Banning Loud Pipes?
#1012
11-07-2015 | 10:14 AM
Grand HDF Member
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 3,732
Likes: 193
From: Boise, ID
#1013
11-07-2015 | 10:22 AM
Seasoned HDF Member
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 149,460
Likes: 50,227
From: Southeast Michigan 15 Minutes East Of Hell
I guess you are correct....we could easily prevent head injuries by never leaving our homes. If you think wearing a helmet easily prevents a head injury you have done zero (0, zilch, nada) research on helmets and crashes. Do they help? Sure. Do they stop head injuries entirely? Not hardly.
Try finding out how many head injuries happen in California every year. They have a helmet law in place, so the numbers should be very, very low. Pretty much nonexistent according to your opinion.
Giving up freedoms never has equated to more freedoms reserved. I asked you to cite a single instance when losing a freedom by accepting a law that hinders our freedom. I noticed you not only did not cite one, but also edited that question out of my quote. Just in case it was a mistake I ask you again....
Try finding out how many head injuries happen in California every year. They have a helmet law in place, so the numbers should be very, very low. Pretty much nonexistent according to your opinion.
Giving up freedoms never has equated to more freedoms reserved. I asked you to cite a single instance when losing a freedom by accepting a law that hinders our freedom. I noticed you not only did not cite one, but also edited that question out of my quote. Just in case it was a mistake I ask you again....
#1014
11-07-2015 | 07:51 PM
Seasoned HDF Member
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 5,242
Likes: 570
From: Vegas, baby!
I see you still refuse to give an example of giving up a freedom to gain more freedoms.
You are the only person who believes in this concept. What you are failing to understand is if you beg the government to cross the line, not only will they have crossed said line but will cross all other lines as well. You think they will be happy with just helmet laws and just leave motorcyclist alone? Give an inch and take a mile....
You are the only person who believes in this concept. What you are failing to understand is if you beg the government to cross the line, not only will they have crossed said line but will cross all other lines as well. You think they will be happy with just helmet laws and just leave motorcyclist alone? Give an inch and take a mile....
When I began riding in 1968 Nevada had a helmet law in place. But it only applied to people under 18. Although I was under 18, I rarely wore a helmet. For a bit of irony, when I went to register for my first classes at UNLV in 1971, I wore a helmet and nicer clothes then I usually wore because I wanted to look more presentable. On the way home, while traveling down a narrow two lane road bounded by open desert, I had an accident when a 6 foot long fence plank flew off a rack over the bed of a truck I was meeting, floated over unto my lane, and bounced off my helmet. But I digress.
Now a little civics lesson: In 1972, Nevada's governor wanted to stop head injuries and deaths of motorcycle riders, so he unilaterally enacted a stronger helmet law. Said law could have been overridden by the state legislature but it wasn't. And the Nevada Supreme Court could have declared it unconstitutional, but it didn't. I, like a lot of riders was incensed. Over the years I began to realize a few things.
A chief executive, or a member of a legislative body and a few cohorts, can enact laws some people, even most people, don't want. Said laws can be, but might not be, overturned at a later date. For example, none of the Governors since the helmet law was passed have seen fit to remove it. Neither have any subsequent legislative bodies or supreme courts. There have been a few attempts by citizen groups and legislators to get rid of the law, none were successful. The same logic can apply to other state, even the federal, governments. I don't know about you, but I can envision far worse things then merely having to wear a helmet, especially if otherwise easily preventable head injuries expedites the creation of worse laws.
Last edited by rjg883c; 11-07-2015 at 07:57 PM.
#1015
11-07-2015 | 11:47 PM
Grand HDF Member
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 3,732
Likes: 193
From: Boise, ID
I have never suggested "giving up a freedom to gain more freedoms". That would be silly. But you have somehow convinced yourself of that so there is no reason to continue this debate. I'll just make a couple more comments, then leave this silly debate.
When I began riding in 1968 Nevada had a helmet law in place. But it only applied to people under 18. Although I was under 18, I rarely wore a helmet. For a bit of irony, when I went to register for my first classes at UNLV in 1971, I wore a helmet and nicer clothes then I usually wore because I wanted to look more presentable. On the way home, while traveling down a narrow two lane road bounded by open desert, I had an accident when a 6 foot long fence plank flew off a rack over the bed of a truck I was meeting, floated over unto my lane, and bounced off my helmet. But I digress.
Now a little civics lesson: In 1972, Nevada's governor wanted to stop head injuries and deaths of motorcycle riders, so he unilaterally enacted a stronger helmet law. Said law could have been overridden by the state legislature but it wasn't. And the Nevada Supreme Court could have declared it unconstitutional, but it didn't. I, like a lot of riders was incensed. Over the years I began to realize a few things.
A chief executive, or a member of a legislative body and a few cohorts, can enact laws some people, even most people, don't want. Said laws can be, but might not be, overturned at a later date. For example, none of the Governors since the helmet law was passed have seen fit to remove it. Neither have any subsequent legislative bodies or supreme courts. There have been a few attempts by citizen groups and legislators to get rid of the law, none were successful. The same logic can apply to other state, even the federal, governments. I don't know about you, but I can envision far worse things then merely having to wear a helmet, especially if otherwise easily preventable head injuries expedites the creation of worse laws.
When I began riding in 1968 Nevada had a helmet law in place. But it only applied to people under 18. Although I was under 18, I rarely wore a helmet. For a bit of irony, when I went to register for my first classes at UNLV in 1971, I wore a helmet and nicer clothes then I usually wore because I wanted to look more presentable. On the way home, while traveling down a narrow two lane road bounded by open desert, I had an accident when a 6 foot long fence plank flew off a rack over the bed of a truck I was meeting, floated over unto my lane, and bounced off my helmet. But I digress.
Now a little civics lesson: In 1972, Nevada's governor wanted to stop head injuries and deaths of motorcycle riders, so he unilaterally enacted a stronger helmet law. Said law could have been overridden by the state legislature but it wasn't. And the Nevada Supreme Court could have declared it unconstitutional, but it didn't. I, like a lot of riders was incensed. Over the years I began to realize a few things.
A chief executive, or a member of a legislative body and a few cohorts, can enact laws some people, even most people, don't want. Said laws can be, but might not be, overturned at a later date. For example, none of the Governors since the helmet law was passed have seen fit to remove it. Neither have any subsequent legislative bodies or supreme courts. There have been a few attempts by citizen groups and legislators to get rid of the law, none were successful. The same logic can apply to other state, even the federal, governments. I don't know about you, but I can envision far worse things then merely having to wear a helmet, especially if otherwise easily preventable head injuries expedites the creation of worse laws.
So the "excuse" for making a helmet law is because they wish to prevent head injuries. Do you really think they will stop at that? They will find another thing that they need to "protect" us from...then another...and another...until all our freedoms are gone.
According to some people here if you support helmet laws that will never happen....
Last edited by ChickinOnaChain; 11-08-2015 at 04:54 PM.
#1016
11-08-2015 | 09:16 AM
Cruiser
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 155
Likes: 0
What is interesting about this thread is that it might only be in America that the two cases, loud pipes and helmets, would so seamlessly be tangled together in the same discussion.
Writing to you from Australia (subscribed to thread, it seems, from my time (17yrs) in Canada), we are with you on the loud pipes but not the helmets. Everyone wears a helmet and you rarely hear any bleating about it. But we all hate the Australian governments' writing into law, via "standards", a ban on pipes above 94 decibel. Most of us flaunt the law and plenty pay fines, increasing the disgust.
Why the difference? I suspect it is because America is dominated by just one conception of liberty whereas Australia has a mixed tradition.
Using Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty, negative is the absence of outside interference and positive is the presence of internal guidance. Negative liberty applied to both pipes and helmets implies that in each case the injustice of any interference in choice is equally accessible to all. In pipes, sure; it's a no brainier that legislating against loud pipes is to arbitrarily apply punitive State action against one noise source in a noisy society. Why punish the biker and not the lawn mower? No reason except bad ones of profiling or profiteering.
But is the warrant for mandating helmets, a species of positive liberty because one finds the presence of a justification for State action to align the individual with collective standards or preferences of some kind, equally accessible to all? Can we so easily presume, in the helmet case, that autonomous self-realization can occur minus broader guidance? I think most, if they reflect on it, would see that the arguments can get complex. Does a helmetlrss rider encourage unsafe practices in the younger impressionable crowd who also lacks that experienced riders skill? Are there safety benefits? And cost benefits via decreased medical? And so on. There are many arguments in this thread against pro-helmet answers to those questions.
But my point is different. My point is whether the helmet case should be so easily assimilated to the pipes case, as each instances where negative liberty arguments are obvious. I suspect that does a disservice to the complexity of the issue.
Put differently, if you're not going to wear a helmet, is it truly sufficient to just cite some negative liberty line? If you say yes, but you also bother to engage in debate about the merits of the pro-helmet law, it might actually be that you're thereby implicitly agreeing to the need to debate helmets as an instance where positive liberty applies. In which case, make a new thread! Because negative liberty so clearly applies to pipes and can be put to bed! But helmets is a positive liberty question.
Writing to you from Australia (subscribed to thread, it seems, from my time (17yrs) in Canada), we are with you on the loud pipes but not the helmets. Everyone wears a helmet and you rarely hear any bleating about it. But we all hate the Australian governments' writing into law, via "standards", a ban on pipes above 94 decibel. Most of us flaunt the law and plenty pay fines, increasing the disgust.
Why the difference? I suspect it is because America is dominated by just one conception of liberty whereas Australia has a mixed tradition.
Using Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty, negative is the absence of outside interference and positive is the presence of internal guidance. Negative liberty applied to both pipes and helmets implies that in each case the injustice of any interference in choice is equally accessible to all. In pipes, sure; it's a no brainier that legislating against loud pipes is to arbitrarily apply punitive State action against one noise source in a noisy society. Why punish the biker and not the lawn mower? No reason except bad ones of profiling or profiteering.
But is the warrant for mandating helmets, a species of positive liberty because one finds the presence of a justification for State action to align the individual with collective standards or preferences of some kind, equally accessible to all? Can we so easily presume, in the helmet case, that autonomous self-realization can occur minus broader guidance? I think most, if they reflect on it, would see that the arguments can get complex. Does a helmetlrss rider encourage unsafe practices in the younger impressionable crowd who also lacks that experienced riders skill? Are there safety benefits? And cost benefits via decreased medical? And so on. There are many arguments in this thread against pro-helmet answers to those questions.
But my point is different. My point is whether the helmet case should be so easily assimilated to the pipes case, as each instances where negative liberty arguments are obvious. I suspect that does a disservice to the complexity of the issue.
Put differently, if you're not going to wear a helmet, is it truly sufficient to just cite some negative liberty line? If you say yes, but you also bother to engage in debate about the merits of the pro-helmet law, it might actually be that you're thereby implicitly agreeing to the need to debate helmets as an instance where positive liberty applies. In which case, make a new thread! Because negative liberty so clearly applies to pipes and can be put to bed! But helmets is a positive liberty question.
#1017
11-08-2015 | 09:20 AM
Stellar HDF Member
Joined: Feb 2013
Posts: 2,482
Likes: 1,138
From: SW Missouri
What is interesting about this thread is that it might only be in America that the two cases, loud pipes and helmets, would so seamlessly be tangled together in the same discussion.
Writing to you from Australia (subscribed to thread, it seems, from my time (17yrs) in Canada), we are with you on the loud pipes but not the helmets. Everyone wears a helmet and you rarely hear any bleating about it. But we all hate the Australian governments' writing into law, via "standards", a ban on pipes above 94 decibel. Most of us flaunt the law and plenty pay fines, increasing the disgust.
Why the difference? I suspect it is because America is dominated by just one conception of liberty whereas Australia has a mixed tradition.
Using Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty, negative is the absence of outside interference and positive is the presence of internal guidance. Negative liberty applied to both pipes and helmets implies that in each case the injustice of any interference in choice is equally accessible to all. In pipes, sure; it's a no brainier that legislating against loud pipes is to arbitrarily apply punitive State action against one noise source in a noisy society. Why punish the biker and not the lawn mower? No reason except bad ones of profiling or profiteering.
But is the warrant for mandating helmets, a species of positive liberty because one finds the presence of a justification for State action to align the individual with collective standards or preferences of some kind, equally accessible to all? Can we so easily presume, in the helmet case, that autonomous self-realization can occur minus broader guidance? I think most, if they reflect on it, would see that the arguments can get complex. Does a helmetlrss rider encourage unsafe practices in the younger impressionable crowd who also lacks that experienced riders skill? Are there safety benefits? And cost benefits via decreased medical? And so on. There are many arguments in this thread against pro-helmet answers to those questions.
But my point is different. My point is whether the helmet case should be so easily assimilated to the pipes case, as each instances where negative liberty arguments are obvious. I suspect that does a disservice to the complexity of the issue.
Put differently, if you're not going to wear a helmet, is it truly sufficient to just cite some negative liberty line? If you say yes, but you also bother to engage in debate about the merits of the pro-helmet law, it might actually be that you're thereby implicitly agreeing to the need to debate helmets as an instance where positive liberty applies. In which case, make a new thread! Because negative liberty so clearly applies to pipes and can be put to bed! But helmets is a positive liberty question.
Writing to you from Australia (subscribed to thread, it seems, from my time (17yrs) in Canada), we are with you on the loud pipes but not the helmets. Everyone wears a helmet and you rarely hear any bleating about it. But we all hate the Australian governments' writing into law, via "standards", a ban on pipes above 94 decibel. Most of us flaunt the law and plenty pay fines, increasing the disgust.
Why the difference? I suspect it is because America is dominated by just one conception of liberty whereas Australia has a mixed tradition.
Using Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty, negative is the absence of outside interference and positive is the presence of internal guidance. Negative liberty applied to both pipes and helmets implies that in each case the injustice of any interference in choice is equally accessible to all. In pipes, sure; it's a no brainier that legislating against loud pipes is to arbitrarily apply punitive State action against one noise source in a noisy society. Why punish the biker and not the lawn mower? No reason except bad ones of profiling or profiteering.
But is the warrant for mandating helmets, a species of positive liberty because one finds the presence of a justification for State action to align the individual with collective standards or preferences of some kind, equally accessible to all? Can we so easily presume, in the helmet case, that autonomous self-realization can occur minus broader guidance? I think most, if they reflect on it, would see that the arguments can get complex. Does a helmetlrss rider encourage unsafe practices in the younger impressionable crowd who also lacks that experienced riders skill? Are there safety benefits? And cost benefits via decreased medical? And so on. There are many arguments in this thread against pro-helmet answers to those questions.
But my point is different. My point is whether the helmet case should be so easily assimilated to the pipes case, as each instances where negative liberty arguments are obvious. I suspect that does a disservice to the complexity of the issue.
Put differently, if you're not going to wear a helmet, is it truly sufficient to just cite some negative liberty line? If you say yes, but you also bother to engage in debate about the merits of the pro-helmet law, it might actually be that you're thereby implicitly agreeing to the need to debate helmets as an instance where positive liberty applies. In which case, make a new thread! Because negative liberty so clearly applies to pipes and can be put to bed! But helmets is a positive liberty question.
#1018
11-08-2015 | 09:38 AM
Seasoned HDF Member
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 149,460
Likes: 50,227
From: Southeast Michigan 15 Minutes East Of Hell
What is interesting about this thread is that it might only be in America that the two cases, loud pipes and helmets, would so seamlessly be tangled together in the same discussion.
Writing to you from Australia (subscribed to thread, it seems, from my time (17yrs) in Canada), we are with you on the loud pipes but not the helmets. Everyone wears a helmet and you rarely hear any bleating about it. But we all hate the Australian governments' writing into law, via "standards", a ban on pipes above 94 decibel. Most of us flaunt the law and plenty pay fines, increasing the disgust.
Why the difference? I suspect it is because America is dominated by just one conception of liberty whereas Australia has a mixed tradition.
Using Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty, negative is the absence of outside interference and positive is the presence of internal guidance. Negative liberty applied to both pipes and helmets implies that in each case the injustice of any interference in choice is equally accessible to all. In pipes, sure; it's a no brainier that legislating against loud pipes is to arbitrarily apply punitive State action against one noise source in a noisy society. Why punish the biker and not the lawn mower? No reason except bad ones of profiling or profiteering.
But is the warrant for mandating helmets, a species of positive liberty because one finds the presence of a justification for State action to align the individual with collective standards or preferences of some kind, equally accessible to all? Can we so easily presume, in the helmet case, that autonomous self-realization can occur minus broader guidance? I think most, if they reflect on it, would see that the arguments can get complex. Does a helmetlrss rider encourage unsafe practices in the younger impressionable crowd who also lacks that experienced riders skill? Are there safety benefits? And cost benefits via decreased medical? And so on. There are many arguments in this thread against pro-helmet answers to those questions.
But my point is different. My point is whether the helmet case should be so easily assimilated to the pipes case, as each instances where negative liberty arguments are obvious. I suspect that does a disservice to the complexity of the issue.
Put differently, if you're not going to wear a helmet, is it truly sufficient to just cite some negative liberty line? If you say yes, but you also bother to engage in debate about the merits of the pro-helmet law, it might actually be that you're thereby implicitly agreeing to the need to debate helmets as an instance where positive liberty applies. In which case, make a new thread! Because negative liberty so clearly applies to pipes and can be put to bed! But helmets is a positive liberty question.
Writing to you from Australia (subscribed to thread, it seems, from my time (17yrs) in Canada), we are with you on the loud pipes but not the helmets. Everyone wears a helmet and you rarely hear any bleating about it. But we all hate the Australian governments' writing into law, via "standards", a ban on pipes above 94 decibel. Most of us flaunt the law and plenty pay fines, increasing the disgust.
Why the difference? I suspect it is because America is dominated by just one conception of liberty whereas Australia has a mixed tradition.
Using Isaiah Berlin's distinction between negative and positive liberty, negative is the absence of outside interference and positive is the presence of internal guidance. Negative liberty applied to both pipes and helmets implies that in each case the injustice of any interference in choice is equally accessible to all. In pipes, sure; it's a no brainier that legislating against loud pipes is to arbitrarily apply punitive State action against one noise source in a noisy society. Why punish the biker and not the lawn mower? No reason except bad ones of profiling or profiteering.
But is the warrant for mandating helmets, a species of positive liberty because one finds the presence of a justification for State action to align the individual with collective standards or preferences of some kind, equally accessible to all? Can we so easily presume, in the helmet case, that autonomous self-realization can occur minus broader guidance? I think most, if they reflect on it, would see that the arguments can get complex. Does a helmetlrss rider encourage unsafe practices in the younger impressionable crowd who also lacks that experienced riders skill? Are there safety benefits? And cost benefits via decreased medical? And so on. There are many arguments in this thread against pro-helmet answers to those questions.
But my point is different. My point is whether the helmet case should be so easily assimilated to the pipes case, as each instances where negative liberty arguments are obvious. I suspect that does a disservice to the complexity of the issue.
Put differently, if you're not going to wear a helmet, is it truly sufficient to just cite some negative liberty line? If you say yes, but you also bother to engage in debate about the merits of the pro-helmet law, it might actually be that you're thereby implicitly agreeing to the need to debate helmets as an instance where positive liberty applies. In which case, make a new thread! Because negative liberty so clearly applies to pipes and can be put to bed! But helmets is a positive liberty question.
#1019
11-08-2015 | 11:18 AM
Road Master
Joined: Sep 2015
Posts: 1,049
Likes: 690
From: Headland, AL
I can tell you exactly why in the case of CA's helmet law. Because Gov. Wilson was a lying sack of crap, that's why. He actually came out and spoke to tens of thousands of us who had congregated on the State House mall on Saturday before the Monday ceremony that he promised would be a veto-signing ceremony instead of what it actually was; a bill-signing ceremony. Granted, most of us were overly-trusting of a proven-many-times-before snake in the grass, but it was a lesson that prompted me at least to never be a sheep trusting the tyrannical shepherd again. It's a shame that so many sheep still refuse to learn the same lesson.
I can also tell you why there's a helmet law in Alabama where I've lived for the last 23 years, but it doesn't matter. Your question wasn't sincerely looking for knowledgeable or well thought-out answers. You apparently believe the tripe that the shepherd feeds you that the shepherd is sincerely concerned about your noggin. You fulfill your nature more clearly with each succeeding post.
Blues
#1020
11-08-2015 | 11:37 AM
Road Master
Joined: Sep 2015
Posts: 1,049
Likes: 690
From: Headland, AL