Election Thread

[kandrathe]

"The problem I see is that a few examples of bad behavior (by individuals or companies) are not only addressed with punishments, but then also followed up with more regulations to prevent anyone from ever being able to offend again which are punitive against everyone, offender and non-offender alike."

As I've already said, if the behaviour that causes these problems is reckless in the first place, then I don't care if you can handle your vehicle perfectly after you have twice the legal limit.

My statement wasn't about drinking and driving. I was reflecting on the "nanny state" response to everything. As an example, little Amy gets kidnapped walking to school by some heinous killer, and then we need an "Amy's Law" which mandates that every child must now ride the bus. Now we need to double the number of buses for each school district. One of those bus drivers shows up to work drunk, and now we need breathalyzers or daily drug screening in every school bus to insure the bus driver is fit to drive. Billy brings a hand gun to school, so the response is to outfit every school with metal detectors. We don't deal with the heinous killer, the drunken bus driver, or Billy, the nanny state wants to regulate it so it can never happen. But, it always does, maybe not in the way you predicted and regulated, but stupid will find a way.

Now, I'm not advocating bad things! I'm advocating that the State, regulations, laws and lawmakers are not always the answer. For example, it's up to parents to determine how to get their children safely to school, punish the heinous killer when they were merely a child molester, and kick Billy out of school, we don't need a nanny state.

Sometimes people are stupid and they suffer for it. That is a natural consequence of being stupid. You want to protect stupid people from their own idiocy with smart people's money, because stupid people don't generally earn much money or keep it very long when they do find a way to get some (usually Lotto). Just last night some guy got ripped and at 2am was driving around here erratically, the police were called and they finally found him having driven off the road and drowned in a pond. He got stupid, and he died for it. Unfortunately, sometimes people are stupid and they take other people out as well. You can't get in the business of preventing stupidness. It's unfathomable. The GNP of the world is not enough to root out just the stupidity in America.

So, I would like basic safety nets to prevent smart or stupid people from freezing to death, from starving to death, or dying from a lack of basic health care. But if a person wants to be on public assistance, eat twinkies, drink beer, and watch TV all day, I don't feel compelled to pay for their open heart surgery.

This goes for old people as well. If you are past a certain age, sorry, you don't get an expensive hip replacement surgery on the public dole, it's an elective. We just can't spend taxpayer money keeping everyone in perfect condition and alive as long as possible, it's insane. But, I would certainly understand that if you worked hard during your life and you wanted to spend your own money to extend your own life. By all means, get plastic surgery, new knees, whatever you want, as long as you pay for it.