffs, for the same cause.
These foodstuffs will be prepackaged, so that the cooks can be certified:
hallelujah!  Now its possible to outlaw those notorious child-burners,
kitchen stoves, with their attendent pots, pans, knives (shudder), and
other injurious paraphenalia.  Now we're rolling...

But I think you get the idea:  if the logic is valid for seat-belt
coercion, it is valid for any other coercion you can dream up.  I'm getting
tired of it, myself.

--Bill Price
-- 
--Bill Price  uucp:  {Most Anybody}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice
              arpa:? sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc