>>snipping is fun>
>
>>>>If you think about it, rather a lot of what government is for is what happens when people don't do the right things. (Not all of it, of course--stuff like trash collection and road building is for the common good, in another way.)
>>>
>>>Of course "right" is a very subjective term in this context. I think the government should be minimalist in its approach and I have a big problem with legislating behavior. I'm not speaking of crimes against others but of the nanny laws controlling individual choice, such as helmet laws, banning cell-phones while driving and smoking ordinances on private property. To me free includes the freedom to make choices, good or bad.
>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>
>>At the very least take the cell phone objection out. People kill other people when they don't pay attention to their driving. you might just as well abolish all the other traffic laws. The cell phone law is not a nanny law, it falls into the 'crimes against others' category.
>
>Until we ban children riding in cars I am not accepting any "distracted driver" laws. Not to mention radios, cd players, reading, eating, putting on makeup, changing clothes, smoking and daydreamers.
>
>>Even the helmet law is there not only to protect the rider from himself, but to protect the rest of us from the costs of his stupidity as well.
>
>In a free society people must be free to make stupid decisions.
>
>>I agree about smoking laws. Mostly I find them repugnant. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a non-smoker.
>
>I don't mind smoking laws as it pertains to public buildings, after all the public's elected representatives have made that decision. It's the private property intrusion I take issue with.

I don't fully understand how you could find laws against smoking in public places to be ok but laws against cell phone use while driving not to be ok. If there is smoking in a restaurant, for example, I can simply not go in. But if some idiot crashes into me because he wanted to talk on his cell phone and didn't notice the stop sign, or red light, there isn't a lot I can do about it. The cell phone law is there to protect other people, not to protect the driver. How can you call that a 'nanny' law.

I agree that people must be free to make stupid decisions, but I draw the line when those stupid decisions are detrimental to me rather than just the fool himself.

If it's not the government's job to make laws to protect us from other people, then whose job is it?

Here's an interesting one (to me anyway); how do you feel about fraud laws?