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From: bs@faron.UUCP (Robert D. Silverman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: seat belts and hidden premises
Message-ID: <421@faron.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Jan-86 10:33:44 EST
Article-I.D.: faron.421
Posted: Wed Jan  1 10:33:44 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Jan-86 05:40:54 EST
References: <4741@alice.UUCP> <2663@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: The MITRE Coporation, Bedford, MA
Lines: 29

> In article <4741@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
> >Now let's apply this to the seat belt argument.  People are saying:
> >
> >	Seat belts save lives,
> >		therefore
> >	people should be required to use seat belts.
> >
> >The hidden premise here is:
> >
> >	Whenever an activity saves lives,
> >	people should be required to perform it.
> 
> Actually, the hidden premise is probably more like:
> 
> 	Whenever an activity saves many lives at trivial cost,
> 	people should be required to perform it.
> 
> Which has the advantage of being eminently plausible.
> 
> --The untiring iconoclast,					Paul V. Torek

Triviality is in the eye of the beholder! In this case the so called 'trivial'
cost is government poking its very long nose into our private lives. The
slow accumulation of such trivial things will lead to less and less freedom
for the individual and more and more power for the government. I agree that
the cost of buckling up is trivial. However, government's REQUIREMENT that
we do so carries a far heavier cost.

Bob Silverman