I got a safety inspection and emissions check today. The State of Texas mandates that cars get a safety inspection and that cars in high pollution counties get an emissions test.
Government has the right to mandate people to do things in order to serve the public good. Government has that right even in Texas.
Liberals and progressives should not be hesitant to assert this fact.
A few fearful people will tell you that stuff like this starts us on the path to a totalitarian state.
Yet these same people use public roads, depend on the public fire department, visit the public library and draw Social Security.
These same folks in Texas get their cars checked each year. I don't hear them complaining.
We must be assertive in proclaiming the virtues of government.
A government that has a role to play in our lives is an extension of the trust we have in each other, and is reflective of our hopes for an ever more fair and inclusive society.
Either government is of, for, and by the people, or America is not a land of freedom
Elmo, my house wasn't in a flood area until some bureaucrat used a bad model to create a map. Too bad, so sad, pay the flood insurance. We might get a revised map in 10 years. Many of the houses placed in the flood plain after Allison were not in the flood plain when built, but ended up there through no fault of their own.
I agree that barrier islands should not be eligible for subsidized insurance.
Americans love to use the facilities built by their pooled resources (taxes). Libraries, streets and highways, city pools, city water systems, city sanitation systems for indoor plumbing, electricity (PUDs), hospitals, emergency services, armies and war toys, etc.
I can't help but note that it's the minimal or limited kindness of social programs for support during desperate times which some Americans rail against. Those social programs are actually insurance which those who paid in or gained as a benefit from work and through previous taxation are now collecting on. Why "eff" those fallen on hard times? Especially through no fault of their own?
I guess we could see what the nation would like if our taxes purchased only a military and give out subsidies, but, I don't like the implications of it. Let business get its loans from solvent private banks- if it can find some- and who needs a military just for securing oil when there's unlimited sun and wind for free?
I think some guy named Hobbes said something about that. It ended with "brutish and short". Another guy named Locke said the same thing. Of course, one has to read to learn I suppose (why the Sarah Palins continue to have us "trust thy neighbor")
If we could trust people to always the right thing we wouldn't need rules. That hasn't worked too well. GOTTA have rules. I HAVE to breathe the air YOUR car belches out if I am behind you at a stop light. So, (as they say) you're right to pollute the air stops at MY nose.
There are people who grouse about the safety and emissions inspections and insurance requirements as illegal intrusions into their right to drive what they want, where they want, and how they want. The Libertopian ideal says that the threat of being sued is enough to prevent people from driving uninsured. A moment's reflection reveals that the only people who are incentivized to buy insurance are those who can't afford to be sued while the rest of us, who have nothing, must have insurance so that we can't weasel out of our responsibilities when we drive and cause damage to others.
As far as I know, only the bank requires people to have flood insurance. This is like the bank requiring you to carry collision on your car while they have a financial interest in it. FEMA administers the flood insurance program, keeps the flood plane rate maps, and issues things like Letters of Map Amendment when they acknowledge that your house which has a base elevation 30 feet higher than other houses not in the flood plane shouldn't have been included in the flood plane rate map but the people who drew the lines couldn't read a topo map. The problem with federal flood insurance is that it subsidizes a completely avoidable risk -- there is no need to build in a flood plane or on a barrier island and those that do should be required to assume 100% of the risk on their own.
In all seriousness, the concept people don't get is that we pay one way or another. When you cut taxes or regulation on one thing then you pay down the road in another way. For example, cut education if you want but be prepared to build more prisons. Just like in that case, the alternative is usually worse.
No, those pesky DOT rules prevent that. For some reason they don't think I should do my job while I'm all high :)
marijuana smoker, huh... :O)
This thought occurred to me AND forgive me if I offend anyone with its presentation.
As an 'other' in America I trust the government to treat me more fairly than I do the private citizen. Sometimes it seems that neither is willing to extend fairness but at least when the government screws me they're not staring me in the face. I think the mainstream 'I want mine first' crowd would by definition as 'not other' hold the opposite sentiment quite vociferously. It's kind of simple but it makes sense to me. Is there anyway to bridge that chasm in perception? The starting point, in my opinion anyway, is an inner nature that is not suffuse with personal greed.
I see your point but I don’t think we are made to keep our inspection stickers up to date. Its more of a condition of legally operating a motor vehicle than a mandate. We have the choice of using alternate forms of transportation.
Desperado wrote a really good piece about salt a while back and I can totally agree with his position.
http://dailyhurricane.com/2010/04/fda-stay-away-from-my-salt.html
Laws and mandates that protect the public are great, so long as they are within reason, but laws that protect me from myself, not so much.
I know quite a few people that complain about their property taxes going up, then complain about there not being enough cops on the streets, the schools not having enough resources, etc. Not quite sure how they think things like that are going to get paid for.
All the complaining about being forced to purchase (affordable) healthcare during the creation and subsequent compromising (I haven't forgotten about that you weak ass Dem politicians) was ridiculous. We have to buy auto insurance for the greater good. We have to purchase flood insurance for the greater good (not just for the banks- I don't want an empty damaged house next door to me because the owner couldn't afford the cost of repair after a flood). I think anyone that CAN afford insurance, but doesn't purchase it because they don't think anything will happen to them (**cough** 23-35 year olds **cough**) should be excluded from utilizing the ER's in case of accident, violent attack, illness, etc. If they CAN afford to pay into the pool, but don't want to, eff 'em.
*sigh* went off on another one of my rants.
I am tired of hearing people complain about what a burden welfare recipients are on our economy and last I checked it was around 3%.