Applied Indifference

Background: On June 18th, I was pulled over and given a ticket for not waring my seat belt. I signed the ticket not guilty and sent it back in. About a month later, I got a letter telling me that it was being reviewed.

On Thursday, I get this.

Which tells me that they either

• Didn’t want to waste their time for $37 (in which case, why waste mine?)
• Didn’t want to risk giving me standing to challenge the law

Occam’s razor demands that the first be the case, but the conspiracy buff in me wants the second to be true so badly.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those that know me, or those who have read my ranting, that I am against laws that compel the use of personal safety equipment. I personally, in the face of all evidence, do not trust seat belts. I don’t like anything that touches my neck, and every seat belt, no matter how adjustable, always ends up too close to my throat for my liking.

Given that the arguments about how my not wearing a seat belt can impact third parties are specious at best, I don’t see how the state gets away with demanding that I wear a seat belt. It should not matter to the state whether or not I use a safety device. The state is not responsible for my well being, and I sorely wish it would stop trying to impose its demands upon me.

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Another in the continuing “It occurs to me…” series.

I’ve seen and heard various news bits referring to how this or that is “a setback to abortion rights”, or “denies people the right to health-care”, etc.

Some would say that the media would position something as being “a setback to abortion rights” as opposed to “a victory for abortion opponents”, because they nominally support abortion. (hat tip: Kaus Files).

I suspect, however, that this has less to do with the sympathies that the press has vis-a-vis abortion itself, and more with their self-congratulatory desire to be on the side of “rights”. Because “rights” are a good thing, right?

And here is where it is terribly important to win the battle to define the terms of debate. Those who oppose abortion, although they called themselves “pro-life”, did not get their argument in media-ego friendly terms. The pro-abortion factions, however, called it “an issue of women’s rights”, or “reproductive rights”, or “a woman’s right to decide what she does with her body”. And that’s like red meat to a pit bull for the media. “What’s that, rights being stomped on by government? The HORROR!”.

Which does explain why the press, which nominally does support Democrats, and Democrats nominally support government intrusion into individual’s lives, is so dead set against the PATRIOT act. The argument against PATRIOT goes thus: “is crushes civil rights”. Therefore, the media is against it. McCain-Feingold was never properly argued (until it was entirely too late) as infringing on individual rights, so the press yawned.

The mainstream media have deluded themselves into believing that they are on the side of “right”. This means that the only side of an argument that they will champion is the one that has been most convincingly been made to cast whatever in terms of “rights”.

Tags: Randomness by Brian Corbino
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There was this study that claimed that office-worker productivity went through the roof when the office temperature was raised to 77 degrees.

I don’t know what kind of people they used in that study, but they clearly weren’t men.

It’s been 77 in my office all week. I can’t get a thing done. My typing is worse than usual (I have been stutter-typing, and the error rate when I don’t is huge), and I am completely unable to think.

Anything above 72 degrees, and my brain starts to shut down. At 80, the only thing I am capable of thinking is “need beer”, and that’s pushing it. Above that, and all I’m good for is lying in the sun and getting burned.

Tags: Randomness by Brian Corbino
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It’s looking more and more like the worst-case scenario is going to happen in Iraq. They’re gonna set up a fundamentalist Sharia nation.

Which means that we’ll be invading again in 10 years.

Maybe we should have just nuked the whole damn place back in 1991.

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Bush has no right to be fit. This is the apparent message of the DNC. Well, to grok it in its fullness, the attitude is that if Bush is going to be fit, then the government ought to make sure everyone else is too.

Why is it the responsiblity of the government to make opportunities available, rather than the responsibility of either the parents or the children themselves? Because of one of the Democrats favorite lobbying groups, the trial lawyers, children aren’t allowed to run around on playgrounds any more. The schools can’t afford the risk of being sued when little Johnny skins his knee, or Suzy bumps her head. Never mind the hysteria surrounding things like “dodge ball”.

The modern American Socialist movement (also known as the Democratic Party) has painted itself into a corner. We don’t want kids doing anything potentially dangerous, but George Bush isn’t doing enough to make children fit! News Flash: exercise is inherently dangerous. There’s always the possibility of everything from a broken fingernail to a broken bone.

But the socialists yearn so much for a cradle-to-grave personal responsibilty avoidance mechanism that they are now advocating that the government mandate that children do something that the lawyers will sue the government for making children do!

Can we just transfer the money to the lawyers forthwith and leave the kids out ot it?

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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Bumper stickers seen recently:

“What part of UNION MADE don’t you understand?” - on the window of a Nissan Maxima.

“Proud to be a union sheet metal worker” - on the bumper of a Kia Sedona.

Last I knew the AFL-CIO didn’t have branches in Japan or South Korea.

And they wonder why all their affiliates are running away.

Tags: Politics by Brian Corbino
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