Seat Belts and Individual Freedom

[butch50]

Where is the watershed between self reliance and individual liberty on the one hand, and anarchy on the other? There is a dividing line in there somewhere.

To go to one extreme, we have laws against murder and mayhem as a means of protecting the general population. Were we to repeal those laws, then we would hardly have a "society".

To go to the other extreme, we also have laws regulating the "safe" use of firecrackers.

Somewhere in between there is a compromise between a free society and a smothering society. It will be a "compromise", but I suggest that if 300 million people are going to live together as one overall union, then there will by necessity be some compromising required.

 

[mvpel]

You think that the fact that murder is against the law is the only thing keeping people from murdering other people?

Give me a break!

 

[The Rabbi]

You think that the fact that murder is against the law is the only thing keeping people from murdering other people?

Do YOU think that laws and potential punishments have no effect on behavior? Give ME a break!

If someone were to wave a magic wand tomorrow morning and make all traffic regulations and enforcement disappear, you would carry on just like before with your responsible self...but you know for a fact that everyone else cannot be trusted to act responsibly, right?

Marko, you are playing the "all or none" game. I cry foul. We all know a large percentage of the people will act responsibly no matter what. We also know some percentage will act irresponsibly no matter what. But are you going to deny that there is a percentage of people whose behavior is changed by laws? I will say that in the old days if I had two or three beers I still felt competant enough to drive home. Today the penalties for getting caught DUI are such (including loss of carry permit) that I will not drive even after two beers.
But let me turn it around: are there any regulations that the any government institutes that you feel are just and well-founded?

 

[Marko Kloos]

We all know a large percentage of the people will act responsibly no matter what. We also know some percentage will act irresponsibly no matter what. But are you going to deny that there is a percentage of people whose behavior is changed by laws?

Rabbi, that's precisely the rhetoric used by gun control advocates. They'll concede that most gun owners are responsible, but they claim that the actions of a few irresponsible people makes it necessary to restrict the rights of all. Do you want to have a society where our freedoms keep being defined by the actions of our least responsible citizens?

Besides, you still haven't answered any of the questions I asked in my previous posts. Where do you draw the logical line when it comes to proscribing self-harming behavior?

Laws against murder are not relevant to the debate: they concern behavior that harms others. Laws that mandate seat belt use are relevant to the discussion, because they concern behavior that harms no one but the offender himself.

That's the crux of the argument. Is it right and proper for the state to use coercion and force to keep people from harming others directly? Absolutely.

Is it right or proper for the state to use coercion and force to keep people from harming themselves? Absolutely not.

Do you really prefer a Mad Max vision of road anarchy just to preserve an illusion of absolute liberty?

Why is it that New Hampshire, with no helmet, seatbelt, or mandatory insurance laws, has seatbelt use and highway safety statistics that compare very favorably to those of other states?

Could it be that the coercive nanny laws are unnecessary for responsible people, have no effect on irresponsible people, and have no positive effects to offset the moral paternalism they represent?

You folks crack me up. You deride the Brady crowd's attempts at "reasonable" gun safety laws as an infringement, you point out that such laws have no effect on irresponsible or criminal use of guns, you comment that the states with the most "gun safety" laws also have the highest gun crime rates, you sneer at the notion of gun laws for the sake of "if it only saves one life"...

...and then you turn around and use the exact same arguments when it comes to stuff like seatbelt or drug laws.

 

[The Rabbi]

Rabbi, that's precisely the rhetoric used by gun control advocates. They'll concede that most gun owners are responsible, but they claim that the actions of a few irresponsible people makes it necessary to restrict the rights of all. Do you want to have a society where our freedoms keep being defined by the actions of our least responsible citizens?

Ah, Marko Marko. You have distorted what I said. I said that SOME people will not change no matter what. But SOME people will be positively affected by the laws. I never said that freedoms should be dictated by the least responsible elements.
You also seem to subscribe to the "every man is an island" theory. It is not so. Every one of us is affected by what his neighbor does, sometimes in more subtle and sometimes less subtle ways. Thus whatever I do does in fact affect others around me. This is human nature.
As far as drawing the line, refer to my earlier post where I laid out some guidelines for what is intrusive intervention and what is not.

 

[Marko Kloos]

As far as drawing the line, refer to my earlier post where I laid out some guidelines for what is intrusive intervention and what is not.

I have not seen anything that could be used as an objective standard for such intervention. Every time I point out that your standards are emotional, subjective, and inconsistent, you dance around the issue.

One more time:

Give me an objective standard for the enforcement of laws that punish behavior that's only self-harming. When are such laws OK? When the majority wants them? When a certain number or percentage of accidental deaths occur? When our elected representatives say so? What's your objective standard?

Share your objective standard, or fess up and admit that your standard is as fuzzy, emotional, and undefined as the Brady Bunch's "common sense", and "if it only saves one child".

You also seem to subscribe to the "every man is an island" theory.

You, on the other hand, sound like you subscribe to the "it takes a village" theory.

My actions have an effect on my neighbor, especially when I nose around in his life and ftry to force him to do what I think might be best for him.

That's why I firmly believe that the best way to maximize freedom and minimize conflict is through the maxim "mind your own business, and keep your hands to yourself." Once you start using the "common good" argument for justifying governmental force, you are moving onto a heavily greased slope. Then there's no limit to the attempts of the do-gooders of the world to try and keep others from hurting themselves...after all, whatever you do affects other people, and all that.

As long as my neighbor doesn't try to violate my rights by force or fraud, it is not my business what he does or doesn't do, whether it's wearing seatbelts or dancing around an MG42 draped in a Nazi flag while drinking moonshine. Because if I make his behavior my business, then I have no moral leg to stand on when I dislike his attempts to make my behavior his business.

 

[Osborn F. Enready]

I am an unwavering defender of individual rights, and seat belt laws are just one of the many "corporate implemented" infringements on individual rights.

New Hampshire knows where it's at.

 

[The Rabbi]

I have not seen anything that could be used as an objective standard for such intervention. Every time I point out that your standards are emotional, subjective, and inconsistent, you dance around the issue.

Marko, there is no "objective standard" in political science. Your standards are equally emotional and subjective and inconsistent. There are guidelines and reasonable people can disagree on how important one factor is over another.
By your standards kiddie porn should be OK because after all we are only talking about one guy downloading stuff in his house. How does that hurt anyone?

 

[Rich Lucibella]

What I'm not understanding from you guys is what your ultimate intention is. Do you want to completely deregulate the roads? No speed limits, equipment restrictions or licensing requirements of any kind?

Handy-
For myself, I would state that I see no moral or legal authority for government to regulate actions which affect no one but the individual performing that action. In fact, most of those on your side of the argument clearly agree.....that's why they continue to justify with tenuous and speculative scenarios about consequences of individual action that might affect others:
"Well, what if someone has an accident and can't control his car because he's not wearing a seat belt?"
"Well, what if someone gets ejected thru the windshield and lands on my child?"

It's all rather bizarre, especially when one looks at the inevitable result of such laws. Seatbelt laws have led to some of the most egregious infringements of the 4th Amendment in modern history.....Roadblock Safety Checks are the direct precursor to what is happening on New York subways today.

Little wonder that many of us sit slack jawed while someone claims to be a supporter of one of the Amendments and then uses his adversary's exact same argument to infringe on a different Amendment. Those arguments are inevitably emotion based....no different than those of Schumer, Feinstein and Brady. There is simply no getting around that.
Rich

 

[Marko Kloos]

Marko, there is no "objective standard" in political science.

I'm not talking about political science here. I am talking about ethics, the theory of how we ought to live with each other and distinguish right from wrong. That falls square into the realm of philosphy, not political science.

Here's my ethical litmus test in a nutshell, in one sentence:

Does it involve the use or threat of force against another human being in a non-retaliatory way?

If the answer is "no", then it's moral.

If the answer is "yes", then it's immoral, regardless of whether you're talking about a law, a personal behavior, or anyhting else that involves interaction between two or more people.

That's a test which I can apply to every aspect of social interaction, and it forms the basis for a consistent philosophy. It's as objective as any standard gets.

 

[The Rabbi]

At least you admit there are no objective standards in this debate. That is something we can agree on.

But are you saying that gov't has no right to enforce its decisions? That seems to be the implication of this:

If the answer is "yes", then it's immoral, regardless of whether you're talking about a law, a personal behavior, or anyhting else that involves interaction between two or more people.

That also seems to imply that if two people have a contract and one breaks it then the other has no right to enforcement or damages.
Also, and again, by your definition drunk driving and kiddie porn are perfectly acceptible forms of behavior. And you might actually believe that. In which case there is nothing more to discuss.

 

[tyme]

By your standards kiddie porn should be OK because after all we are only talking about one guy downloading stuff in his house. How does that hurt anyone?

Kiddie porn is a generic term for a wide variety of material, some of which should be legal to produce and some of which shouldn't. The issue of distribution of already-produced illegal material is problematic and extremely complicated... just look at attempted prosecution for non-commercial distribution of copyrighted material. Please use a better example, because I don't think this one supports your point.

Relevant issues are whether the kid is old enough to legally have sex (there's no consistent legal limit, but it's usually in the 12-15 range), whether the particular sex involved would be legal absent the camera, whether the kid was abducted and coerced, whether the kid's parents condone the filming, etc.

The problem with "kiddie porn" laws revolves around the fact that in some states, a 16-year-old can have sex with a 14-year-old and a 40-year-old, but it is nevertheless a federal crime if that 16-year-old has otherwise-legal sex on camera.
[/hijack]

 

[Marko Kloos]

That also seems to imply that if two people have a contract and one breaks it then the other has no right to enforcement or damages.

That's a negative. An immoral action violates the rights of another by force or fraud, and breaking a contract falls under the "fraud" aspect. I omitted the word "fraud" from my original sentence, which was a sloppy omission on my part. However, if you're at all familiar with objectivist epistemology and the Libertarian non-aggression principle, you'll see that I am not just making this stuff up as I go.

At least you admit there are no objective standards in this debate.

Wrong. I pointed out that I consider it a philosophical debate, whereas you think it's a political science debate.

Also, and again, by your definition drunk driving and kiddie porn are perfectly acceptible forms of behavior. And you might actually believe that. In which case there is nothing more to discuss.

I wonder when the "kiddie porn" copout would come up. Now you're just trying to get out of the debate while claiming the moral high ground.

Alas, I won't let you off that easily.

There's a difference between "Do I think it's an acceptable from of behavior?", and "Do I have the right to put a gun to my neighbor's head to make him stop that behavior?"

When it comes to drunk driving and looking at kiddie porn, I would answer "no" to both questions. As much as you'd now like to cry "ah-ha!" and accuse me of supporting drunk driving and child pornography, the distinction here is the very point of this debate. While I would not drive drunk or look at kiddie porn, I recognize that I have no right to regulate such behavior in others by force.

Now, if the drunk driver damages someone else's property, or even injures or kills someone, the driver ought to be fully responsible for his actions, up to and including being hung up on the nearest telephone pole. However, until he does infringe on someone else's rights by force or fraud, there's precisely zero right on my part to "preemptively" modify his behavior.

As far as kiddie porn goes, the simple creation of such material violates the right of another (a minor child) by force and/or fraud, so the creation of kiddie porn is clearly immoral, and the government has the legitimate right to defend the rights of a minor citizen against such force and/or fraud.

Now you can huff off in an indignant storm and bow out of the discussion claiming the moral high ground, because I didn't come out and support throwing people in jail who look at some electrons bounced off a CRT.

Sometimes, that's what happens when you use your brain to make ethical decisions based on subjective standards instead of emotions. Sometimes, you come up with a conclusion that you intensely dislike on an emotional level, but that's the price to pay for being a rational being. Start basing public policy decisions on emotion, and it's just a gigantic free-for-all, where the gang with the most guns gets to push their emotional preferences on the rest.

 

[mvpel]

No speed limits, equipment restrictions or licensing requirements of any kind?

Even though you're resorting to the fallacy of reductio ad absurdum, which would cost you a big pile of points were this a competitive debate, I'll entertain your question.

Montana had no daytime speed limits on its freeways for a period of time in the last few years, during which the highway fatality rate dropped. It increased again once they reimposed a speed limit.

Likewise, this nation's experience with the 55mph national maximum speed limit, and the counterexample of the German Autobahn, demonstrates that the majority of people will drive at a reasonable and prudent speed for the prevailing road conditions and their driving ability, regardless of the posted speed limit. This is why the Federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) specifies the 85th percentile speed - the speed at which 85% of traffic travels at or below - as a standard for setting posted speed limits.

As for equipment restrictions - are you referring to the pointless and expensive vehicle inspection requirements that suck hundreds of millions of dollars per year out of the pockets of residents of states like Massachusetts and California, and punish the poor by making it impossible for them to maintain a reasonably-priced means of private transportation - a.k.a, a beater?

As for licensing requirements - did you hear about the guy who'd had his drivers license suspended in about a dozen different states? Did you hear about the license-suspended drunk driver who drove to his sentencing hearing?

And I don't think I ever told you about the time back in Michigan where I watched an illiterate, non-English-speaking old woman get coached through her drivers' licensing written exam by her thirty-something grandson, and sign the form with a shaky "X".

So what benefit does a government-run system of licensing actually provide that couldn't be provided, with more accountability and higher standards, by insurance companies or a competing market of private certifying agencies?

Reputable mechanics in New Hampshire are certified by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence or by the auto manufacturers themselves, rather than by some disinterested and mechanically-ignorant paper pusher in a stuffy office in Concord. What's wrong with that?

 

[Handy]

Gents,

As I stated from my first post, I don't believe that non-use of a seatbelt affects only one person. So we'll just disagree there.


Even more damning, I actually believe that laws are a NECESSARY evil in the functioning of society. Our society, any society.

The "lawless benevolence" that you guys seem to think would occur through some sort of Darwinian process is just as naive as any extreme liberal view. The rule of law has been an integral part of functioning society since the beginning.

Marko, I have to assume that you were not speaking to me with your diatribe about inconsistant support of some freedoms vs. the 2nd amendment. I certainly have never taken the position that weapons ownership should be absolute and without regulation. Like everything else, there can be limits, as long as those limits don't eclipse the functioning of the actual right in the process.


Banning guns interferes with the power balance between citizen and government in this country - so laws should never interfere with that process in the larger sense. But that doesn't imply that a minimum age for buying a gun is an infringement, despite being a type of gun control. Seatbelt laws do not tacitly abridge your right to travel, but they do increase the safety AND convenience of our publicly paid for road system.


What you guys seem to be missing is that we have roads, and especially fast moving highways, BECAUSE of law and regulation. Take away all the laws and you would quickly run out of paved places to drive. But I guess you could congratulate yourself on how "free" you would be then.


America is not, and was never intended to be, a free-for-all. The founding fathers did not add a process for creating and judging law as an afterthought. They didn't even think the average citizen could be trusted to vote directly for laws.

 

[Marko Kloos]

I certainly have never taken the position that weapons ownership should be absolute and without regulation. Like everything else, there can be limits, as long as those limits don't eclipse the functioning of the actual right in the process.

Ah, but there's the kink in your logic, Handy. There are no levels of degree when it comes to governmental regulation of basic rights. Once you concede that the government has a right to set age limits on purchases, or capacity limits on magazines, you have effectlively ceded the right completely for all intents and purposes.

When do you decide that the limits imposed by government "eclipse the functioning of the actual right in the process"? Moreover, whose opinion on the matter counts? The majority opinion? Whoops, you've turned a basic right over to majority vote, something that the BoR was explicitly designed to prevent. Your opinion? Whoops, you already ceded the right to regulate the buying and bearing of arms to the government. The government's opinion? Yeah, let's make the people with the most interest in the highest level of control responsible for defining what constitutes "eclipsing the functioning" of a right.

If the right to purchase and bear arms is not "absolute and without regulation", it does not exist. (How can something be a right if you have to ask the government for permission to exercise it?) Then you turn it into a privilege, and you ought to refer to it as such, and stop pretending that it's an inalienable right.

Even more damning, I actually believe that laws are a NECESSARY evil in the functioning of society. Our society, any society.

Absolutely. Some laws are necessary in order for government to fulfill its only legitimate function, the protection of its citizens against force or fraud. The crux of the debate is what kind of laws are actually right and moral, and what kind of laws are not. Some of us believe that the punishment of victimless crimes or self-harming is wrong, because it involves the use of force against someone who has not violated the rights of someone else by force or fraud.

 

[mvpel]

Even more damning, I actually believe that laws are a NECESSARY evil in the functioning of society. Our society, any society.

Nobody's calling for anarchy - there you go with the reductio ad absurdum again. We're just asking you to carefully consider the principles underlying a given law, and how they relate to the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility upon which this nation was founded.

What you guys seem to be missing is that we have roads, and especially fast moving highways, BECAUSE of law and regulation. Take away all the laws and you would quickly run out of paved places to drive. But I guess you could congratulate yourself on how "free" you would be then.

What, you think that there's no market for paved roads? That people won't pay for a paved place to drive unless they are forced to at the point of a government gun? Americans spend tens of millions a year on magazines, for example, and hundreds of millions a year on movies.

 

[The Rabbi]

When it comes to drunk driving and looking at kiddie porn, I would answer "no" to both questions. As much as you'd now like to cry "ah-ha!" and accuse me of supporting drunk driving and child pornography, the distinction here is the very point of this debate. While I would not drive drunk or look at kiddie porn, I recognize that I have no right to regulate such behavior in others by force.

So by your logic on the drunk driving, if you are at the range and some idiot starts swinging his gun around and firing while you are taping targets, you have no right to object to his behavior until he actually shoots you. Anything else would be (horrors) prior restraint.
I think when the debate comes to the point that I have to demonstrate that drunk driving and kiddie porn are bad then there isnt much left to talk about. Thanks.

 

[Marko Kloos]

I guess reading my earlier post would be out of the question?

I already stated that I consider both of those actions "bad". However, I have also pointed out that my opinion of what's "bad" does not give me the right to hold a gun to my neighbor's head and force him to stop, unless he violates my rights by force or fraud directly.

Can you grasp the distinction here?

So by your logic on the drunk driving, if you are at the range and some idiot starts swinging his gun around and firing while you are taping targets, you have no right to object to his behavior until he actually shoots you.

I have every right to object to his behavior. I just don't have a right to shoot him until he actually and intentionally aims his gun at me and tries to shoot me.

Using your logic, I just ought to have a law passed that punishes waving guns around in an irresponsible manner, and that will take care of the issue, since the only reason we don't have more dangerous people at the range is because they're just worried about being punished and fined, right?

To wit...your prior restraint laws don't prevent idiots from being idiots at the range, and my lack of prior restraint laws neither negates my right or ability to self-defense, nor absolves the range idiot from financial and legal responsibility for his stupidity.

 

[Handy]

Marko,

Why do you think we don't have legislators for life, and a court system? There isn't a SINGLE item in the Bill of Rights that does not have legal regulation. Yet we still think of them as rights.

The "reductio ad absurdum" is that you guys are acting like this is something new. This country has functioned for 200 years on a system that constantly asks the question "Is this new law actually right and moral". That's what our system is there for, Marko. That's why we have a supreme court.


By your logic, we have NO rights, because they are all regulated on some level. So are you admitting to having no legal rights, or is it more complicated than that?