No to Seat Belt Laws

The Michigan State Police are at it again, and doubtless many other local law enforcement agencies are too. Check lanes are being set up to make sure that people are wearing their seat belts as they drive. If you come upon one, you may be compelled to pull over and show that you are complying with the law. Never mind the speeders that we see all the time, not to mention the burglars and rapists and murderers who haunt our streets and neighborhoods. The police have nothing better to do than make sure you, evil driver, have clicked it.

This is an area where the nanny state has taken over lock, stock and barrel. Why? Because we accept it. We all know that the government always has our best interests in mind, and it's so much better to make sure you've buckled up than to protect us from the real lawbreakers out there. Why, it protects us from ourselves! What else should Lansing be doing?

We are not arguing about using seat belts; no rational person questions their potential value. Yet most people are no more likely to be involved in a dangerous auto accident than they are in a fatal airplane flight. With risks so low, why tie up resources to combat the few who don't wear belts?

The fact is that, after a certain point, the point at which we outlaw burglary and rape and murder, we really ought to leave decisions up to the individual. Especially as there are such choices which we actually do leave up to the people which themselves are more inherently dangerous than not buckling up, it seems absurd to fret over seat belts. We allow people to eat and drink what they want despite the fact that excess in that area surely offers more long term threat to their life than driving unbelted. We do not compel folks to diet right and excercize even though that too has a more obvious long term effect than not wearing seat belts. Well, perhaps after Obamacare kicks in the government will begin forcing us to do that, because, after all, it would have a public interest in healthier people for these of lower health care costs. But that's an aside just this minute.

It is high time we told the government at all levels to bug off where something isn't their concern. Seat belt laws must be removed from the books. They are an affront to our liberty, and nothing less.