Seat Belts and Individual Freedom

I'm not acting like this is something new. I just thought we were talking about seat belt laws, instead of all the other manglings of our liberty that have taken place over the years.

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I'm a little surprised that you'd bring the US Supreme Court into this, which just recently ruled that "public use" actually means "private use providing higher tax revenue" and that a plant product grown, cultivated, and processed, or a machine gun manufactured from scratch, entirely within the confines of a single state is "in or affecting interstate commerce."
 
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.
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So when you are down pasting targets and some yoke starts shooting in the next lane you can take no action other than verbal warnings? I'll try that next time I am in Knoxville.

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?
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Many locales have such a law against "brandishing."
But again, I never said what you are suggesting. What I said is that a certain percentage of people will modify their behavior because of laws and their penalties. To deny that is just foolish.
 
So when you are down pasting targets and some yoke starts shooting in the next lane you can take no action other than verbal warnings?
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What other action can you legally take where you live?

What I said is that a certain percentage of people will modify their behavior because of laws and their penalties.
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Of all the shooters on firing ranges today who don't brandish their guns and behave like jackasses, how many do not do so because they fear fines and punishment?

Of all the shooters on firing ranges today who do behave like jackasses and brandish guns, how many do so despite your prior restraint and safety laws?

Of all the gun owners in the country who do not murder anyone with their guns today, how many do not do so because they fear incarceration?

What kind of percentage of "prevented" handgun murders would justify a total ban of all handguns?
 
Mvpel,

We ARE talking about seatbelt laws, but the objection to them seems to solely an individual liberty argument, which opens the door to this discussion of whether ANY liberty should be abridged. I'm genuinely surprised how many of you are against the idea of law.


And BTW, don't bring up barely populated states and foreign countries in a discussion of general US law, unless you want to use Japan as a model for gun control debate.
 
What other action can you legally take where you live?
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Eject the person from the range for dangerous behavior. But I would have thought that was obvious.

Of all the gun owners in the country who do not murder anyone with their guns today, how many do not do so because they fear incarceration?
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It is of course difficult to measure something that does not happen. But again, you posit that laws and their penalties have no effect on human behavior. I do not think such a view is defensible on either logical or experiential grounds.

Your consistent view seems to be that we cannot predict the future so we should not try. This runs counter to the dictum "the wise man has eyes in his head." It also suggests that one holding such a belief would not engage in any activity that requires foresight. Thus if I see a red hot stove my reaction will be, on your view, I will put my hand here and if it burns then I will do something about it. I would prefer to foresee that the hand will burn and forego the pain involved.

I have criticized the Libertarian view before, calling it immoral. I would like to add it is also amoral in its outlook. On that view US entry to WW2 would never have happened (since the US was not directly threatened by Germany) nor would the US have fought (and won) the Cold War. The result would have been the total annhilation of Jews and many others from most of the world, if not all. It also would have resulted in the triumph of the Communist system and its concommitant misery. I can agree this view is logically consistent. I do not see that as a virtue however. Fortunately neither do most people not just on this board.
 
Handy,

you're misunderstanding the debate. The question is not whether to have laws at all, but whether there is a moral limit to the state's ability to pass laws. (In other words, is there such a thing as an immoral law, regardless of its Constitutional validity as determined by the SUSSC?)

If there is a limit to laws that abridge freedoms, the debate tries to fix the line beyond which a law becomes immoral. The general consensus of most folks seems to be much like the definition of obscenity..."I know it when I see it"...in other words, the standard is defined by emotion instead of reason.

I've already stated that I think there is a valid function to government, and that there are valid laws...namely the ones that protect citizens from the initiation of force or fraud by others. I hold the position that "prior restraint" laws, their imagined or actual social utility aside, cross the line into illegitimate government interference because they punish behavior that has no direct victim other than the perpetrator.

Remember, everybody has their emotional hot-button issue that makes them all in favor of some kind of prior restraint law. Your drunk driving victims are Sarah Brady's gunshot victims. If we take emotion as a basis for public policy, anything goes in the realm of prior restraint.
 
Eject the person from the range for dangerous behavior. But I would have thought that was obvious.
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Really? You have the right to eject people from a range if you deem their behavior dangerous? Under what law?

If the range is yours, that may be true. But suppose the irresponsible shooter looks at you and tells you go go pound sand. What do you do next?

You would probably do the exact same thing I would do...complain to the range master/owner to have the guy ejected and/or banned from the range...but that is all you can legally do. I fail to see how you have extra-special rights under current law, or how prior restraint laws even play into this scenario (seeing how they already failed to prevent your hypothetical jackass from acting like one.)


I have criticized the Libertarian view before, calling it immoral. I would like to add it is also amoral in its outlook. On that view US entry to WW2 would never have happened (since the US was not directly threatened by Germany) nor would the US have fought (and won) the Cold War.
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Nonsense. WWII would have happened even with a Libertarian U.S., and Ayn Rand as President. Germany declared war on the U.S., and they engaged in acts of open warfare against vessels flagged with the Stars and Stripes. The retaliatory use of force, in self-defense or defense of others, is perfectly permissible in Libertarianism. The U.S. would have had a right to unilaterally step in on the side of Poland in 1939, for example, because Germany initiated the use of force.

The key here is the question "Who used force first?" The whole point of my opposition to prior restraint laws is the fact that they make the government the initiator of force in cases where no rights were violated by force or fraud.
 
Marko,

What you're missing in this is what you call "prior restraint" is what allows things like highways to even exist.

Much of what allows society to function are artificial constructs that limit liberty in exchange for a broader profit. We could be talking about roads, medicine of the FCC; it doesn't matter. We get there faster, live longer and make more money because we, as a society, agree to certain restrictions in exchange for more efficient use of resources.

The kind of "freedom" you're talking about is at the loss of all the benefits of an organized society.
 
What you're missing in this is what you call "prior restraint" is what allows things like highways to even exist.
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Right.

Without government, we wouldn't have highways on which to drive our privately-developed, privately-funded cars!

Handy, if the government breaks your legs, and then hands you a crutch, do you say, "Without government, I wouldn't be able to walk"?

The kind of "freedom" you're talking about is at the loss of all the benefits of an organized society.
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That statement is only true if you believe that people are incapable of organizing and exchanging values to mutual benefit without the benevolent hand of a government. Which came first, the trader or the tax collector?
 
What?

No, I'd be driving my privately owned, privately funded car in a field on my own property, or on a privately owned roads that would be even more expensive and regulated than the publicly owned ones. :confused:


I think you'll find that the tax collector is as old as society. Or are you confused about whether we are a society, or a nomadic territory?
 
Handy,

NASA spent untold hundreds of billions of dollars to get people into space, and it took them five decades to come up with that overpriced garbage hauler called the Space Shuttle.

Private enterprise developed a viable method of getting a spacecraft into orbit inside of five years, and with a budget of twenty million dollars, none of which were forcibly extracted from citizens at gunpoint.

Are you telling me that absent of government initiative and roadblocks, private enterprise would not find a way to lay a few ten thousand miles of asphalt cheaper and more efficiently than the DOT?

But, you know what, if no private entity saw a need for a road project because nobody was willing to pay for it, then we wouldn't have roads. If enough people saw the need and decided to chip in voluntarily, then we would have roads.

Once again, your great idea for the betterment of society does not give you the right to forcibly extract money from others to realize it.

Think a fire department would be a great idea? Go door to door, and say, "Hi, I am offering fire department services from the Handy F.D., would you like to buy fire protection?" If you don't get enough people to pony up for your fire truck, the your swell idea had damn well better remain an idea, because no good and noble idea for the betterment of society gives you the right to hold a gun to someone's head and say, "Pony up for your own good, whether you think you want it or not." It doesn't matter how many pictures of kittens burned to a crisp in house fires you drag out to justify your act of coercion.

That's why freedom keeps taking it in the pants, Handy. It's not because of the liberals, the UN, the secularists, the illegal immigrants, or the terrorists.
It's because of the legion of tearful people running around with pictures of the victims of meth/seatbelt boycotts/firearms misuse/porn/gambling addiction, wringing their hands and going, "There ought to be a law!"
 
Thus if I see a red hot stove my reaction will be, on your view, I will put my hand here and if it burns then I will do something about it. I would prefer to foresee that the hand will burn and forego the pain involved.
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Okay. Fair enough. But why not avoid other dangers? You're willing to hold a gun to someone's head to protect everyone from the costs of their stupidity in the case of seatbelts. Why not take that same attitude to other health issues? Your position is inconsistant.
 
Marko,

I can't believe the arguments you're using. WHAT PRIVATE SPACE INDUSTRY?!!! NASA and the highway system are excellent examples of projects that went beyond the scope or interest level of private industry, but were still felt to be beneficial to society, whose representatives voted to create them.

Some things DO require a government to get done. You should know that from your experience standing up Marko Kloos' Private US Defense Force and Nuclear Deterent.


AND, you missed the regulation part of my private industry statement: Liability concerns demand that privately owned roadways would likely have much GREATER use restrictions than public owned roads. At least a public road is subject to debate and compromise - private ones are absolute dictatorships AND monopolies.
 
National defense is a power that has been duly delegated to the Federal government in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

I can't believe the arguments you're using. WHAT PRIVATE SPACE INDUSTRY?!!! NASA and the highway system are excellent examples of projects that went beyond the scope or interest level of private industry, but were still felt to be beneficial to society, whose representatives voted to create them.
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Is NASA beneficial to "society," or beneficial to rent-seeking politicians and the industrial and aerospace campaign contributors in their districts?

They spent $1.2 billion of OUR money, seized from our wallets under threat of force, trying to fix the spalling insulation on the Rube Goldberg Space Shuttle contraption, and they failed.

That should tell you something significant.

It should also tell you something significant that it will cost an enormous amount of federal bribes - also known as regulatory fees - to get a passenger certificate for Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne vehicle. A figure in the millions. The government is standing in the way of technological and business progress, not aiding it.
 
Correct. Because even those kooky founding fathers understood that private industry can't accomplish everything.
 
Did I not say repeatedly that there are legitimate functions of government, and that protection of its citizens from force was one of them?

The function of the government is to provide for defense, and a legal system that puts the retaliatory use of force under objective rules. That is all.

Everything else can, and ought to be accomplished by private business, if the only alternative is funded under government coercion.
 
Thomas Jefferson said:
I received your favor covering an offer of an iron mine to the public, and I thank you for making the communication. But having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than they are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there; for there competition brings it down to the minimum of value. I have no doubt we can buy brass cannon at market cheaper than we could make iron ones. I think it material, too, not to abstract the high executive officers from those functions which nobody else is charged to carry on, and to employ them in superintending works which are going on abundantly in private hands.
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In a letter to Mr. Bibb, dated July 1808.
 
Marko,

There has NEVER been a government or country like you describe. What leads you to believe that one could be made to function?


You describe something that sounds like a nice idea, but is dependant people's better nature to work. Who does that sound like?



None of which changes the fact that private industry would also demand the seatbelt usage decried in this thread.
 
If the owner of a private road wanted to make seatbelt use a condition of travel, more power to him.

If an insurance company wanted to make seatbelt use a condition of personal injury claim payment, more power to 'em.

But instead, we have the coercive power of government, backed up with guns and the threat of official violence. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, 121 S.Ct. 1536 (2001).
 
Been sitting back and enjoying this very much. Interesting how Marko and Mvpel dutifully respond to every question, yet often receive silence in return for their own questions.

For my own part, I have asked every poster in opposition one question that has yet to be answered by any of them:
"If government were to require, beginning with the '07 Model year, that manufacturers limit automobile computers to 75 MPH, would you be in favor of this simple, yet effective change? If not, I'd like to know Why Not?"

I think it hasn't been answered and will not be answered for a rather simple reason.
If the Forced-Seatbelt-Use crowd were to support such a law, they recognize they will have painted themselves in a manner they do not wish to be seen by their peers.....in other words, the depth of their fear and dependence on the State would be exposed publicly.

Worse yet, if they admit opposition to such law, they become inconsolably discomfited. For then, they must admit their entire argument for Government control of personal decisions (with far LESS consequence than excessive speed) may have its roots in nothing more lofty than pure unadulterated emotion. Still worse, they would be required to examine the possibility that this emotional knee-jerk zeal is borne of years of govt and insurance industry commercials, billboards, advertisements and indoctrination. What one might call "brain washing".

Bertrand Russell was SO right:
"Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do." :D
Rich
 
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