The agitprop arm of the insurance mafia – the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety – “shared” (in the mewly Leftist-speak that has replaced proper English) a video that “clarifies” the “importance of a properly adjusted car seat head restraint.” You know, those rearward-vision-obscuring things perched atop every car seat now, in the interests of “safety.”
Which is an interesting thing in that a hypothetical benefit is imposed (these head restraints are required, which is to say we’re effectively forced to buy them) at the cost of an objective detriment. That being what you can no longer see as clearly behind and even to the side of you, which almost certainly increases the chances of not seeing it – and so running into or backing up into it.
Of course, the idea is that when someone else runs into you from behind, you’ll be less likely to experience a whiplash injury. And that may be so.
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But what’s interesting, from a moral-philosophical point-of-view, is that the weighing and deciding of cost-vs.-benefit is not ours to make. If we lived in a free country – note that one almost never hears that said anymore – emancipated adult humans would have the freedom to decide for themselves whether it is “safer” to be able to see what’s behind them – and on either side of them – or “safer” to have that view restricted for the sake of their head being restrained in the event they’re hit from behind.
Of course, we do not live in a free country – a fact established by the fact that adults are not emancipated. They are regarded as the idiot children – in perpetuity – of their “parents” in government, who know best and decide best. These deciders have decided it is better to have super-tall, whiplash-ameliorating headrests for just-in-case (and never mind what it costs and never mind what you want) than it is to be able to see what’s behind you and on either side of you.
But then, the real motive here is not to parent us so much as it is to infantilize us. It’s an important distinction. Children eventually grow up and become emancipated adults. American adults are never allowed to grow up much less be emancipated.
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Americans – many of whom no longer have any understanding of what a “free country” is like, having been born too late to experience what it was like when America was still at least plausibly kinda-sorta free – have grown up accepting and even wanting to be treated as if they were idiot children. They have absorbed the ridiculous notion that government-knows-best, which is ridiculous because it is based on a faulty premise.
If people are too dumb to know what’s best, what of the people who constitute the government? They are rarely the best and brightest. But they are insufferably “concerned” – and have acquired the power to assert their “concerns.”
That is how it came to pass that you had to pay for seat belts in a new car, if you wanted to buy a new car. Within just a few years of that happening, you had to wear them – and if you didn’t, you could be punished – just like a little kid in school who gets spanked for disobedience. It is interesting to take note of the fact that actual kids are no longer spanked, as that is considered abuse. But emancipated adults are spanked – and worse – if they balk when ordered to “buck up” for “safety.”
