Really Love Kids? Want to Really Save Lives?

[Charles Kozierok]

Millions of Americans are happy to respond to any complaint about a potential new law’s infringement of rights or freedom or privacy with some variation of “it’s for the children” or “it will save lives”. Lately it’s been gun control in the crosshairs, but in the past it’s also been free speech, personal privacy and other fundamentals of a free society being targeted.
So fine. If what we really want to do is save lives, and we don’t care what the cost is to individual freedom, let’s do it properly, shall we? Since the subject of guns has been beaten to a pulp, I’ll focus on five other leading preventable causes of death, many of which kill far more people every year than guns do.

Suicide

1. Dramatically improve mental health screening, suicide prevention facilities and resources nationwide.
2. Start a comprehensive anti-suicide education program starting at the middle school level.
3. Train health professionals to better recognize the danger signs of suicidal individuals.

Smoking

1. Ban all tobacco products. There, that was easy, wasn’t it? Smoking is more dangerous than many other products that we’ve banned for decades, so why not?

Alcohol Use

1. Quintuple federal taxes on alcohol over a five-year period.
2. Stiffen regulations for preventing excessive alcohol consumption at bars. Hold bar owners and bartenders accountable for continuing to serve patrons who are already visibly impaired.
3. Limit quantities of alcohol that can be purchased at one time.
4. Eliminate the sales of alcohol at grocery and convenience stores.
5. Ban the sales of products with a proof value over 80.
6. Start a national anti-alcohol education program similar to the ones that have been used for years for smoking.
7. Begin mandatory education of the dangers of alcohol in all elementary schools, continuing through high school.
8. Hold colleges and universities more responsible for all of the “nudge nudge, wink wink” underage drinking that occurs there.

Obesity, Diabetes and Inactivity

1. Impose stiff new taxes on all food products deemed “unhealthy” by a government panel. I’m sure we can trust them to make the right decisions.
2. Require all television sets and computer monitors to flash up messages at least once every two hours remind viewers to get up and exercise. Every four hours, such devices should turn off and be impossible to turn back on for at least 30 minutes. Exemptions can be made in special cases.
3. End all subsidies to corn growers. Ban high fructose corn syrup from all commercial products. End all sugar subsidies.
4. Prohibit all marketing of all food products to children, including such tactics as ad bombardment on children’s television shows and the use of cartoon mascots.
5. Prohibit the bundling of toys, games or other incentives to get kids to want certain types of foods for reasons having nothing to do with the food.
6. Ban the sale of all “junk food” in sizes larger than single-serving portions.
7. Prohibit restaurants from serving to anyone more than what is deemed the maximum “reasonable” number of calories that anyone should eat in a meal.
8. Provide subsidies for gym memberships to all Americans.
9. Impose limits on all government assistance programs so that funds can only be spent on healthful, economical foods.
10. Provide free cooking lessons to those on government assistance so they can learn how to make real food.
11. Dramatically increase health and life insurance premiums for those who are morbidly obese.

Accidents

1. Require mandatory written and driving tests for all drivers, annually from age 16 to 20, every five years until age 65, and annually again after that. Tests should include knowledge of the road, understanding of defensive driving techniques, and assessment of motor skills and reaction times.
2. Require additional training and tests for safe winter driving in all states where the temperature regularly goes below freezing. (Make exemptions for special situations, like California or Hawai’i, where some portion of the state goes below freezing but 99% of drivers never have to deal with it.)
3. Require daytime headlight use nationwide.
4. Require the mandatory installation of ignition interlock devices on all cars. Institute severe penalties for those bypassing them.
5. Institute a nationwide maximum speed limit of 55 mph. Speed kills.
6. Require mandatory speed limiters set to 60 mph for all vehicles. As above, severe penalties for attempting to bypass them. Special exemptions for emergency vehicles and so forth.
7. Install red-light cameras at all intersections, with increasing penalties for repeat offenders.
8. Increase further the penalties for drunk driving. Impose similar penalties for those who have accidents under the influence of prescription drugs for which they were warned that driving impairment was likely.
9. Pass a national law requiring the use of hands-free units for all electronic devices.
10. Raise the fuel tax by one dollar per gallon over ten years. Use the money to fund some of the initiatives listed here, and to encourage car-pooling and use of public transportation.
11. Dramatically increase fines for not using seat belts.
12. Provide subsidies to car manufacturers for the installation of safety devices such as air bags and anti-lock brakes.

So, do I actually want to do all of this? Of course not. But then, I’m not one of the people who answers “it’s for the children!” to any rebuttal at a suggestion of some new freedom-limiting law like a new gun ban.
The main difference is that most of the items on my list would actually work.In fact, I feel confident that if all of the measures above were implemented, we’d save at least ten times as many lives per year as are killed by all guns under all circumstances.

 

[boomerang]

What no reduction in abortions? Draw the line at that one? 3500 African Americans are aborted every 72 hours. Does that fall under the guise of a womans right to choose? If so, why are wanting to cram all this shit down my throat? Do I get a right to choose or do you know better than I do?

Fucking micromanaging control freaks. Let me live my life as I see fit and I'll do the same to you. If you choose not to, beware when the pendulum swings.

 

[Doppel]

You tricky buggar, I had to get to the end. I agree with the sentiment; there are easier and cleaner "wins" than the dubiousness of gun control.

I also do agree with some of what you mention as things I'd personally like to see, though: tobacco use should continue to be ridiculed and marginalized. Also, I'd like to see a minimum jail time on first-time DUI conviction (but a very short one) and then second time it's minimum 30 days, third time 6 months, this shit is well out of hand.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Fucking micromanaging control freaks. Let me live my life as I see fit and I'll do the same to you. If you choose not to, beware when the pendulum swings.

 

[boomerang]

Nonsense, the point is obvious. The psyche that presented the information is what I'm addressing.

35 items in your list and when you got to the end you realized it could come across as, let's say, overbearing. So you back peddle by saying you don't really want to do these things.

Then, your ego comes into play and you finish with,

I feel confident that if all of the measures above were implemented, we’d save at least ten times as many lives per year as are killed by all guns under all circumstances.

It's transparent as hell.

As a side note, aren't you in the camp that desires a lot of facts and solely arguments based on facts? If so, what's with all this opinion with no facts?

 

[nehalem256]

Sorry Charles, I beat you to this thread a month ago

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2290194&highlight=

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2183857...igher-risk-nontraditional-homes/#.UM9XfIM701J

Children living in households with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries as children living with two biological parents, according to a study of Missouri data published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2005.

Children living in stepfamilies or with single parents are at higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological or adoptive parents, according to several studies co-authored by David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.

Girls whose parents divorce face significantly higher risk of sexual assault, whether they live with their mother or father, according to research by Robin Wilson, a family law professor at Washington and Lee University.

It seems clear that divorce and bastardom are a threat to the safety of our children.

Do you think we can count on Barack Obama to do what is necessary to safeguard the nation's children?

EDIT: In addition the Connecticut shooter lived with his single mother. Perhaps if his parents had not divorced the 20 children who died would still be alive. The fact that it is possible they might be means we need to act!

 

[zsdersw]

 

[Charles Kozierok]

I must say, I never expected the thread to start out like this.

I assumed that the rather obvious complaining tone of the first two sentences would be enough to prevent any reasonable person from making this a case of Poe's Law, but it would seem that I continue to overestimate the rationality and intellect of the far right on this board.

 

[lotus503]

Nonsense, the point is obvious. The psyche that presented the information is what I'm addressing.

35 items in your list and when you got to the end you realized it could come across as, let's say, overbearing. So you back peddle by saying you don't really want to do these things.

Then, your ego comes into play and you finish with,

It's transparent as hell.

As a side note, aren't you in the camp that desires a lot of facts and solely arguments based on facts? If so, what's with all this opinion with no facts?

you simply proved you don't get it.
It's actually funny

 

[Jaskalas]

Suicide
Start a comprehensive anti-suicide education program starting at the middle school level.

I'll one up that. Eradicate the modern school environment where its a mad max world of 3,000+ students who get to form gangs and enlist in the destruction of the weak.

Being bullied and made miserable from one's peers at a place you're forced to attend daily is a destabilizing element that preys on the vulnerable. The scenario that creates these conditions is what should be targeted and removed from society.

What you have is negative reinforcement when the educational environment should consist of positive reinforcement. We have it ass backwards and that's what's killing teens with suicide. Currently they get to suffer all the horrors of the human condition while alone during an uncertain time of their lives as they mature.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I'll one up that. Eradicate the modern school environment where its a mad max world of 3,000+ students who get to form gangs and enlist in the destruction of the weak.

Being bullied and made miserable from one's peers at a place you're forced to attend daily is a destabilizing element that preys on the vulnerable. The scenario that creates these conditions is what should be targeted and removed from society.

What you have is negative reinforcement when the educational environment should consist of positive reinforcement. We have it ass backwards and that's what's killing teens with suicide. Currently they get to suffer all the horrors of the human condition while alone during an uncertain time of their lives as they mature.

No, we can't do that! What if the bullies ends up succeeding in life? And they are just kids! *cites one example, ignores the countless others*

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Why is our "Right to live" a "Right to live by the standards in which are defined by our national government. No you can't live the way you want you have to live this way. put that ciggarette down. no more alcohol. Studies have shown that happiness is a disease that must be stopped".

 

[Moonbeam]

Nuclear power makes some sense from a totally rational point of view. Unfortunately, so does NIMBYism if you are a parent. There are any number, perhaps too few in my opinion, why are very very rational and they, like me, lead miserable lives, expecting others to act rationally when in fact what we feel is where we really live. Fortunately, of course for me, I have some, I think, deeper understanding of what I feel and thus what everybody else feels too, even if like me, they haven't had the opportunity or been given the knowledge of the importance of these facts and done some serious investigating themselves to know it also.

Thus it is that few people realize how deeply motivated people are not to know what they really feel or how likely they are to project what they do not know about themselves on other as a certainty that is how those other are. So you can always be sure that where people feel threatened they are threatened also by self awareness, the potential they will be forced to feel what they really feel and they will flee from that with all alacrity even if it means the loss or surrender of their freedom.

We will not have a rational world where intelligence determines our policy so long as we don't know or appreciate what other people and ourselves feel. Intellect, no matter its extent, will not open the door to feeling. You have to fall on the ground and go crazy to do that. And you need a guide of some kind.

 

[Moonbeam]

Nonsense, the point is obvious. The psyche that presented the information is what I'm addressing.

35 items in your list and when you got to the end you realized it could come across as, let's say, overbearing. So you back peddle by saying you don't really want to do these things.

Then, your ego comes into play and you finish with,

It's transparent as hell.

As a side note, aren't you in the camp that desires a lot of facts and solely arguments based on facts? If so, what's with all this opinion with no facts?

How do you tie your shoes?

 

[Moonbeam]

I must say, I never expected the thread to start out like this.

I assumed that the rather obvious complaining tone of the first two sentences would be enough to prevent any reasonable person from making this a case of Poe's Law, but it would seem that I continue to overestimate the rationality and intellect of the far right on this board.

You certainly do.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

How do you tie your shoes?

LOL.

Jaskalas, you make some good points.

Of course most of that article was tongue-in-cheek. It was intended both to demonstrate that anyone can propose extreme solutions, and also to show the "think of the kids!" crowd that they don't care about the kids as much as they claim.

But there's a kernel of truth in a few of those suggestions. Why do we allow people to drive cars on public roads that can go 150 mph? Why do we all people to use radar detectors, devices solely designed to enable law-breaking? And would it really be a bad idea if we started educating kids about the dangers of alcohol when they are young?

Lots of opinions, of course.

 

[ichy]

3500 African Americans are aborted every 72 hours.

How is race in any way relevant to that?

 

[Moonbeam]

This thread, of course, raises all the same issues that Conservative insanity in our modern culture does. Nobody, or should I say I wouldn't care if all the egotistical butt holes in the world who know better than anybody else and don't want anybody telling them how to run their lives were to wander out onto the highway in their brain dead state and get hit by a Mac truck, but unfortunately they like to waltz out there with other people and it damages the truck. Thus society is in a constant state of war between people who think they can improve society with legislation and those who oppose any new constraints on their freedom. The front lines are always around the zones where the responsible exercise of freedom starts to slip. Virtuous people don't need any laws and insanity can't be stopped by millions of them. This is why education that includes self understanding is the best cure for all of this. We need to raise a world of sane and healthy people. But to do it we will need the voices of sane and healthy people because the insane won't have the faintest idea how to do it. Neither will they know who is sane and healthy, so we are in a mess.

 

[nehalem256]

I assume the point is that liberals don't actually care about kids.

They only pretend to care about them when they make convenient hostages to advance their agenda.

This is a point I have also made before.

 

[werepossum]

Excellent post, Charles. In general, people are very dismissive toward freedoms they personally do not value, and guns are perhaps the best example of that.

 

[FerrelGeek]

What no reduction in abortions? Draw the line at that one? 3500 African Americans are aborted every 72 hours. Does that fall under the guise of a womans right to choose? If so, why are wanting to cram all this shit down my throat? Do I get a right to choose or do you know better than I do?

Fucking micromanaging control freaks. Let me live my life as I see fit and I'll do the same to you. If you choose not to, beware when the pendulum swings.

Get with the program, a fetus is not a human life unless a woman wants it to be. The superior intellect of the liberal has decreed it so.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Excellent post, Charles. In general, people are very dismissive toward freedoms they personally do not value, and guns are perhaps the best example of that.

Thanks. Glad there are some intelligent righties around this place. :thumbsup:

 

[NoStateofMind]

This thread, of course, raises all the same issues that Conservative insanity in our modern culture does. Nobody, or should I say I wouldn't care if all the egotistical butt holes in the world who know better than anybody else and don't want anybody telling them how to run their lives were to wander out onto the highway in their brain dead state and get hit by a Mac truck, but unfortunately they like to waltz out there with other people and it damages the truck.

People take note. Liberals (Mooncrappy at the very least) either wants you to be a slave or for you to walk out into traffic. Authoritarians are all the same "do as i say or die".
This thought process is somehow regarded as better than making your own choice AKA "freedom".

Thus society is in a constant state of war between people who think they can improve society with legislation and those who oppose any new constraints on their freedom. The front lines are always around the zones where the responsible exercise of freedom starts to slip. Virtuous people don't need any laws and insanity can't be stopped by millions of them. This is why education that includes self understanding is the best cure for all of this. We need to raise a world of sane and healthy people. But to do it we will need the voices of sane and healthy people because the insane won't have the faintest idea how to do it. Neither will they know who is sane and healthy, so we are in a mess.

The above post proves you are neither sane nor healthy.

 

[Lithium381]

Alcohol I dont' see as a problem in the same way that guns aren't the problem, the poeple who use them present the problems. . . i responsibly enjoy alcohol maybe twice a month and NEVER drive drunk. . why punish me? Drunk drivers should be punished by 5000$ fines . . . if not more

 

[Moonbeam]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonbeam
This thread, of course, raises all the same issues that Conservative insanity in our modern culture does. Nobody, or should I say I wouldn't care if all the egotistical butt holes in the world who know better than anybody else and don't want anybody telling them how to run their lives were to wander out onto the highway in their brain dead state and get hit by a Mac truck, but unfortunately they like to waltz out there with other people and it damages the truck.

People take note. Liberals (Mooncrappy at the very least) either wants you to be a slave or for you to walk out into traffic. Authoritarians are all the same "do as i say or die".
This thought process is somehow regarded as better than making your own choice AKA "freedom".


Quote:
Thus society is in a constant state of war between people who think they can improve society with legislation and those who oppose any new constraints on their freedom. The front lines are always around the zones where the responsible exercise of freedom starts to slip. Virtuous people don't need any laws and insanity can't be stopped by millions of them. This is why education that includes self understanding is the best cure for all of this. We need to raise a world of sane and healthy people. But to do it we will need the voices of sane and healthy people because the insane won't have the faintest idea how to do it. Neither will they know who is sane and healthy, so we are in a mess.

The above post proves you are neither sane nor healthy.

In the first post I stated the problems of giving morons freedom, that they use it to endanger other people.

In the second post I provided the only solution I can see. So what your posts demonstrate is that you can neither think, read, or reason. You have a dead horse you want to beat. If you try to turn me into that horse I'm going to give you an education.