From “Progressives and the Proper Role of Government – and your subservience to it”:
- NH State Rep Kris Roberts (D): “Government has to protect us from our own stupidity.”
- NH State Rep Leigh Webb (D): “The role of government is to legislate behavior“
- NH State Rep Laura Pantelakos (D): “I don’t care about protecting peoples’ Liberty“
- NH State Rep John Mann (D): “liberty” is either an ideology or a gross misrepresentation and oversimplification (accidental or otherwise) of what government is for.”
So why put those up? You folks know that I frequent (they’d say haunt) the Eco-Socialist site known as TreeHugger. There, they are all about Renewables, Sustainability – and about how your standard of living, in order to save the Earth, must be diminished. Add to that, because we, the unwashed and uneducated, refuse to do what they want us to do voluntarily, are now turning to Government to FORCE us to live as they demand. I’m there to render the expected judgment on them with a hearty “UP YOURS!”. And they generally have a hard with my arguments because I’m not their normal reader and bring uncomfortable questions – you know, like Ian Underwood does here!
This post here is about “Fatal California Crash Ignites Debate About Speed Limiters for Cars” post over there. But this post isn’t about my observations but my friend over there, Vindaloo Bugaboo chimed in. While the post is all about having Government put speed limiters on cars – for SAFETY! And making it clear that Govt should force manufacturers to do so. And not putting the responsibility on those that cause the accidents. It’s the usual and normal response from Socialists/The Left – EVERYONE must be punished for the actions of a few. Safety first – not Freedom. Well, VB wasn’t having ANY of that! Emphasis mine:
Vindaloo Bugaboo
Since when has the world had to be straightjacketed in bubble wrap to keep people safe? Where is the personal responsibility? Where is the enforcement of the law and why isn’t it being applied equally to everyone?I’m nearly 51 years old. As a kid, I drank water out of a garden hose lying in the sun for hours, played in my godfather’s cow yard throwing dried manure chips, jumped out of the hay loft into piles of hay below, climbed trees, jumped off swings, walked alone to and from school, rode my bike without a helmet, rode in the back seat of an old car that didn’t have seat belts, drank raw maple sap out of the bucket where the spiders and bugs and tree bark were all taking a swim in it as well, scrapped my knees/elbows/hands and didn’t put Bactine on it, and about a zillion other things that today’s health pundits either denounce or have outlawed. How is it I got to be this old and haven’t ended up worse for wear? Why is it that so much of that stuff today is verboten or in some cases even criminalized (like not wearing a bike helmet)? If ignorance of danger, combined with common sense, was sufficient to see me and millions of other kids of the 1970s into adulthood, why is EVERYTHING these days needing to be amended to protect us from our own stupidity?
See NH State Rep Kris Roberts’s quote at the top of this post.
I’ll tell you why.
Because ever since that old woman put a Styrofoam cup of hot McDonald’s coffee between her legs in her crotch, and then spilled it, lawyers have lawyered up and we’ve become a far more litigious society where personal responsibility is no longer the onus of the consumer. Tide pods? What idiot ever thought “Gee, we should film TikTok videos of us eating them!” as if that’s something a responsible individual—yes, teens are fully capable of making those decisions—cannot conceive they ought not to do? Or the cinnamon huffing challenge? Or any number of other narcissism fueled social media “challenges”?
People are growing stupider by the day, and I yearn for the day when we can collectively have people toughen up rather than resort to sucking thumbs and retreating to a room full of coloring books.
That’s why I see so many of these “improvements” as ill-conceived, Nio—because it separates people from each other and enables selfishness and incompetence to flourish.
Well said and I only had two things to add to it (more of clarification than anything):
That’s the key – 2 points:
1) Stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for yourself instead of “somebody’s gotta do something about this!”
2) just leave other people alone to live their own lives without your meddling in it – just do it.
And then VB asked a question:
I cannot understand how this is a thing. It’s savage, barbarous, and uncivilized conduct.
Perhaps it would be best to enforce traffic laws we already have and rely on technology like red light cameras to catch people who CHOOSE to ignore safety and drive offensively instead of defensively.
I’ve long thought every driver should have mandatory recertification of their driver’s license at least every five years—written AND instructor-led—and for those who fail, pull their license on the spot. Arizona got rid of all their traffic cameras a few years ago (to much applause) because idiots were racing to get through the yellow light or hard braking so they wouldn’t be in the intersection and get fined, which caused an upswing in rear-end collisions. Some lights in the Phoenix metro area had yellow lights last for 3 seconds, some up to 6 seconds. The simple (and ignored!) fix would have been to program the yellow lights to flash 3 times, hold solid 3 seconds, then turn to red—that way any driver from a reasonable distance could know whether or not the light would be turning colour anytime soon. Instead, we got a statewide ban on traffic light cameras and even more idiots crashing their cars—similar to how speeding violations have gone through the roof because people think the freeway is their personal version of Tokyo Drift or GTA 5.
Isn’t the real question to ask is this:
Why do so many people feel that the law does not personally apply to them?
And I thought that the answer was clear and plain:
It is because of the entitlement mentality that has overcome our societies – only *I* matter – into the extreme. Norms have been removed, basic civic behaviors have been altered, and people wonder why things are going into the crapper?
I remember, before it became verboten and summoned the cancel mob, that merely saying “you look nice, today” WAS taken as a compliment and not as being misogynist. And v.v. Remove those kinds of societal “grease” and friction becomes the norm. And when friction goes to the extreme, all you end up with is a fire.
When the Left keep deciding that it has the Moral Superiority to not just ask but DEMAND that others MUST be forced to live as they demand, why are they surprised when the pushback is in the form of flamethrowers?
They refuse to acknowledge what I pointed out earlier – how about just leaving everyone else alone to live their own lives? Stop being the Borg in forcibly demanding assimilation into systems that other find abhorent?
There’s a lot more in the comments – VB was on fire and swinging (for personal Liberty and knocking all those deriding such) at almost anyone. A good model for ALL of us to utilize. Why?
If we don’t, who will? And I will tell you that when there is no response for Liberty and against the Collective, they believe they have won.