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In article ,
(Gould 0738) wrote:

I agree completely, with one very important caveat:

Don't want to wear a helmet, a seat belt, or wear a PFD in a small, open boat?
No problem.
You shouldn't have to.

Agreed.

However, with personal freedom comes personal responsibility. No helmet, seat
belt, or PFD? Don't expect the taxpayers to search for you at public expense,
haul you to the hospital at public expense, cure you or bury you at public
expense, pay for your rehab or subsidize your survivors.

Agreed to a point.

The risks you assume when you eschew basic safety precautions should be your
risks and yours alone. Perhaps you have the right to expose your own family to
the risk of loss of a breadwinner, etc, but why should everybody in society be
asked to pay for one individual's stubborn streak or stupidity?

Unfortunately, what is deemed as "basic safety precautions" by the
government to protect the individual from a specific threat, may induce
other unecessary risks. In other words, sometimes the cure is worse than
the illness.

Lets take the motorcycle helmet. Many who argue against having to wear a
helmet cite that helmets reduce your hearing and peripheral vision,
reducing the ability of the cyclist to drive defensively. If this is
true, then it increases the wearer's risk of being involved in an
accident, so why should the operator be labeled as stubborn, or stupid,
and denied assistance because they felt the benefits do not outweigh the
risks?

BTW - Similar arguments can be said about most PFDs which hinder one's
ability to move about aboard the vessel. I would wager there are even
cases where this hinderance may affect ones ability to do what needs to be
done to reduce a threat to the vessel and/or its occupants.

"Big Daddy" not oly sets the rules, he's there to bail you out when things go
bad.
Don't want to follow the rules? OK. Just don't expect the bail out. Very
simple.

Not that simple, but I tend to agree with your argument. I too think
personal freedoms need to go hand in hand with some level personal
responsibility, but I find the absolutes imposed by the "taxpayer burden"
point of your argument lacking in this and many other insance.

The taxpayer burden argument is weak, because where do you draw the line?
Why is it that I have no choice whether or not to wear a seat belt, helmet
or PFD, but somone can go into a store and get a fifth of liquor, pack of
cigarettes, or simply supersize their happy meal day after day. Why is it
that a few people who choose not to be employed (or underemployed) get
their choice AND receive benefits that I work to pay for?

I realize that the seat belts, helmets, and PFD reduce very immediate
risks and therefore reduce very immediate cost outlays from our social
welfare system, but that actual dollar ammount my be less than chronic
care for a heart, liver, sugar, or respitory problems brought about by
years of personal neglect. Couple this potentially higher cost with the
ammount of people who choose to indulge in these risky behaviours and I'll
say that our government has some really screwed up priorities when it
comes to saving lives and social welfare costs.

I believe in personal responsibility, but I also wish to live in a
civilized society. As such, I tend to favorably acknowledge, most of the
systems in place to care for those who make the "wrong decisions". I
understand that there are those who will abuse those systems, but will
hope that the vast majority others will behave responsibly and only use
those systems as a last resort.

In the absolute terms I'm reading, it seems like every individual who
doesn't goose step to the law is completley responsible for their actions
and unworthy of any type of government assistance. As a person who
accepts personal responsibility, I can understand this, but then I sure as
hell better be paying A LOT less in taxes :^)

Bob Dimond