“We did all we could to save his life, but it wasn’t possible.” This was heard in an emergency room when a motorcyclist didn’t wear a helmet. The answer to this problem seems simple enough: WEAR A HELMET, right? Well, every story has two sides.
Most proponents of a mandatory law requiring that cyclists wear helmets, base their arguments on medical reasons and medical expenses. Who is going to pay for the medical care of a cyclist whose injuries could have been prevented with a helmet?
Opponents base their disagreement on the basis that mandatory helmet laws are unconstitutional: A growing number of Nevada cyclists feel that the state law (requiring that they wear a helmet) violates their 4th amendment right under the guise that a search (which is detention without probable cause) must be conducted to determine if a helmet is “approved by the Department of Transportation .” I’ve also read that cyclists feel the law violates their 10th amendment right and their 1st amendment right to freedom of expression and freedom of association.
Given a similar accident rate, can it be inferred that people who wear helmets suffer the same injuries as do their non-helmet wearing counterparts, but helmet-wearers are more likely to survive and be quadriplegic; and that people who rode with a feeling of freedom, without helmets; did not survive?
ANNIES ANALYSIS OF POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES 
These laws are nothing more than to control and dominate over we the motorcycle-riding sheeple. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxfq77hi_o
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Not being a motorcyclist, but having read all the literature I can find, it looks as if the arm of justice, instead of being just, attempt to control the motorcyclists, for what reason. it also looks like control is exerted in the form of ‘I know what’s best for you.’ Do we want that form of government. I think, I know what’s best for me, YOU know what’s best for YOU and WE know what’s best for US. Uncle Sam-or his sister, sister State, doesn’t get it right this time.
Annie
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TgrL, opened it up for discussion at physical therapy and the majority sided in favor of helmets, in spite of the logic of helmets >quadriplegia. I know your choice, but where does your freedom to chose infringe upon my freedom to choose?
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Children’s parents choose for them; the kids are deprived of choice, justified by the need to keep them alive to continue the species, right?
Unlike children, adults are held responsible for their choices. If you want responsible adults then, you must leave them their choices, unless maybe others who haven’t chosen are affectied. Add more Darwin: races are strengthened when destructive genes are removed from the gene pool, weakened when they’re preserved and transmitted on.
So it seems to me, the state should supply information to its adults rather than compulsion in personal matters.
And if the state butts in and forces helmets, and if that ups the quadriplegic population, then the state is responsible for those victims of state policy and must care for them with money taken from folks who likely have a more productive use for it. So these taxpayers become a new class of victims added to the cripples created by the policy… or so it seems to me!
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“. So these taxpayers become a new class of victims added to the cripples created by the policy…or so it seems to me!” Thing is, that we seem to have too many classes of taxpayers who don’t pay much, if anything, the entitlement class is growing, the young can”t shoulder all the burden and drawn to another logical conclusion, that of increasing taxes on the rich…
Increasing taxes on the rich (Romney’s Obama’s Gaates,’ ‘Buffett’s, etc. Their income is already taxed as business and then you throw on capital gains (which I’d venture a decent guess’ they all thrive on and THEN you increase their taxes again? Last year Warren Buffett paid nearly $7M in taxes and you want to say that he’s UNDERTAXED? Even the Bill Clintons of this world have gone on record; raising tax rats on the wealthy, wouldn’t generate enough cash to get us out of the whole we’er in. We need a plan along a grandiose scale.
What about the small business owners, those who aren’t in Bill Gates’ tax category, but none-the-less, these businessmen need to find benefit packages for all 200 employees? Sure, as shooting, this small businessman (the backbone of industry
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But, if the state steps in and forces the helmet law, will the states DO THE RIGHT THING when the helmet law fails to protect; or will the states pass the higher premiums off to you and me? I think that until we know about the outcome of the individual mandate and UHC, this is a judgement we shouldn’t rush to make.
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The argument about “public burden” over choices is not the correct argument. The correct argument is related to whether or not government is MORAL or IMMORAL. After all, the only reason government exists is by FORCE. All laws are FORCE; all taxation is THEFT. Otherwise, it would be called “charity.”
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I can see how laws are a form of force, but in absence of ANY laws (WITH EMPHASIS ON ‘ANY’, we would live in chaos. That is the human condition and I shudder to think of a lawless society, Lily. I’m reminded of Greece and the chaos that surrounded even something as small as Occupy Wall Street. Sure, they were trying to make a point, but in the process, they did a lot of harm and without laws, that would be unchecked, unbridled and we’d have a revolution on our hands-whevever a group got it’s undies in a bundle about something.
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I don’t oppose rules, I oppose RULERS. Voluntary is ALWAYS superior to involuntary. Why don’t you shudder to think you HAD to marry your rapist – the way it is condoned in the bible. Or shudder to think that you HAD to kill your child if he didn’t obey you. Laws are FORCE, laws do not apply to rulers (cops kill every day with complete immunity) and laws are immoral. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP4PdkMejuw
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I believe rulers, like laws, need to be chosen-but chosen carefully; and that is where the American public has gone astray. They have chosen, for the most part, the rulers who have promised them the most, The Obama’s of this world. “We’ll do it all for you, even fart for you, so you can go about your ‘soccer mom’ life” and know that the country is in good hands. In other words, leave the worrying to us. We don’t need that kind of ‘ruler.’ Rather the ruler who inspires the American people to do things they never thought they could do, who commands their respect because he leads, he isn’t a wimp, but doesn’t ‘rule’ with an iron fist. It takes a special kind of person to rule well, to lead people and govern them fairly, righteously; and so that they don’t feel like they’re ruled at all.
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If rulers need to be chosen, then first there must be a willingness to be chosen. Therefore, the wannabe rulers would attract the psychopaths and sociopaths. Why does anyone ever need to be ruled?
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Why? If we don’t have rulers, if we don’t have laws, the streets would very quickly be taken over by the psychopaths and sociopaths of which you speak. It would be like the inmates running-not the asylum-but tantamount to that. I don’t want to live like that and I assure you that most other people don’t want to live life looking over their shoulders. I need a certain amount of security in my life.
THE QUESTION COMES WHEN people feel that their lives must be 100% secure and hassle-free. I’m not with the crowd who wants everything done for them, every knot tied in a bow, but I do want rules. The opposite is to say that I don’t want rules, I don’t want laws, I want anarchy. I saw the video. Some of the problems we face haven’t been solved, but it’s not because they were unsolvable by rules. It was because leaders didn’t work together, because we don’t DEMAND that our leaders drop THEIR egos and do what WE want, not what THEY want. We have responsibility here and too many people are too happy to let others do for them, they’re too lazy.
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The solution is with PEACEFUL PARENTING. If we raised children with respect instead of demanding their respect of us, then things would change rapidly. Instead, we spank and otherwise violate our children and call it discipline. Then we send them to indoctrination camps and drug them if they don’t OBEY. Is it any wonder today we are a bunch of obedient sheeples begging our masters for a bit of liberty. We are all slaves and there is no such thing as “rights.”
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There are several ways of thinking about parenting. With some children, being their best fiend works children, by their very nature, will take the “best friend” approach and take advantage of it. Some times a firm hand is needed-spanking, no, though a backhand to jeaned pants doesn’t hut the child. We drug (?) our children? When? Indoctrination camps?
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