OT: What Has The World Come To

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
If we want to be unsafe, that's our own business. We can certainly do it in other ways besides the ones that busybody laws cover, too.

In my case, these laws are not making me any more safe.

The law isn't there to make you safe. The law is there to keep you from crippling yourself and thus becoming a burden to society.

If as a soceity we had the nerve to allow you to suffer the consequences of your own poor choices, then we wouldn't need seatbelt laws. People could make rational, considered decisions whether or not to use them. If they didn't and damaged themselves beyond their ability to pay for the doctors bill... well you know what happens when you don't pay your phone bill.

But instead as a soceity we are incapable of making those kinds of tough choices. It makes us feel less then human, and probably rightly so.

So we insist that you have access to emergency medical care even if you can't pay for it. And we all foot the bill, whether it's through higher insurance premiums, higher taxes, or just higher overall medical costs to offset what the hospital ends up writing off. It might be less then optimal care at a county-run hospital, but we don't leave you on the curb or send you home to die.

If we as a soceity are going to be footing the bill for your stint in intensive care, then we as a soceity have the right to ask you to do some little inconvienent things, like wear a seat belt, that might lessen the burden to us all.

[ April 05, 2004, 18:32: Message edited by: geoschmo ]