Here come the UK SWAF teams!

[piscator]

Hey, maybe there should be no rules of the road, no vehicle road-worthiness standards and mandatory tests, no such thing as a driving licence ...

In fact, maybe there should be no roads at all.

That would certainly make New Zealand safer for all. But it seems the Crown not only tolerates such manifestly unsafe behavior as driving, She actually facilitates the carnage. Why?

Since no one wants to answer my question, I'll offer my own answer: Because the Crown feels the benefits outweighs the lives of hundreds of Her loyal subjects annually, same as with Her many foreign adventures.

[pErvinalia]

Just more proof you are wilfully ignorant. As I've explained before an unsecure human is a missile in a car crash. Is it too much to ask that you could actually read what people write and ascent to learn something?

Must have missed that post. So, anyway, as long as the body stays in the vehicle, who cares? And if it doesn't, well, please let me know how many people in other cars are killed or injured by "unsecure human missiles" flying into their cars.

I expect you're gonna have some difficulty coming up with reliable numbers for that risk, which is likely to be sub-microscopic.

Let me know when the research has been done, the report written, and the peer review completed.

Until then, your attempt at pettifoggery is rejected.

I'd imagine there's probably plenty of those studies done in relation to seatbelt research. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a person flying out of a car and killing someone else. I'm talking about an unsecured person killing or injuring other people inside the car. If you can't see how a 80kg mass with hard points flying around inside a car is a serious safety hazard to others in the car, then I can't help you (something I've learned over the years...)

[pErvinalia]

So just to follow on from that, an argument could be made that a single person alone in a car might not have to wear a seatbelt for that reason. As most civilised societies have socialised medicine, I'd argue that the costs of road injuries outweigh the loss of freedum in those societies. What the hit to economic productivity is, I don't really know what level it is at to make a judgment.

[JimC]

Hey, maybe there should be no rules of the road, no vehicle road-worthiness standards and mandatory tests, no such thing as a driving licence ...

In fact, maybe there should be no roads at all.

Try to distinguish between regulations intended to prevent you from harming other people and regulations intended to prevent you from harming yourself. Neither seat belts nor helmets protect others against your mistakes or malfeasance. Therefore there is no need to impose those requirements on individuals who have the right to choose to take those risks themselves.

There comes a point where your repetitive diatribes against any constraints on the freedom of an individual become indistinguishable from the tantrum of a toddler who doesn't want to go to bed on time...

Most of the rest of the forum has reached adulthood.

[Blind groper]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uk ... 42833.html

I thought I should back up my statement about the international survey of 11 nations re health care. Out of those 11 wealthy nations, the USA came last.

The fact that wealthy people sometimes go to the USA for medical care does not obviate my point. As I said before, the USA has excellent health care, if you are a millionnaire. For normal people, the health care in the US is crap.

[MrJonno]

To be fair Somalia has excellent health care if you are rich, with enough money you can fly in a hospital if you really want.

I judge the quality of a country healthcare based on how it treats the unemployed, as we are all likely to be unemployed at some point while few of us are ever likely to be rich

[Scot Dutchy]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uk ... 42833.html

I thought I should back up my statement about the international survey of 11 nations re health care. Out of those 11 wealthy nations, the USA came last.

The fact that wealthy people sometimes go to the USA for medical care does not obviate my point. As I said before, the USA has excellent health care, if you are a millionnaire. For normal people, the health care in the US is crap.

But that is true of most services in America not just health care.

[Seth]

Just more proof you are wilfully ignorant. As I've explained before an unsecure human is a missile in a car crash. Is it too much to ask that you could actually read what people write and ascent to learn something?

Must have missed that post. So, anyway, as long as the body stays in the vehicle, who cares? And if it doesn't, well, please let me know how many people in other cars are killed or injured by "unsecure human missiles" flying into their cars.

I expect you're gonna have some difficulty coming up with reliable numbers for that risk, which is likely to be sub-microscopic.

Let me know when the research has been done, the report written, and the peer review completed.

Until then, your attempt at pettifoggery is rejected.

I'd imagine there's probably plenty of those studies done in relation to seatbelt research. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a person flying out of a car and killing someone else. I'm talking about an unsecured person killing or injuring other people inside the car. If you can't see how a 80kg mass with hard points flying around inside a car is a serious safety hazard to others in the car, then I can't help you (something I've learned over the years...)

Well of course they can, but so what? Everyone in the car accepts that risk don't they? If they don't accept that risk they can either demand that everyone wear seat belts or decline to ride in a car where one or more persons is not wearing seat belts. That is their right, and their responsibility, is it not? Why is the government involved in denying that freedom of choice to each and every passenger?

The only time that the government has any business at all interfering in such things is if the regulation prevents exported initiation of harm to other people who have not consented to accept that particular risk. That's why safety inspections to ensure that the vehicle is operating properly and speed limits are acceptable forms of regulation even under Libertarian principles.

You have not identified any way in which seat belt or helmet laws serve to protect the non-consenting general public against harm caused by the operators or passengers in or on a vehicle. Such regulations are specifically and only intended to protect the passengers and operators of the vehicle, and therefore constitute unwarranted interference with the essential liberties of those persons.

[Seth]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uk ... 42833.html

I thought I should back up my statement about the international survey of 11 nations re health care. Out of those 11 wealthy nations, the USA came last.

The fact that wealthy people sometimes go to the USA for medical care does not obviate my point. As I said before, the USA has excellent health care, if you are a millionnaire. For normal people, the health care in the US is crap.

Except of course that it's not, it's the best medical care found anywhere in the world. Your argument is merely a recitation of the old Socialist saw that it's "unfair" for some people to be able to afford better care than others. But the simple fact is that anybody who needs life-saving care in the US gets it, when and where they need it, and they don't get stuck in waiting lines for MRIs or surgery. Might they have to pay for it? Of course, but then again so does everybody everywhere because medical care ain't free anywhere on earth. The issue here is how it's paid for and who pays for it, which relates directly to whether it's available, in what quantity, and with what quality. Socialized medicine supplies inherently inferior medical care because it necessarily rations what's available to whom, when, and in what amount, and it does so "equally," which merely means that everyone gets inferior care and nobody gets the care they could get here in the US because the government can't afford to pay for everybody's top-notch medical care.

The laws of economics simply don't allow socialized medicine to work for long. Once the OPM runs out, everybody loses.

[Scot Dutchy]

Still talking the biggest crap Seth. Never changes does it.

Health care for the vast majority in America is unaffordable.

[Blind groper]

Two topics.

1. Car seat belts.

Here in NZ, wearing seat belts was made compulsory, and it was strongly policed. Those who did not wear seat belts were very likely to end up paying a substantial fine.

End result was that the road toll dropped 10% in th year following seat belts being made compulsory. About 80 lives saved each year, which is a hell of a lot for a small country.

You can talk all kinds of 'principle', but a life saved is more basic and more important than airy fairy, wishy washy ideas of arbitrary principles.

2. Benefits for the wealthy. Health or otherwise.

For this, I am going to define 'wealthy' as not having to work. In other words, having enough income from investments to be able to sit back and enjoy a comfortable life without having to supplement your income by having to go out and get your hands dirty by working.

In the western world, as a general overall average, being wealthy by this definition applies to only 1% of the population. The other 99% are forced to work to earn a living.

If 1% of the population (as in the USA) can afford excellent health care, while the other 99% cannot, then that is a severe indictment against that society.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

The only time that the government has any business at all interfering in such things is if the regulation prevents exported initiation of harm to other people who have not consented to accept that particular risk.

A minority opinion that the rest of us will ignore.

[MrJonno]

Libertarianism and the cult of the individual, the ultimate evil yet in the end weak because a libertarian stands alone while everyone else stands as millions

[klr]

Seatbelts do, as I've explained to you before.

The "repeat until it gets through" technique does not work with everyone, I'm afraid.

[JimC]

Seatbelts do, as I've explained to you before.

The "repeat until it gets through" technique does not work with everyone, I'm afraid.

Best way to talk to foreigners, though...