Is Stupidity Killing America’s Productivity
March 21, 2007 · Print This Article
When a society makes it a huge priority to protect people from their own stupidity, it will eventually grind to a slow bureaucratic halt. I have to show my ID to buy Sudafed, spray paint or glue because someone has decided I might use these items to do something stupid. However, I can buy bullets without an ID.
When it comes to the safety of society as a whole, I’m much more concerned about a couple lunatics running around with an unlimited supply of bullets than teenagers armed with nasal decongestant and super glue. Yes I know that teenagers can use those items to make drugs, get high, and glue all their fingers together. Using drugs can cause permanent brain damage–but seriously, with all the anti-drug education, if they don’t realize doing drugs is dangerous, don’t they have some type of damage already?
If things continue, we will eventually have to show an ID to buy almost
anything. If you try you can come up with dangerous uses for just about
anything.
- Supersoaker Water Gun - Could be filled with dangerous chemicals and sprayed in people’s eyes.
- Bleach - See item number one.
- Disposable Camera - The flash mechanism has a capacitor capable of delivering a shock of 300 volts. (I know this from experience)
- Hair Dryer, Toaster, Electric Drill, Coffee Mug Warmer - If you drop any of these in your bath water…goodbye cruel world.
- Rope - Could be used to hang yourself.
- Coffee Mug - Could be filled with boiling hot water and thrown at someone.
- Computer and Internet - Could be used to read this list.
- Telephone - Could be used to call and taunt a bully who comes over with a super soaker full of bleach and sprays in you in the face.
Lets try to protect the weaker people in our society, but not at the
expense of choosing a path where everyone is eventually protected from
doing just about anything.
I know a farmer who is a very intelligent no-nonsense type of person.
He felt that all of the warning labels were contributing to a decline
in human IQ. He felt that if warning labels were the only thing
preventing you from: raising a running lawnmower over your head,
ironing your clothes while you were wearing them, or trying to cram
someone into a clothes dryer, your genetics would probably do more
damage than benefit to the human gene pool.
I’m not saying we should just remove all the warning labels and let the
cards fall where they may, but I think we need to look down the road 30
years and think about the logical outcome of where we are currently
headed as a society. We may be hampering our growth in productivity and
technological advances by spending too much time trying to legislate
common sense.
This has been going on for a long, long time. I call it the “victicrat” culture, or the “monetization of the victim”.
Once lawyers started to realize that Leftwards-leaning judges and communities (i.e., juries) would extend the limits of ‘wrongful damage’ suits, these suits became more common, more lucrative, and have now been taken to absurd extremes.
Once you start to believe that the bad things that happen to you aren’t your fault, it becomes easier to swallow the concept that NOTHING that happens to you is your fault, yet someone else must be held accountable, and should pay. Now we find ourselves in the paradoxical situation of any given individual not being responsible for personal decisions that affect what happens to that particular individual, yet that individual is held fiscally (or perhaps criminally)responsible for personal decisions made by others, over whom the original individual has no control.
Example: you spill hot coffee on yourself while driving - of course it is not your fault, it is the fault of the vendor who made the coffee so hot.