Just when you thought you couldn't find anything newer and stupider, simply turn the page on life’s book and you’ll discover it there, hiding in plain sight.
It was 1964 when auto manufacturers jumped onto the bandwagon of safety by installing lap seatbelts in their cars and trucks. A smattering of builders had already dipped their toes in the ocean of seatbelts a few years earlier to moderate applause.
After all, the aviation industry had already been using lap seatbelts to ensure the safety and well-being of flying passengers so, why not extend this effort to terrestrial travel, too.
The introduction of these belts in vehicles would only add a few bucks to the price of a car, but it was in the name of safety that was reasoned to be priceless. With congressmen searching for yet another way to climb aboard a podium – all in the name of pandering for votes – this was tailor made for those weasels.
You see, if the guvment made these belts mandatory, manufacturers had to install them without question. And you, as a consumer, had to pay for them, again, without question. That’s what we call a win-win situation for big guvment. Not to worry, though. We were guaranteed there would never, ever, never never, ever be a law that would make wearing these restraints mandatory. Alas, we were lied to, again.
Still, who could possibly deny the public such safety measures that prevent death and serious injury?
Using this plan as a blueprint for future actions, Congress suddenly found itself with its hands full of well-meaning measures to be poked down the throats of America’s sheeple.
For the record, sheeple are people who cannot, or will not, think freely for themselves. Therefore, they find it easier to follow the majority rather than question all the selflessly benevolent work done by Congress.
We just recently eclipsed the era that permitted flimsy baby seats for cars to be used to secure unsuspecting tots from being able to slide across slick Naugahyde bench seats and possibly out the window. These old-time seats had a plastic ‘steering wheel’ with a horn to allow the kiddies to pretend driving.
(As an aside, they offered absolutely no protection whatsoever but helped you to learn how to swear just like Dad while in the car.)
In all fairness, a new era in baby car seats was born. They firstly needed to be padded, secondly be fitted with nylon straps, and lastly be easily added to the family vehicle. And they were.
If you’ve ever heard of, or seen, a motorcycle, you likely had noticed they have only two wheels and no protection for the rider. Of course, the prudent thing to do was to create a law to force motorcyclists to wear helmets when riding their transportation around the highways and byways.
It didn’t take long for these motorcycle rider groups and manufacturers to unite for an effort to repeal the helmet laws, pointing out that in the event of an accident, they were the likely recipients of the brunt of injury and death. In other words, let the dice roll, and mind your own business.
In any case, Congress remained agog at finding ways to inject safety into every nook and cranny of life, and that was something at which they excelled, in addition to taxing the snot out of their constituents.
Smoking cigarettes was discovered. Since most of America once smoked either cigarettes, cigars, or pipes, the battle was uphill too get people to stop using tobacco products in the name of the safety of the users, as well as those friends and family members subjected to something called second-hand smoke.
This was a tough one for those congressional geniuses inasmuch as tobacco is a legal product, and a heavily taxed one, that provides for quick and simple redistribution of wealth. Any effort to make tobacco use illegal is verboten! On the other hand, making its use arduous was yet another hidden political gift.
If you think the strong-arm robbery of your tax dollars ends there, recall the “sin” taxes levied on alcohol. After all, state, federal, and local authorities refuse to let this cash cow escape without some form of punishment for users of these disgusting, wretched, substances.
Such penalization has always been delivered as a carrot-stick approach to force users to simply quit their vices to become more productive citizens through total abstinence. Period.
But the good news actually appears that a new generation of politicians have been entering guvment and have proved to be quick on the uptake when they pick up the tempo without losing a beat.
Just think about the decades-long “War on Drugs.” It was a failed effort, but not without consequences. Those mighty politicians who seem to be digging around inside our pockets for the next grift decided it would be prudent to simply raise the white flag of surrender.
Claiming there was no possible way to end the scourge of second-hand smoke, driving under the influence, public intoxication, as well as using safety gear, the guvment brain trust knew exactly what free Americans needed: more dangerous stuff.
Still in the works, state after state is slowly, but surely, decriminalizing marijuana. Also known as the Devil’s Lettuce, weed, Mary Jane, ganja, skunk weed, among other colorful monikers, this seemingly harmless drug has made its way around the social circuits and scholastic communities for a century or more.
Glamorized in movies and songs, this substance was jammed through legislation by dopers who convinced legislators this drug was little more than an aspirin with a kick. Unfortunately, after some years of being decriminalized, more and more people are driving while smoking this sensory-dulling substance, thereby causing tens-of-thousands of highway wrecks ever since.
Still, the insightful politicians are poo-pooing studies on safety and plummeting school grades linked to unfettered marijuana use, which, includes vaping. Remember the previous paragraph about smoking cigarettes and second-hand smoke?
Yet here we are at the crossroads of stupidity. If caught behind the wheel of a car with an open beer, you will get a ticket and perhaps jail time. On the other hand, if you are toking on a joint, you are likely to receive a wink and a nod from the cops. Could it be because of the tax revenue generated by guvment approved weed dispensaries?
All these crystal-clear statutes and penalties – either enacted or repealed – have transitioned into nebulous situations that easily defy logic or sanity. Stay safe or be fined. Bicyclists must wear helmets, boaters need to wear life jackets, automobile passengers have to wear safety restraints, airline passengers are forced to don lap belts. But it is acceptable to drink your liver into oblivion, and smoke yourself into terminal lung cancer if you pay the taxes. Once again, all in the name of safety and longevity.
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| Gubenor Kathy Hochul, maybe |
So it was with interest that I read a recent article regarding the New York State gubenor, Kathy Hochul (D). She feels that she has the right to play God. “I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be,” she wrote, according to the New York Post.
“This included permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life,” the Post story continues.
There you have it. It’s your life, but only politicians are able to let you know how to live, in addition to how and when to die. As an aside, the follow-the-leader Illinois Gubenor JB Pritzker (D) has decided he, too thinks it’s okay for you die via assisted suicide.
We’ve reached the end of the road when it comes to common sense, with this abbreviated list of craziness oozing from anointed political types. However, it’s the voters who asked for this nonsense by electing and re-electing and re-re-electing these greedy morons to positions for which they are not qualified.
Unbelievable.
