On seat belts and other things of that ilk

My dear friend Sam and I were chatting this morning about various things in the world around us. The conversation went something like this.

me: users = bad
sam: NBA + David Stern = bad

This is not the middle of a conversation, this is how we start conversations with one another. This all swelled into a discussion about the concept of personal accountability.

See it seems more and more we have these hard and fast rules so that people don't actually have to think for themselves. The airport is a wonderful example of this. One jack ass tries to sneak a bomb on board a plane in his shoes and now we all have to take our shoes off every time we go to the airport. There is no leeway on this. This has also lead to things such as not being able to take things like wine tools or lighters on planes. This is absurd. I mean surely people are smart enough to decided what is truly dangerous and what is simply innocuous.

We see this everyday. I see it in the sports I watch, the restaurants/bars I frequent, and most certainly at work. We make all these silly hard and fast rules to remove any way for people to screw up. I certainly understand how you would not want to put someone in a position where they can fail, but do we really need to make the rules in such a way where there is no room for common sense to prevail?

Sam raised one of my favorite examples. We constantly hear about how Tennessee is starved for money, but we waste, what I can only guess are, millions of dollars on a campaign to let people know that you will get a ticket if you don't buckle your seat belt. Now, I understand these adds for maybe a year after the law was changed, but why in the name of God do we still need them? The other add that I find maddening is the add that points out that drinking and driving is a crime. Really? It is? I HAD NO IDEA!!!! We have to do these things so that people can't think for themselves. Well, I got some bad news for you. People who are going to drive drunk will not be convinced other wise by a million P.S.A.'s. Sorry just not happening.