The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has just released a report on the effects seen from the repeal of Florida's mandatory motorcycle helmet law back in 2000 (summary and CNN report). The effect was pretty much the same as seen in other states that have repealed helmet laws: deaths increased and costs to treat head injuries more than doubled (with $10.5 million charged to charitable and government sources).
Of course, the report just dredges up all the libertarian arguments about how the government shouldn't interfere with one's right to be stupid, so long as they aren't hurting anyone else by their stupidity. That argument has an air of truth to it for me, and as a public service I'd like to propose a simple government form:
Intended stupidity (check one):
[ ] Riding motorcycle without helmet
[ ] Driving without wearing seat belt
[ ] Asserting my second-amendment rights while drunk
[ ] Other (please specify): ___________________
Please read carefully and sign below:
I hereby attest that I am hellbent and determined to be as stupid as possible, as is within my rights as a free-thinking adult, and assert that it is nobody's business to tell me otherwise. I also attest that all of the following are true:
Signature: _____________________________
(Thanks to Judith for the link!)
(First attempt at comment presumably lost -- didn't have JavaScript enabled. Sorry if two comments show up.)
It's interesting that you equate alcohol, drugs, and "inordinate libertarianism" (presumably distinguished from the ordinary kind).
I'm inclined to make a distinction between normal statism, which merely wants to control people's actions, and "inordinate" statism," which wants to compel people to spit on themselves if they show any inclination to disobedience. Yours is clearly the latter case.
Would you require similar applications for permission to engage in other dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, skydiving, and engaging in mass protests while Bush is president?
Posted by: garym at August 10, 2005 5:47 AMBut the report doesn't appear to take into account the benefits of the increased supply of donatable organs! Motorcycle deaths are a great source of young organs undamaged by chronic disease.
Posted by: Rebar at August 10, 2005 7:10 AMHmm. Good point Rebar — I'd missed that advantage as well.
I'm libertarian by temperament, but I'm also enough of a pragmatist to know that restrictions on individual liberty are sometimes necessary. It comes down to weighing trade-offs between deference to individual autonomy, impact of the person's actions on others, impact of the restriction on the person who's being restricted, severity of the problem being solved and expected impact of the restrictions.
Outlawing drunk driving is an obvious example: it restricts individual autonomy but that's outweighed by the fact that it has a big impact on the lives it saves, a relatively small impact on the lifestyle of the person who wants to drive drunk, it tackles an incredibly commonplace problem and (arguably) the laws are effective at reducing accidents.
The main point of my modest proposal was to point out that the most common argument I hear for helmet laws, i.e. "I'm only risking my own life and health so everyone should just back off" is bogus. A person's death has far-reaching effects on the people around him — it's not a "victimless crime." You can still argue that, unlike drunk driving, helmet laws still aren't worth it — certainly in the case of skydiving or mountainclimbing I don't think the trade-off would merit strong restrictions. Helmet laws sound like a pretty minor inconvinience for the added benefit though (though I admit, now that I think about all the organ donations we'd miss out on, I'm not so sure anymore).
Posted by: Bug at August 10, 2005 5:17 PMyour stupid
Geez, if you're going to call someone stupid, at least don't do it in a stupid fashion. Like misspelling one of the words.
Posted by: J at June 8, 2007 9:07 PM