Comment Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score 1) 701
Ok, cool, then we ought to ban driving all together considering it's one of the most dangerous things people routinely do. Or perhaps that's unreasonable and we should only ban "unnecessary" driving?
What's fantastically short sighted is the notion that, in a society that puts an extremely high value on cooperation and interdependence, putting your life at risk in any circumstance only affects yourself.
That's a lovely strawman you've constructed there. Of course it affects other people -- everything we do affects other people. It doesn't affect anyone else's rights. The difference is important: if we can make laws just because other people are "affected", then there is nothing that's off-limits... and that's such a bullshit position that I can't imagine you actually think that. I'm assuming you just didn't think about what you said.
Everyone wearing their seatbelt is a good idea.
Indeed it is. The question is whether good ideas ought to have the force of law. Because when you make it a law, you're effectively saying "I am OK with using violence to enforce this behavior." The key question for me is this: if I choose not to wear a seatbelt (thus increasing my risk of death or injury should I get in a crash), whose rights am I infringing?