A very Important Concept of All Laws

The seat belt law is a puzzler to me too. Motorcyclist don't have to wear a helmet - it's unconstitutional. But you have to wear a seat belt.
I wear both. Still, a person has a right to be dumb.

The problem is their right to be dumb can cost ME in the event of an accident, even if it's their fault.

Very good article addressing this very issue:

Click It Or Ticket written by Dr. Walter E. Williams Imagine you're having a backyard barbeque. A cop walks in and announces, "This is a random health and safety check to see whether you've removed the skin from the chicken before you served it." Though delicious in taste, we all know that chicken skin contains considerable unhealthy fat. If you're caught serving chicken skin, the cop gets your ID and issues you a $50 ticket. If something like this were to occur, most Americans, I hope, would see such an action as ludicrous, offensive, and a gross violation of our liberties. But not so fast; let's think about it. Each year obesity claims the lives of 300,000 Americans and adds over $100 billion to healthcare costs. Doesn't that give government the right to dictate what we eat? If you're the least offended by the notion of government dictating our diets, pray tell me how it differs in principle from seatbelt laws and especially the new federal enforcement program called "Click It Or Ticket." Under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, the federal government is spending $500 million to aggressively enforce seatbelt laws. According to a Consumers Research (July 2003) article written by Eric Peters titled "The Federal Government Wants You To Buckle Up", about 11,000 law enforcement agencies across the country have set up random checkpoints and have issued hundreds of thousands of tickets to unbelted drivers and passengers. Just as in my barbeque scenario, their justification is our health and safety. After all the 2002 highway death toll was 42,815 and according to a U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study, "The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes on America's Roadways," seatbelt usage could have prevented an estimated 9,200 fatalities. "Click It Or Ticket" represents another bold step along the road to serfdom. History knows of no totalitarianism agenda where noble goals weren't used as justification. Nazis used "for the good of the German Volk" and the Soviets used "for the good of the proletariat" as their justification. Health and safety has become the American justification for attacks on liberty. In a free society, each person owns himself. As such he has the broad discretion to make his own choices regardless of what others think of the wisdom of his choices. He has the right to take chances with his own health and safety. However, if an American doesn't own himself, and it's Congress that owns him, he doesn't have those rights. Thus, the "Click It Or Ticket" program is simply Congress' way of caring for its property, the American people. Whether seatbelt usage is a good idea is beside the point, for daily exercise, nutritious meals, eight hours sleep and cultural and intellectual enrichment might also be good ideas. The point is whether government has a right to coerce us into taking care of ourselves. If eating what we wish is our business and not that of government, then why should we accept government's coercing us to wear seatbelts? America's tyrants might answer, "We just haven't gotten around to dictating diets yet." Some might argue, but falsely so, that the problem with people exercising their liberty to drive without seatbelts, ride motorcycles without helmets or eat in unhealthy ways, is that if they become injured or sick society will be burdened with higher healthcare costs. That's not a problem of liberty but one of socialism. There's no liberty-based argument for forcing one person to care for the needs of another. Under socialism one is obliged to care for another. A parent-child relationship emerges between the citizen and the government. That was not the vision of our Founders. Walter E. Williams c40-03 September 8, 2003

Some might argue, but falsely so, that the problem with people exercising their liberty to drive without seatbelts, ride motorcycles without helmets or eat in unhealthy ways, is that if they become injured or sick society will be burdened with higher healthcare costs. That's not a problem of liberty but one of socialism. There's no liberty-based argument for forcing one person to care for the needs of another.

However, if medical care for the person that chose self-endangerment by not wearing the seatbelt results in healthcare resources being diverted from another injured person whose injuries are not a result of self-endangerment resulting in the death of the second person then the condition of the original post is met. The decision to not wear a seatbelt has caused harm to another person.

Also, Insurance companies feel they have a right to require a minimum of saftey practice, (such as wearing a seatbelt) if they are to pay on life insurance claims. If one chooses to endanger oneself by not wearing a seatbelt one cannot expect life insurance to be paid to their estate if they were to die as a result.

The problem is their right to be dumb can cost ME in the event of an accident, even if it's their fault.

Dumb is always going to cost.  But the solution is to pass a law saying no seat belt, no liability regardless of who is at fault.  There is no law against leaving a rake in the yard (dumb people do), but it can cost you as well.  Dumb costs money.  But make it the dumb ones money.

Dr. Guy:

Exactly. And the argument about health care is only relivent in a country like Canada that forces public health care on you and forces you to pay for it thus breaking the point to the quote in the first place. Yes, Health care is great. But just because it's great, doesn't mean that you have to right to force others to get it too.

What you do have a right to, is to expect that if you choose to pay for it, that you'll get service first.

I'll preface my statements here by saying that I feel that seat belt laws are just another product of the Nanny State mentality and feel they are not justified in a free society. I also agree 100% with Mills' statement.

That being said, I can actually justify the same laws using his own argument. (Playing Devil's advocate here)

The likelyhood of serious injuries in an accident goes up a great deal if one is not wearing a seat belt.

This results in higher pay outs by insurance companies.

This results in higher premiums for everyone. This means that the people not wearing seat belts did in fact cause financial harm to others.

That's the logic that was used to get those laws passed in the first place.

To: MasonM

What 'harm' is there in financial loss? No harm to the health of others. No harm to their future prospects in life. No harm to their ability to make good their cash losses in other ways. What exactly is this 'harm' you refer to? If you wish to avoid any suggestion of the socialization of health care through distribution of costs then the solution, as Dr Guy proposes, is to make the individual concerned responsible:

But the solution is to pass a law saying no seat belt, no liability regardless of who is at fault.

No one is harmed financially. Some people are, however, subjected to costs that, it can be argued, they ought not to bear.

What 'harm' is there in financial loss?

harm
Function: noun
2: the occurrence of a change for the worse

That is one definition of the word harm. It fits this debate.

Yes, one could have simply passed laws denying payment of insurance benefits to anyone not wearing a seatbelt, but then it does harm to the medical community who treat the injured person and don't receive payment. See the slippery slope here?

Ok, I'm trying to understand this. Because this John Stuart Mill guy, this philosopher and political economist who lived like 130 or so years ago says something, that makes it so? Therefore "the law should not exist"? We're no longer permitted to make amendments to this? It's carved in stone because one guy who's philosophies have little bearing 100 plus years later, said it?

To: MasonM

Doctors, all of them, are blood-sucking parsites one step up on the evolutionary ladder from lawyers. They live by profiting from the misery of others, and charge exorbitantly for the privilege of merely walking through their doors. It would do no one any harm (in your sense or any other) for the medical profession in general to suffer a few financial losses.

To: UBoB

Because this John Stuart Mill guy, this philosopher and political economist who lived like 130 or so years ago says something, that makes it so?

No one is arguing that what John Stuart Mill said is somehow a 'law' that can never be changed. What Mill did was to enunciate a philosophical principle - that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few. It's called 'Utilitarianism' and Mill's principle is one of its founding ideas, along with the work of Jeremy Bentham. Its opposite would be that the good of the few outweighs that of the many - often embodied in another philosophical form, that of 'Aristocracy'.

It's carved in stone because one guy who's philosophies have little bearing 100 plus years later, said it?

Some aspects of Mill's philosophy may be outdated, but the basic principle is as worthy of debate now as it was when he first enunciated it. It is, for example, particularly relevant to the situation in Iraq, where the good of the many - Iraqis as a whole - is threatened by the good as defined by Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, the main devotional and national groups struggling for power there.

The reference to MIll in John Galt's post has nothing to do with 'laws' of any kind, and everything to do with philosophical principles and the way they can illuminate contemporary situations.

Very good article addressing this very issue: Click It Or Ticket written by Dr. Walter E. Williams

One of my favorites.

I have said for some time (and still believe) that it is not long before we will see "public gluttony" laws attempted. We've totally accepted the government's rights to dictate our lives for us, and it's absurd.

Doctors, all of them, are blood-sucking parsites one step up on the evolutionary ladder from lawyers. They live by profiting from the misery of others, and charge exorbitantly for the privilege of merely walking through their doors. It would do no one any harm (in your sense or any other) for the medical profession in general to suffer a few financial losses.

Have a look at this book written by a guy named Andy Kessler called The End of Medicine. Here's a link to his website.Link

He basically is looking at technology to do to doctors what ATM's did to bank tellers. And yes, I stole that analogy from his website.

I don't have much else to add, as seatbelt laws have never made sense to me, even before I started to actually think about why it was.

The arguements about the cost to another because of higher insurance risks are coming from the wrong angle. There is no reason for the law to get involved. The insurance companies can decide without a law to either deny coverage to someone who doesn't wear a seatbelt or absorb it and pass the cost on to the policyholders. Then consumers are free to choose between higher rates and coverage for no seatbelts or lower rates at their own risk.

The law is not needed to prevent the harm to others that not wearing a seatbelt would cause. The free market will happily take care of that by itself.

To: MasonM Doctors, all of them, are blood-sucking parsites one step up on the evolutionary ladder from lawyers. They live by profiting from the misery of others, and charge exorbitantly for the privilege of merely walking through their doors. It would do no one any harm (in your sense or any other) for the medical profession in general to suffer a few financial losses.

Practice up on your capitalism, dude. If the dr suffers a financial loss... he just passes it on to the rest of his patients. Thereby doing harm through a financial loss to the rest.

Doctors, all of them, are blood-sucking parsites one step up on the evolutionary ladder from lawyers. They live by profiting from the misery of others, and charge exorbitantly for the privilege of merely walking through their doors. It would do no one any harm (in your sense or any other) for the medical profession in general to suffer a few financial losses.

Would you rather there be no medical practitioners? Perhaps we should subsidize their medical school costs, so their fees could be reduced? Last I checked, doctors save lives every day.

It would do no one any harm (in your sense or any other) for the medical profession in general to suffer a few financial losses.

Just because it "would do no one any harm," does that mean it should happen? Is it fair for me to say it wouldn't do you any harm to suffer a few financial losses? I am sure you could survive. Anybody can survive no matter how dire their financial means. To me, that does not mean they should "suffer" so.

First the concept is "physical harm" not harm. Harm includes you losing a job because the other guy is better than you because you don't get as wealthy, which is irrational because simply being better certainly isn't a crime, in fact it's a virtue that we need to get back to worshiping. Physical harm means direct physical harm to your person or your property and thus the statement becomes very clear.

Second: Insurance companies are free to put in riders in their policies saying that if you were wearing your seat belt you don't get coverage. And they should. End of problem.

Third: Utilitarianism is a ugly defect in the rationalism of the renasance. The quote from Mill was one that he made that happened to not exibit utilitiarianism and instead that of the principles of non-contradiction espoused by Aristotle. Hence we're going back almost 2500 years, not just 150.

But keep in mind that the 20th and now 21st centuries have had exactly two new philosophical ideas come about, and one of them really was already esposed in the 19th century. The first being socialism and later communism. The second was objectivism. Otherwise there as been no original ideas in philosophy (unless you include metaphysics, which isn't philosophy because there is no science) in the last 150 years thus we have to go back that far to have any philosophical debate that matters. And yes, that's a sad statement that we haven't even been debating philosophy in the last 150 years when it is the basis for everything we do. And that's the fault of Kant and everyone that listens to his crap even a little.

First the concept is "physical harm" not harm.

No, actually it's harm. If this were not so there would be no reason for laws against theft which do not do physical harm. That is certainly not what Mill was arguing.

First the concept is "physical harm" not harm.

So I should be allowed to steal, slander, drive recklessly down the wrong side of the road 100 km/hr over the speed limit, shoot guns into the air willy-nilly, and as long as no one is "physically harmed" then according to Mill I've not really broken any laws? (or should I say, not any laws that should exist.)

"However, if medical care for the person that chose self-endangerment by not wearing the seatbelt results in healthcare resources being diverted from another injured person whose injuries are not a result of self-endangerment resulting in the death of the second person then the condition of the original post is met. The decision to not wear a seatbelt has caused harm to another person.

Also, Insurance companies feel they have a right to require a minimum of saftey practice, (such as wearing a seatbelt) if they are to pay on life insurance claims. If one chooses to endanger oneself by not wearing a seatbelt one cannot expect life insurance to be paid to their estate if they were to die as a result."

Simple solution: Allow the insurance companies to not pay out if you're not wearing a seat belt, and allow medical workers to put those that were wearing a seat belt before those that weren't. There is nothing that says you have the right to be stupid and partake in the benefits of not being stupid. There is nothing that says that an insurance company has to cover stupidity. There is no reason why a doctor should not be able to choose his patients.

"No, actually it's harm. If this were not so there would be no reason for laws against theft which do not do physical harm. That is certainly not what Mill was arguing."

The physical harm is against your property which as I've said before is the same as physical harm against your person. My exact phrase that I always use is:

"Your free to do whatever you wish so long as you don't physically harm another or their property without their permission."

Or as my law professor used to put it "My right to swing my fist ends at your face."

The most fundamental of all rights is the right to do nothing. That includes doctors. They have the right to choose who they help. A society that compels a doctor to work is enforcing slavery. So there is no overhead for others because the man didn't wear a seatbelt because the doctor has the right not to treat the fool and thus not encur the costs.

One of the most basic things that you should take from John Stewart Mill's quote is that you cannot compel a man to do anything, for any reason. That includes doctors. Just because you need medical care, doesn't mean that the doctor must provide it, any more than the plantation owner that needed labour to pick the cotton had the right to force blacks to do the picking.

The principle is certainly valid. However, in determining how others are harmed is a very exhaustive thing. The seatbelt is a great example. by not wearing your seatbelt, you make it much easier for you to get injured in case of an accident. Then YOU will sue the other guy for injuring you. The other guy , and the society in general will have to pay for that. so by not wearing your seatbelt you make others pay for your injury which could have been prevented if you had your seatbelt on.

so think carefully before you disregard many rules that appear to be intrusive.