From: paynter@bnr.ca (Stuart Paynter)
Subject: Re: Freedom, Social Responsibility, Individual Responsibility
Reply-To: paynter@bnr.ca (Stuart Paynter)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 13:15:23 GMT

I see that I have touched a nerve with this thought.  Let me explain 
what I mean further.



In article <1992Dec16.232200.12613@netcom.com>, tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec16.135700.1991@bmerh85.bnr.ca> paynter@bnr.ca (Stuart Paynter) writes:
|> 
|> >     - any people that may present when the accident occured
|> 
|> Exactly what has this to do with anything at all? Are you assuming that
|> you are somehow interfering with others if you are so rude as to be run
|> over when they're present?

   Let's say you crack you head wide open on the side of the road.  Wouldn't
   you want somebody to stop and help you.  If you were lying unconcious?
   I am not talking about offending someone's sensitivities.



|> 
|> >     - ambulance/paramedics/fire/police who have to come and patch
|> >       you up
|> 
|> For which they are suitably paid. In fact this is precisely the work
|> that keeps such employees on the payroll.
|> 
|> >     - hospital emergency staff
|> >     - hospital staff (doctors, nurses, orderlies, kitchen staff
|> >       etc etc) while you recover.
|> 
|> Same as above.

    And where exactly does the money come from to pay all these people?
    Do you know how much a trip to the hospital costs?  I doubt that your
    tax contribution alone over your lifetime would cover a single serious
    trip to the hospital.  Same for private medical insurance.  When costs
    rise for government/insurance companies increase, there is an increase
    for EVERY rate payer, not just the those who use it.

   

|> 
|> >     - any person who also needs the hospital bed you are occupying
|> >     - your (and/or your employers) medical insurance
|> >     - every other person on that medical insurance plan
|> >     - your FAMILY who worries about you
|> >     - your employer/customers while you are away from work
|> >     - lawyers/judges/court employees if there is a lawsuit
|> >
|> If I understand you correctly, you are saying that everything you do
|> reflects some effect on others. Well, this includes breathing which
|> uses air that could be more useful to people of higher caliber than
|> we lowly bicyclists. What about the toxins released into the atmosphere
|> by coal fired electrical generation? 

    Yep.  And the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, volcanos in the
    Phillipines, explosions in Russian nuclear plants........

|>  Are you telling us that a head
|> injury on a single bicylist can have greater effect than the normal
|> everyday hazards of living in modern civilization?

    Maybe to those who are involved.  Everything must be taken in context.

|> 
|> Such ideas are factitious and make one wonder what is going on in
|> the mind of those who expound them.
|> >


    Since you so politely asked, I will tell you.  I am not for or against
    legislated helmet laws.  There are direct and indirect effects for 
    every action that we take.  I have tried to illustrate both in the 
    above. There is a certain "duty of care" towards others when we do
    anything.  In most cases it may be negligible.  In other cases it
    may be legislated (laws).  We do not go around thinking "if I do 
    action X, it will have effect Y", but we move within a set of societal
    bounds which incorporate such ideas.

    All I was trying to point out was that saying that an action taken
    by an individual does not happen in isolation in our society.  There
    will always be some kind of direct or indirect effect.  I do not 
    envy those (gov't) who must decide whether those effects must be
    regulated in the form of legislation.  I, certainly, am not trying
    to pass judgement on such a decision in this forum.

    Now you know what's going on in my mind.
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