"If the Gov'ment says its bad for you, it must be good!"

[Crossroads Inc.]

Why is it, every Libertarian I meet (in Arizona) has a hard on for:
Smoking
Carrying a gun of ANY type
Driving with out seat belts,
Biking with out helmets

This morning on the train , I was taking my Bicycle to work and had my Helmet on. I often always have it just out of habit with my Bike.
A guy on the train sees me, and says "Is there a reason you have your helmet on?
I think he is just reference to the fact that I should probably take it off while on the train, which I do with a "Sometimes I forget I have it on" comment. this seems to fly past him as the guy continues on.

"Helmets don't do any good you know, If ya crash a car its all over, Same with Seatbelts, you know it is just a big scam getting people to use those."

What followed for the next 30min, was an, interesting discussions. This guy apparently owns a Harley, and often goes out on the road at 60mph, with no helmet. He seemed proud of it. He also seemed proud ot show of the Pistol he had on him which frankly scared the piss out of me. He went on for some length, with me no nodding and fervently agreeing with him, how "The Gov'ment' is just out to scare people into behaving, to control them, that things like Cigarets, if you took OUT regulation, wouldn't be bad for people, just fresh tabbaco ground up he argued was perfectly fine.

And as for seatbelts, well he assured me they KILL far more people then they save, that people should just 'drive safer. Yes indeed, if there weren't any seatbelts, why people would be apt to be MORE careful, Traffic accidents would plummet, oh yes. And as for guns, well he was Thrilled with the new law passed, oddly by 'the gov;ment' And said that "Mark my words, crime is going to plummet in Phoenix now, once every Law abiding citizen has a gun on them, no criminal is going to set foot in the city!

How do people GET this why? I mean, reverse psychology is something for grade school kids, saying "Don't do this, its bad" because in truth, it is actually good, Is just so... Juvenile! How the hell do people get so detached from reality?

[CaptHawkeye]

Guys like this are a dime a dozen. They associate manliness or maturity with "sticking it to the man" in any way they can. Almost all of which are ways which are far more detrimental to them than anyone else. They never grew out of the angsty teenage anarchist phase.

In other cases it's just that its how they've lived for a long time, and have no interest in changing any aspect of their lifestyles. They'll always construct a card house of flimsy excuses and bull shit "facts", which are more designed for their own comfort than arguing with anyone.

[CDiehl]

The problem isn't that this person does these things. it's that he's so inordinately proud of himself for doing them. Acting like a fool is not a badge of honor. I don't understand why these things need to be legislated anyhow. Treating an entire population like perpetual children is why people like this exist. They have no reason to grow out of this adolescent rebellion stage and act like a responsible adult.

[Archaic`]

Ironically enough, he may actually almost have a point on the seatbelts, but not for lack of trying to be an idiot on his part.

Don't have the statistics to hand, but I recall that after seatbelt laws were put in place, fatalities from car accidents did go up. Not from drivers or passengers in the vehicles, their fatalities went down, but pedestrian bystander fatalities spiked.

[Zixinus]

Don't have the statistics to hand, but I recall that after seatbelt laws were put in place, fatalities from car accidents did go up. Not from drivers or passengers in the vehicles, their fatalities went down, but pedestrian bystander fatalities spiked.

Also a bad compensation, that Ruben didn't understand way back then: people overestimated the safety of seatbelts and started driving recklessly.

[Tanasinn]

People who refuse to wear helmets or seat belts are, fortunately, a self-correcting problem.

[Korvan]

Regarding bike helmets, it is true that in a number of circumstances, the helmet won't be able to save you, but there's a even larger number of circumstances where it will. A fall from 4 feet with you head hitting a hard surface can be fatal. Now most of the time you can easily break your fall and the helmet won't even come into play, but that doesn't happen all the time.

I was once on my bicycle waiting for the light to change and I was semi-mounted with one foot on the ground, the other on the pedal ready to go. Now I'm not saying I'm some kind of tough guy with big balls, but on that day, I somehow ended up sitting on my own balls. When that happened part of my brain was going "WTF??! How the hell do you sit on your own balls? And the rest of my brain was just awash in a level of pain I didn't even knew existed. Unfortunately, there was nothing left to handle to the whole balance thing and when I just flopped over sideways, I didn't even get a hand up to help with the fall. My helmet saved me that day when my head hit the curb, but it was several more minutes before I even noticed that I was on the ground.

[CaptHawkeye]

"It can't protect my from everything that could possibly happen therefore it is useless." is actually a pretty common excuse these people like to use to skimp on the even the most basic safety/security systems. I mean, by that logic, it's pointless to live in a house because a 500lb JDAM could still punch through the drywall.

[Aaron]

Edit: Disregard.

[Liberty]

Also re. bike helmets: Surlethe helps out with a scout troop, and a couple years ago they went on a bike ride, a long one, and the leaders insisted that everyone wear a helmet. One boy took a spill somewhere along the trail, I don't remember why, and he fell on his head and his helmet literally split in two. I'm guessing that if that had been his head rather than the helmet, he would've been in trouble.

And Korvan: I've always wondered how guys ride without hurting their balls. On a related note, apparently in France a hundred years ago, some people were uncomfortable with women riding bikes because they were afraid women would masturbate on bike seats and no longer need men. Yes really. A professor of the history of 20th century France who wrote the book on the history of the Tour de France told me that in class.

[FSTargetDrone]

"Helmets don't do any good you know, If ya crash a car its all over, Same with Seatbelts, you know it is just a big scam getting people to use those."

What is the "scam" here, exactly? A scammer will benefit in some way from the one he takes advantage of. How is the government, in any way, taking advantage of and benefiting from people by requiring them to wear seat belts, use helmets, or other safety equipment?

Trying to put people back together ends up costing society more than it would if these same chuckleheads used basic protective gear (possibly resulting in lesser injuries, or injuries avoided altogether).

[Korvan]

And Korvan: I've always wondered how guys ride without hurting their balls. On a related note, apparently in France a hundred years ago, some people were uncomfortable with women riding bikes because they were afraid women would masturbate on bike seats and no longer need men. Yes really. A professor of the history of 20th century France who wrote the book on the history of the Tour de France told me that in class.

If you do it right, you balls stay tucked up nice and safe. Now apparently, there's a nerve right behind the balls that gets a fair bit of pressure put on it and is supposedly linked to erectile dysfunction. Hence why better bike seats have a cushiony spot or even a hole to relieve pressure on the nerve. What I figured happened to me that day is my boys were dangling extra low for whatever reason and I was a bit too hurried to get going. Momentum must've swung things back far enough so they took a lot more pressure than they were supposed to.

I grew up during the '70s, back in the days before safety and we just thought differently back then. We had a friend of the family take a spill on his bike at the age of around 13 and he ended up in a coma for two weeks and nobody even thought that maybe a helmet might be a good idea for us kids to wear. Even my own mother, who is probably one of the world's biggest worries never insisted or even suggested the use of safety gear.

Once we got into the '80s things began to change, but as I remember it it was us kids that started pushing safety on our parents. We nagged my dad for years to wear a seatbelt even during short trips and even after he got into an accident two minutes from home (he was wearing a seatbelt that time) he still wouldn't always buckle up for non highway trips. Finally after accident #2 (both were 100% the other driver's fault) I think he finally clued in.

I have my blind spots as well. At the local ski hills, safety bars on the lifts were still optional and one lift didn't even have them (they were removed because the design was defective). In my teens, we were all too cool to use them and it wasn't till a friend of mine passed out from having the flu and fell 30 feet that I started thinking being cool maybe wasn't the most important thing. I did a lot of thinking during the 5 minutes it took to reach the top of the lift. My friend lived and is now living happily with a family of his own, minus his spleen tho. I've never used a helmet while skiing, though I know it would be most wise to do so.

[Dark Hellion]

For some of these people it is just herd mentality. For those who have deeper psychological reasons I generally believe it is the juvenile association of masculinity with physical strength and toughness.

These kind of people never grow out of that very adolescent thought process to be able to look at the larger picture. Primarily, that these physical traits are simply incidental to being male. To paraphrase The Kinks, I am not the world's most masculine man but I am still a six foot tall American male with a good deal of Germanic stock in me. I can probably overpower a vast majority of the world's population by the simple virtue of my genetics and I am a scrawny nerd. A well-built man of average Western stature will obviously be a pretty physically capable being and since there are several hundred million of these in the world it is not much to brag about.

I think that some of these people (the trendsetters if we can indulge this term) realize this but have no other outstanding characteristics in which to invest their self-worth. So they construct a vision of the world which makes this view of masculinity of high value. Doing something reckless and surviving is something they want to attribute pride to. They have to, as they have accomplished so little to actually be proud of.

These people are only scary because they have access to technology made by their betters. If they couldn't get behind the wheel of a 2000lbs death machine or access a hand held device that flings lethal chunks of lead hundreds of feet they would be little more than posturing braggarts. They are weak, which is why they have to bark so loudly.

[Raxmei]

What is the "scam" here, exactly? A scammer will benefit in some way from the one he takes advantage of. How is the government, in any way, taking advantage of and benefiting from people by requiring them to wear seat belts, use helmets, or other safety equipment?

Trying to put people back together ends up costing society more than it would if these same chuckleheads used basic protective gear (possibly resulting in lesser injuries, or injuries avoided altogether).

He might be thinking of revenue generated by enforcing it, for example California's "Click it or ticket" campaign. Just like those fascist speed limits and stop lights.

[aerius]

I'd argue that some psychedelic or mood altering drugs are good, they make people happy and allow them to enjoy mood enhancing creative experiences which they otherwise wouldn't have. Why shouldn't I be allowed to munch a hash brownie in the comfort of my own home while relaxing to music and letting my mind explore new creative ideas which I normally wouldn't think of? Why can't I watch pink & green polka-dotted pandas march across my wall if that's what makes me happy and lets me enjoy a good night of sleep?


Going back to safety stuff, the libertarian thinking as far as I can figure it out is "it's my goddamn choice you assholes" and "if someone needs that safety crap he's too stupid to live". I usually ask them if they have home or auto insurance, and when they say yes I ask them if they plan on accidentally burning their house down or getting their car stolen. It gets pretty fun after that and you can usually burn them pretty good.

[General Zod]

I saw this article and couldn't help but think it would be a great addition to this thread.

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/04 ... rnment.ars

We the People may say we distrust government, but we are quite fond of government websites, a new Pew Internet and American Life survey reports.

The survey finds hefty percentiles of online America using government sites to read up on the latest legislation, post comments, apply for jobs, look for services or benefits, peruse statistics, download forms, get advice on health and safety issues, and find other ways to tap local, state, and federal agencies for various goodies.

"Fully 82 percent of internet users (representing 61 percent of all American adults) looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website in the twelve months preceding this survey," says Pew. And the more engaged they were with government online, the more likely they were to have a positive view of government in general.

The conclusions are based on a tracking survey of 2,258 participants 18 or older from November 30 through December 27 of 2009. Here's Pew's breakdown of who did what online during this period:

* 48 percent of Internet users looked for information about some public policy issue online with their local, state or federal government
* 46 percent looked up what services a government agency provides
* 41 percent downloaded government forms
* 35 percent researched official government documents or statistics
* 33 percent renewed a driver’s license or auto registration
* 30 percent got recreational or tourist information from a government agency
* 25 percent obtained advice or information from a government agency about a health or safety issue
* 23 percent found information about or applied for government benefits
* 19 percent discovered information about how to apply for a government job
* 15 percent paid a fine, such as a parking ticket
* 11 percent applied for a fishing, hunting, or other recreational license

Heavy users

Who were the biggest enthusiasts for government sites during this time frame? Based on Pew's breakdown of "Light," "Moderate," and "Heavy" users, the composite online government site addict was either male or female (52/48 percent), white non-Hispanic (74 percent), aged 30-49 (42 percent), and college educated (52 percent). This person was very likely to have home broadband (91 percent) and/or wireless Internet (78 percent), go online for political news (90 percent) and participate on social networking sites (65 percent).

Heavy government Web users also tended to interact the most with the government via other means. Sixty-nine percent of them had letter contact with some agency, 50 percent phone contact, and 42 percent in person contact, although the majority of them (54 percent) preferred to interact with the government via email and the Web.

Somewhat paradoxically, heavy users also reported that they had gotten less done than they wanted with their last visit to a government site. Light users reported much more satisfaction. Why? The Pew survey doesn't offer any firm conclusions here, but speculates that the heavies often try to accomplish more than anyone else.
More access, more trust

But what is perhaps most interesting about the Pew report is that respondents who went online or interacted with the government online tended to have more positive attitudes towards Capitol Hill and the White House. Forty-three percent of government data users reported seeing the federal government as "more open & accountable" than it was two years ago. Thirty-three percent of online users who didn't interact with government sites still reported the same assessment.

The demographic group that told Pew that it saw the least progress in this area were survey respondents who didn't access the Internet at all—almost 65 percent declared the government "less open and accountable" or "about the same" as it was in 2007.

This trend was even more pronounced when it came to local government—48 percent of heavy users told Pew they trusted local government, six percent less for state government, and 34 percent for the feds.

These findings were still skewed by party lines, however. Among government data users who thought the fed has become more open and accountable, 65 percent identified themselves as Democrats, only 17 percent as Republicans.
The new class

Within this context, the Pew report finds two new demographic groups: "government social media users" and a smaller "government participatory class" whose members constantly engage with the government online. Almost a third of Internet users qualify for the first group, according to the survey, by pursuing one or more of the following activities:

* 15 percent—watching a video on a government website
* 15 percent—signing up to receive email alerts from a government agency or official
* 13 percent—reading the blog of a government agency or official
* 5 percent—following or become a fan of a government agency or official on a social networking site
* 4 percent—signing up to receive mobile text messages from a government agency or official
* 2 percent—following a government agency or official on Twitter—they representing 7 percent of Twitter users

Meanwhile Pew identifies a quarter of Internet users as part of that "government participatory class"—the biggest chunk of them joining a group that tried to influence some government policy (12 percent), or posting comments, photos, or videos online about some government issue (18 percent).

African Americans and Hispanics were by far the most enthusiastic about government interactive and social networking site features. Sixty-three percent of African-Americans, 44 percent of Hispanics, and 32 percent of whites agreed with the statement that government sponsored online digital tools "help people be more informed about what the government is doing."
Full HTML steam ahead

These revelations come as the Obama administration is urging federal agencies to crank out even more Web-based content. Late last year the Office of Management and Budget ordered all departments to upload at least three sets of "high-value" data onto Data.gov in 45 days. And in early April the Office of Information assured nervous agency heads that the Paperwork Reduction Act, with its authority over the production of new federal forms, didn't apply to social networking experiments, so on with the show.

Pew's latest findings also surface as the buzz over its recent report on confidence in government is just quieting down. "Just 22 percent say they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time, among the lowest measures in half a century," the mid-April study concluded.

What are we to make of this enthusiasm for government websites and distrust of government in general? Perhaps that the less our perceptions of law and policy agencies are contoured by media and politics, and the more they're informed by actual interactions, the more complex and in some instances positive our perceptions of "big government" will be.

[Korto]

When I did a motorcycle safety course, the instructor told us upfront that a helmet is totally useless in a head-on collision. Crush it like an egg-shell. "What it's for, is this..." he said, and then threw the helmet he was holding, sending it skimming hard and fast across the tarmac.
Now, he was either exagerating the uselessness of a helmet in a serious collision, or possibly I mis-remember his exact words, but the point was made.

As a (sorta related) counter point however, there's Hans Monderman

To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues, you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads - the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people, that driving becomes safer.

And apparently it works.

[Phantasee]

Oh, it works very good. People are far more careful driving up a narrow goat path on a mountain side than they are cruising down a modern 6 lane highway with wide shoulders and huge, treeless runoff areas, engineered to be as safe as possible. The book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt is a very good one on the subject, and he cites quite a few interesting studies and cases (and full of anecdotes, but that's pop-soc and pop-psych writing for you).

[Duckie]

Putting a wobble in a road also helps keep people awake and not zoned out- modern straight-as-a-razor highways are terrible for causing road hypnosis. And naturally, a competent designer using psychological principles and empirical statistical testing can make a road seem dangerous to drivers by putting in trees, curves, etc. to break up the terrain while not actually making it any statistically more dangerous.

However, this is one of the few areas, unlike say smoking or eating healthily, where "The Gov'nment Is Wrong!". And it's not nefarious. It's just that we didn't have a huge body of statistical evidence, psychology and knowledge of what goes on mentally when people drive in 1950 or earlier so damned if we knew how to build a proper road- America just seemed to have built pseudo-railroads, straight going out in hublines through cities crisscrossing the nation in a griddish system.

[FSTargetDrone]

Aren't roads laid straight when possible merely because it's more efficient? Adding curves means adding distance for vehicles to traverse, not to mention the additional materials needed to create a longer road.

[Simon_Jester]

It's a bit cheaper, but you pay for it over the long haul with more car accidents because of hypnotized drivers dozing off at the wheel, sounds like.

[General Zod]

It's a bit cheaper, but you pay for it over the long haul with more car accidents because of hypnotized drivers dozing off at the wheel, sounds like.

That's why they have those bumps on the sides of most highways, to get people's attention in case they start drifting.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It's a bit cheaper, but you pay for it over the long haul with more car accidents because of hypnotized drivers dozing off at the wheel, sounds like.

That's why they have those bumps on the sides of most highways, to get people's attention in case they start drifting.

Those things have saved my ass more than once. I am prone to road hypnosis, and have to do things like listen to audiobooks and other things that provide constant mental stimulation in order to avoid it. When I dont have that stimulation on long drives I will zonk out for periods of 5-7 seconds, not sleeping, but entranced by monotony and drift to those little wobbles. Does not happen often because I talk to myself etc, but sometimes...

Thankfully I like driving in the right hand lane and my car has a very slight rightward pull.

[FSTargetDrone]

That's why they have those bumps on the sides of most highways, to get people's attention in case they start drifting.

All about shoulder rumble strips.

[General Zod]

That's why they have those bumps on the sides of most highways, to get people's attention in case they start drifting.

All about shoulder rumble strips.

That's it; couldn't think of the name for a minute there.