I am reminded again of this important question by the thread on 401Ks. We can't drink and drive, we can't take drugs, there are so many laws designed to protect us. Does the state have a place in our lives? It seems to have a function in protecting us from others. How about protecting us from ourselves? Do you have a right to waste or destroy your own life or should the state step in and help you? Are we our brother's keeper? Where are the lines?
Freedom vs the Nanny State
- Thread starter Moonbeam
- Start date
Hmm, how to state this in terms that are sufficiently expressive of how I feel about the issue? Oh yeah, now I have it... Fuck no! And the lines are drawn at the point where people's actions infringe the rights of others. It's not black and white, but it's not as gray as some people make it out to be.
Edit: BTW, drunk driving laws are for the protection of others, not ourselves.
Edit: BTW, drunk driving laws are for the protection of others, not ourselves.
- Oct 30, 2000
- 42,591
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A bunch of clowns posting here.:shocked:
The issue is that will it be considered the responsibility of the state to correct /prevent bad actions that an individual does - if that person will become an issue for the state at a later time.
Adages
Ounce of prevention for a pound of cure.
Teach a man to fish and he can feed the family, feed him a fish and he can feed himself.
etc.
The issue is that will it be considered the responsibility of the state to correct /prevent bad actions that an individual does - if that person will become an issue for the state at a later time.
Adages
Ounce of prevention for a pound of cure.
Teach a man to fish and he can feed the family, feed him a fish and he can feed himself.
etc.
DUI laws are designed to protect the rest of us from idiot drunks. I don't care how many drunks end their lives behind the wheel smacked up against some tree, but I sure don't want to be injured by them, and that possibility is very, very real. An ATOTer died last year at the hands of a drunk driver.
Otherwise, your question is very compelling.
StageLeft
No Lifer
- Sep 29, 2000
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There are no hard and fast rules and the answer is yes sometimes it should. As a parent protects their 2 year old from a hot stove, but not their teenager, but protects their teenager perhaps from alcohol, but not their 22 year old, there is no hard point at which we should all be responsible for everything in our lives.
For example, should a person who wants to kill themselves be allowed to do it if we can confidently say that a meager dose of medication will not only remove their suicidal tendencies but make them the happiest most productive person in the world, who they've always wanted to be? It's for their own good to take them off that bridge and they'll thank us later.
At certain times, individuals lack a complete picture and at other times they can be weak and do things that do not benefit them. Any external force, be it government or their friends, can and should influence this. There is no hard and fast rule on any of it; it's almost always examples and anecdotes and a case-by-case.
For example, should a person who wants to kill themselves be allowed to do it if we can confidently say that a meager dose of medication will not only remove their suicidal tendencies but make them the happiest most productive person in the world, who they've always wanted to be? It's for their own good to take them off that bridge and they'll thank us later.
At certain times, individuals lack a complete picture and at other times they can be weak and do things that do not benefit them. Any external force, be it government or their friends, can and should influence this. There is no hard and fast rule on any of it; it's almost always examples and anecdotes and a case-by-case.
It has no such role. We already have parents. The state should not be 'raising' us.
You absolutely have a right to live your life as you see fit (assuming you don't injure others).
That's why I believe the state can't be involved in purely "personal" decisions, because the lines are just too hard to draw. People just have different philosophies regarding how they wish to live their lives. Example: Myself, I'm very, very health-conscious. I rarely, rarely drink, never smoke, and have never tried any recreational drugs. I try to avoid fast food and most other unhealthy foods. I read food-packaging labels obsessively. Other people might find these habits dull and boring, and make other choices. That's fine for them - I don't insist anyone else follow the rules I set for myself, even though I think it's very clear, judging by the general state of Americans' health, that they really SHOULD be more health-conscious. Do people really want someone like me making their personal choices for them?
Simply, the more laws we have the more restricted we are. If I want to drive down the road without a seatbelt, why can't I? Why the law? To protect me from myself? No, the answer is not to protect me from myself, its just another "conspire and collect" from the "protect and serve" guys. Its there to build revenue, another avenue for police to write you a ticket to collect more money, and to give another excuse to stop you and give the cops probable cause to find something bigger in the midst (drugs in the car, etc.)
DUI laws are in place to protect others, but the DUI laws these days are so ridiculous that its turned into "conspire and collect" instead of "protect and serve."
Most states when you get a DUI require "Alchohol treatment" provided by the state which is usually around $1000-$1500. Why do I need mandatory treatment? What if I drank only once a year and made a mistake? Drinking alchohol is legal any other time provided your not driving. So why do they treatment for something completely legal? It's like saying someone needs to go to treatment for watching too many sports on TV. That usually involves drinking beer, at home, so should people go to treatement for it? Why are states sending people BAC 0.047 (half the legal limit) to detox and charging them $500 for a night stay when the person is not intoxicated (or $1500 when they refuse the pay the bill)? Why charge them with a reckless driving for being under the legal limit?
There is a line that is in the sand, and its called spirit of a law. However, the government has gone beyond that recently, and has been stepping over the line, and infringing on our personal liberties mostly on technicality or in the name of something which sounds patriotic (patriot act)... The true patriots realize this. Those seeking a nanny state cry "But if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about!" The only thing they think we should be allowed to do is work and pay taxes. The rest could "hurt" someone.
DUI laws are in place to protect others, but the DUI laws these days are so ridiculous that its turned into "conspire and collect" instead of "protect and serve."
Most states when you get a DUI require "Alchohol treatment" provided by the state which is usually around $1000-$1500. Why do I need mandatory treatment? What if I drank only once a year and made a mistake? Drinking alchohol is legal any other time provided your not driving. So why do they treatment for something completely legal? It's like saying someone needs to go to treatment for watching too many sports on TV. That usually involves drinking beer, at home, so should people go to treatement for it? Why are states sending people BAC 0.047 (half the legal limit) to detox and charging them $500 for a night stay when the person is not intoxicated (or $1500 when they refuse the pay the bill)? Why charge them with a reckless driving for being under the legal limit?
There is a line that is in the sand, and its called spirit of a law. However, the government has gone beyond that recently, and has been stepping over the line, and infringing on our personal liberties mostly on technicality or in the name of something which sounds patriotic (patriot act)... The true patriots realize this. Those seeking a nanny state cry "But if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about!" The only thing they think we should be allowed to do is work and pay taxes. The rest could "hurt" someone.
BrunoPuntzJones
Lifer
- Feb 24, 2001
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The .gov should only have interest in protecting minors, the infirm or those mentally incapacitated. They have no legitimate reason to protect adults from their own choices, regardless of how bad those decisions may be.
I generally agree with you, but don't you see a huge difference between the role of "government" and "friends (and family)"? For example, you may suddenly decide that long-term financial planning is no longer for you - time to cash out the 401(k) and get a bitchin' sports car, baby! Life is short - live for today! You'd probably feel differently if your wife vetoed that plan vs. some stranger from the gov't passing a law denying you that right, however foolish.
bamacre
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2004
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Drunk driving laws are state laws. Drug laws should be state laws.
The federal government shouldn't have any role in protecting us from ourselves. The states, well, that's for you and your state to decide.
We have shifted way too much power from the states to the federal government, and the results of this are almost always negative for the people.
BrunoPuntzJones
Lifer
- Feb 24, 2001
- 14,550
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You mean the last 150 years or so? The real effective power of the states ended after the civil war.
I wasn't focused on federal vs state and I know that drunk driving laws are to protect others. That is why I mentioned laws designed to protect others vs ones designed to protect the individual from himself.
It seems that we have those who have absolute lines and those who would draw them case by case. There are obvious problems with absolute rules because of their inflexibility and, naturally, the problem with drawn ones is that they are subjective.
With regard to the notion that you can protect children but not adults, the line there is subjective. Looking deeper, of course, age does not confer wisdom. There are, as it happens, old idiots who act have the judgment of children. I see a problem like that of trying to define pornography.
It seems that we have those who have absolute lines and those who would draw them case by case. There are obvious problems with absolute rules because of their inflexibility and, naturally, the problem with drawn ones is that they are subjective.
With regard to the notion that you can protect children but not adults, the line there is subjective. Looking deeper, of course, age does not confer wisdom. There are, as it happens, old idiots who act have the judgment of children. I see a problem like that of trying to define pornography.
Jaskalas
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2004
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Freedom can come with freedom of choice.
If local authority had ultimate authority over drinking, driving, drugs, etc, then the many laws designed to protect us would no longer originate from a distant and unrepresentative authority.
You can change the mayor, you cannot change the President. Thus my ideal that the smallest form of democracy is the best. It is necessary for government to exist, but it is not necessary for you to be 1/300,000,000 (thus powerless) over every law of the land.
I cannot tell you where specifically to draw the lines, for they have never been drawn as I imagine. Until it is practiced there is no telling where the implications would require the lines to be drawn.
The biggest issue I normally have here is that there are so very few things which are strictly limited to "protecting us from ourselves". In the vast majority of cases, it effects other people too whether it happens shortly after or many years after the action takes place.
Like so much, the founding fathers largely left this to the judgement of 'the people'. The people don't always make the right call; take alcohol, which has a case on both sides. At one point, we decided to ban it, then we decided to legalize it again. There were pros and cons to each side. Note the legalizing had to do more with the impracticalities of the ban than with the principle of people having the right to drink.
I don't know of an easy 'rule' for this; it's an issue of weighing the benefits versus the harm of restricting freedom. For example, I think it was right to require seat belts in cars and to require people to wear them. But I don't want to extend the principle on that issue - some people are too idiotic to wear a seat belt - to other policies of the government making decisions where that assumption is oppressive.
It's a lesson to be learned about the 'free market rhetoric' to note that the 'free market' was largely opposed to mandatory seat belts in cars. It took the government 'leading the way' for people to get used to the idea that it made sense. But no, we don't want the government doing that a lot. In that case, many thousands of lives a year are saved with no 'real' downside.
So, the bottom line is that it gets left to the public's opinion where to draw the line, and that's not too bad. We can look around the world and see a lot of places where the line is drawn to less or more government involvement, and see big problems from both. Leaving it as a political decision rather than trying to make a rule may be better.
I don't know of an easy 'rule' for this; it's an issue of weighing the benefits versus the harm of restricting freedom. For example, I think it was right to require seat belts in cars and to require people to wear them. But I don't want to extend the principle on that issue - some people are too idiotic to wear a seat belt - to other policies of the government making decisions where that assumption is oppressive.
It's a lesson to be learned about the 'free market rhetoric' to note that the 'free market' was largely opposed to mandatory seat belts in cars. It took the government 'leading the way' for people to get used to the idea that it made sense. But no, we don't want the government doing that a lot. In that case, many thousands of lives a year are saved with no 'real' downside.
So, the bottom line is that it gets left to the public's opinion where to draw the line, and that's not too bad. We can look around the world and see a lot of places where the line is drawn to less or more government involvement, and see big problems from both. Leaving it as a political decision rather than trying to make a rule may be better.
bamacre
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2004
- 21,030
- 2
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I interpret "the people" in this context as being meant for things such as non-profit organizations, groups of citizens assembling to help solve problems. Not "the people" handing the problem solving over to the federal government.
This is a state issue, not a federal law, and rightfully so. But the intention for these kinds of laws is not to "save lives" but to give police a reason to pull people over.
This is just wrong. How does this have anything to do with the "free market?" Regardless, people have a real, true, incentive for wearing their seatbelt. Their lives. And that really is all the incentive they need. Thinking that if the law didn't require doing so, that people would suddenly stop wearing their seatbelt is just stupid. And the law still doesn't guarantee people wear it, obviously, because there are still people who break that law. To think that abiding by the law is a greater incentive than preventing one's own death is just dumb.
I wonder, Craig, if you have ever watched A Clockwork Orange, and if you understood it.
What I meant was the people, in terms of voting their opinion of what the laws should be.
We disagree on the motives for the law.
As for the rest, I'm not too interested in the federal vs state on this, but it's the federal government who required seat belts in all cars.
It's the states who require their use (or not, in New Hapnshire), though the federal government has sometimes pressured states.
link
The free market could put seat belts in all cars, or it could not. You can argue all day how it 'should', but the bottom line is, it resisted doing so after they were invented.
So, it's an example where there was a need for the government to play a role, if this was going to be done, and a lesson in the 'ideology' of the free market vs. facts.
You provide another, similar lesson. You provide *ideology* about how people *should* behave- which is wrong factually.
It's precisely because seat belt usage was too low that the government, after not increasing it enough with 'educational' efforts, decided to make it the law (New York starting a trend).
You really need to learn how to argue. It happens to be the fact that the law *does* make a lot of people who would not wear a seat belt for safety, wear one to avoid a fine.
Why? One big reason, I'll speculate, is that people are not rational about the risks, and prefer the 'convenience, comfort, or habit' of not wearing it, regardles of statistics.
I've known people personally who argue that:
- There's some chance a seat belt could trap you in a car and prevent escape, so they won't wear it
- It's not comfortable, so they won't wear it
- They can prevent injury in a crash by pushing hard on the steering wheel (in fact, this is so common, a driver safety class address it with the physics that trying to do this in a 25MPH collision is like trying to brace a two-story fall by putting your arms in front of you when you hit the ground).
There are more, including one from when I was a young drive which embarrassment prevents me from repeating here.
To quote one web site:
As for the law as a motivator, a study was done specifically on that issue, by comparing New Hampshire with its neighbor.
Moonbeam,
If a person builds their home below sea level, right next to an ocean, is the government responsible when the flood comes?
If a person builds their home below sea level, right next to an ocean, is the government responsible when the flood comes?
If a person works in a building that's a clear leading target for terrorists, in fact has been bombed before by a terrorist group known for hitting the same target repeatedly, (or in a targte as attractive as the Pentagon), is the government responsible for helping the victims and families when the terrorists attack it again?
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,914
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