Stupid is as Stupid Does
Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant
They say you can’t legislate stupidity, but that’s just stupid.
The government can, has, and will continue to tell people what is and is not in their best interest or ours because there are citizens who by virtue of genetics, poor parenting, too many or too few carbohydrates in their diet, ADD, ADHD, OCD, SAD, ED, MTRD (monster truck rally addiction) or the belief that they have some superpower that protects them from things that happen to “other people,” continue to make moronic choices. And no, I’m not referring to GW and his entourage, although they make a fine case in point.
A public announcement for children’s car seats that runs regularly on KOPT, Oregon’s Progressive Talk (www.kopt.com), draws analogies to not letting your young children try to remove a swarm of wasps or operate power tools. I worry that someone might be listening and then have to run outside and yell, “Amber, honey, maybe it’s not a good idea for you to use the leaf blower on that hive. Let your brother do it. He’s nine.”
The requirement for child car seats and the laws about their use are an example of legislating stupidity. Back when I was young, kids could sit or stand anywhere in the vehicle and were almost never strapped in. My dad once put my sister and brother and I on the roof rack of our station wagon and yelled “Hang on,” as he raced down a hill. Either this was another one of his efforts to reclaim his macho pride or his effort at culling the herd. It didn’t work in either case, but obviously he needed someone to tell him what not to do when riding in a vehicle with children.
And yes, I hear some of you arguing, “Well you made this far, so obviously all this hoo-haw over child safety is an unnecessary violation of our right to privacy. And although I’d never put my kids on the roof rack, it might be fun to have them sit on the bicycles in the bike rack on top of the SUV. At least they’ll get a little fresh air.”
Continuing in the car safety vein, today we have the “Shut up and drive” movement trying to ban drivers from using cell phones while behind the wheel. Eleven states and the District of Columbia now have laws restricting cell phone use while driving. Another nineteen states also track mobile phone involvement in car crashes. We all know that while we’re talking on our cell phone behind the wheel we’re not paying enough attention to what’s going on around us and could potentially be a danger to ourselves and others. Especially if the call goes something like this: “But you said I could jump off the roof, mom!” “No, I said if all your friends jumped off the roof, would you?” “Yeah, see, you told me to.” “Just put the E.R. bill on dad’s credit card, mine’s maxed out from treating your sister’s infected nose piercing.”
We know we’re distracted and it’s not a good idea to use our cars as communication central, but we do it anyway. Because getting in an accident while we’re arguing with our kids or our stockbroker or trying to get someone at Amazon.com to provide actual customer service, is something that happens to other people, not us. We’re masters of multi-tasking. Not only can we handle more than one thing at a time, we work better that way. So our talking on the cell phone, watching a DVD, reprogramming our radio pre-sets, and learning the ukulele while discussing global warming with our kids just proves we’re not like the “rest of them.” Screech! Bump! What the hell was that?
Stupid people have always made stupid choices, and it is true that no amount of government intervention can save them from themselves. But when smart people continue to make stupid choices, that’s when government has to step in. Whether by regulating diet drugs because teachers and chiropractors and engineers truly believe that they can take a pill, eat their weight in pizza and French fries, never exercise again and STILL LOSE WEIGHT, or making food manufacturers label transfats because when in the face of something yummy, even some with genius IQs go all Homer Simpson. D’oh!
Some of the best-selling books in America are the Idiot’s Guides. That’s because deep down inside we all know we have an inner idiot. And he or she needs some direction. Whether it’s the surgeon general’s warning on cigarettes or the local government telling us not to set off firecrackers in our homes to keep warm in winter – sometimes we need someone to nag us into acting like the grown-ups we like to think we are.
 |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
Jan 14, '07
Well, if we ban talking on the phone while driving, we'll also need to ban eating a cheeseburger, doing your makeup, sipping a Starbucks, lecturing your 14-year-old, etc...How about just a simple "drive undistracted" law? That seems to have worked fine for us before.
1:41 p.m.
Jan 14, '07
ah, if it were only this simple. back when i was a kid and we made cross-country trips sleeping in the back seat of the Rambler station wagon, we had no seat belts and my mom puffed her Pall Malls merrily away. my parents were neither stupid nor insensitive. no one had seat belts then, and the term "second-hand smoke" had yet to be conceived. we did not have bike helmets, children's sleepwear burned very easily, toxins rained down from the sky on our foods, and we trusted that having lots of a-bombs would keep us safe from the Commies' a-bombs.
it would be semi-ok to let the stupid people kill themselves off with stupid choices, but not only do they usually end up harming innocent bystanders; the people they leave behind rarely deserve the pain. i'd rather govt over-protect than under; the annoyances far out-weigh the damage.
the sad truth is that much progressives favor is opposed by selfish and/or regressive people. after all, there's a lot of money to be made from stupid people.
Jan 14, '07
[I]t would be semi-ok to let the stupid people kill themselves off with stupid choices, but not only do they usually end up harming innocent bystanders; the people they leave behind rarely deserve the pain.--T.A. Barnhart
It's never a surprise when T.A. Barnhart opens his mouth, inserts his foot, and spews out some sort of hateful nonsense, and when he does (meaning nearly every time he posts anything), I always think, well, he can't possibly write something even more insensitive or insulting. But, well, he keeps managing to break his old record. Let's consider the quote above. Mr. Barnhart is almost, but not quite OK with the idea of cleansing the gene pool of people he consider "stupid". Now that's really white of him. In addition, he clearly expresses the true meaning of compassion through his tender statement about people whom he deems do not "deserve the pain" caused by the deaths of "stupid" people. Evidently, then, there are people who do deserve such pain. Please let us know exactly who these people are, Mr. Barnhart. Do I? Does anyone with whom you have a political disagreement? What about that irritating neighbor?
Jan 15, '07
It all comes down to this - No one has common sense any more because of our fear of using it in lieu of being arrested. That is why we have to legislate common sense in order to save us from ourselves.
Jan 15, '07
You know, we shouldn't confuse product safety with personal freedoms.
Big corporations are out for profit, and they tend not to think about consequences unless hit over the proverbial head with a 2 x 4. So, really "safe" carseats are the result of government intervention upon companies that sell carseats stating they are safe when in fact they are not. Fireproofing children's sleep wear is because callous companies made clothing that burned when you looked at it.
But going too far is going too far. I have always thought that if a behavior/act has no consequence on others - or very little - then live and let live. Having had three near misses in the last while with drivers talking on cell phones, I personally know that cell phone use in auto's does not fit that category. It's worse than drunk driving. When it comes to drunk driving, I avoid driving during the hours that bars/taverns close, and thereby avoid much of that mess. But cell phones - they can get you at any time of day.
As for riding on roof racks - well in the right circumstances it sounds like fun. Sure you can get hurt, but the words "hold on" do have meaning. As our society gets more restrictive on the behaviors allowed parents, I have noted that those restrictions are very aware of "class". Nearly every restriction put upon parents is costly and encumbering out of scale to poorer people. Locally, we had a women that was sent into court for a negligent murder charge by the local DA when her toddler escaped out of the house and drowned in a creek. That kid was an escape artist, but his single mother who worked a couple jobs had to sleep sometime. The local jury did not find her guilty - and that leaves me proud of our local people for their common sense.
Common sense - hmm? Is it being regulated out of existence?
Jan 15, '07
In today's world - common sense is an oxy-moron. Many times I have heard the phrase from unenlightened people "unless there is a law that says I can't do that, I will do that"
God help us all.
Jan 15, '07
Per Mr. Bucknum's comment, not using care seats etc. need not be just a matter of social class. A former neighbor of mine, a seemingly no-nonsense businessman, in my very middle-class neighborhood used to drive around in his pickup with his at-the-time kindergarten-age daughter in his lap. He would also perch the child on his bike handlebars and allow her to sit on 2nd flood window sills. I did my damnedest to keep my child of the same age away from this household. Sad but true.
Jan 15, '07
In Portland, when the Baby Boomer Generation was enrolled in the Portland Public Schools system, class sizes ranged from 30 to 40 students each, half-day kindergarten through high school. Classroom space was at a premium. Yet, Baby Boomers now head up large corporations, hold top elected offices and have been the backbone of today’s work force. Without a good education, these positions could not have been held. Now, when this generation is about to retire, many on fixed incomes, they are being asked to support primary grade classes that are a third the size of when they were in school, and smaller classes through out the education system. This is bunch of political claptrap. It is financial tax rape of the populous. While private industry is working towards getting more productivity from each worker, educators and politicians are working in the opposite direction. Instead of a seniority pay structure, if teacher’s pay was based on the number of students taught and producing results, class sizes would not even be an issue. The students coming out of school today already expect instant gratification and to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. Good work ethic is becoming a thing of the past. If small class sizes do become the norm, then too should yearly educational tax refunds to Oregon baby boomers who had to work through the rigor of larger class sizes to receive their education. Baby Boomers should not have to pay for what they never received.
Jan 15, '07
(Please forgive the totally off-topic post)
I find TR's comments to be most interesting, but I wonder if the T stands for Troll. On one hand, there's a claim that large class sizes turned out people who are business and government leaders, and on the other hand there's a claim that the same group is getting ready to retire on fixed incomes. To my mind, the problem is not that schools are over-funded, but rather that the fixed incomes are broken, and people can't live on them.
The point of paying to educate children is to help them become contributors to "society" (via financial and non-financial contributions), rather than become a drain on society. You're not paying for the education you received as a child, and you're not paying only for your children, you're paying to educate all children, because it's a societal responsibility, not just a personal one.
Jan 15, '07
Not to foist more fodder into this site's sometimes rancorous squabbles between libertarians and their discontents, but folks may be interested in reading Gary Becker and Richard Posner's recent blog posts on "Libertarian Paternalism."
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com
Mostly doesn't hurt to listen to a Nobel Laureate. Mostly.
Jan 15, '07
I read with interest the becker-posner link that Chris provided, and I had to laugh out loud.
First we create terminology, then we debate its meanings, then we point out the paradoxes of the terminology, and we vaguely link it to some human behavior that sort of fits what we are talking about, then we act as if being able to note a human behavior that fits the terminology adds validity to the whole thing, and then we pat ourselves on the back for being clever. I so love that academic approach to life!
Now, back to the real world ...
Jan 15, '07
I'll say this and get out of the way - no use taking over any more of the thread...
If the "academic approach" doesn't cut it and you want to take that view, cool.
I would be amiss to not speak up in at least Gary Becker's defense. I can't think of many other thinkers who have done so much to explain and understand "real world" human behavior in such a ranging and elegant fashion.
Sometimes pats on the back are self-aggrandizing gestures, while at other times they are very much well-deserved. Maybe the ivory tower isn't such a great place, but I've never known the trenches to be that fantastic either.
Jan 16, '07
My apologies for posting my remarks about school class sizes under this topic. It was meant to be posted one topic down and I have reposted it there.
As for Jeffk’s comments about T standing for “Troll” – T is also in “Tax” and the two seem to go together. Put another way, even with the abundance of revenue flowing into Salem, the “Tax Trolls” (the Gov included) are again circulating in the legislature to “take” more in taxes from the hard working people of this state
Jan 16, '07
I'm fascinated with lin qiao's comment because, try as I may, I cannot seem to find a thesis there, only a cranky rant about the way someone else rants. Fascinating.
The other thing I'm trying to figure out is this: The author doesn't seem to give any criteria by which to decide who the "smart" people are that presumably would make the rules. This hilarious exercise in navel gazing. that turns on anthropomorphizing an attribute "government" of the people collectively into a wise mother-father figure "the government", leads me to believe the author hasn't the slightest clue how to even approach the problem.
So I'm wondering how out of a population that largely consists of people like her and the "I don't need no gubberment" crowd she thinks we are magically going to have wisdom arise?
Jan 16, '07
What, no comments about banning trans-fats or smoking in Pioneer Square or the parks?
Jan 18, '07
Yo, check it out. What's stupid fly is this (http://www.mcdonalds.com.sg/?q=mcdelivery).
Mickey D's in Singapore delivers. That'd be nice in the sno; Oh, why do they hate us so...