If you read the newspaper you will see stories of people electrocuting themselves with hair dryers in the bathtub. People fall off ladders, cut their selves while cooking. They burn themselves in a variety of ways. Children stick their fingers in light bulb sockets and get electrocuted. That is the way of things.

Over the years I have seen things that would amaze anyone. All the times I wish I could record my memories so others can share in the insanity of life and see what I have seen. You would be able to see women that have no hope of ever being attractive putting on makeup while driving 60MPH on the freeway, coming up to slow traffic slamming their brakes then yelling who knows what. I suspect blaming the world for their own stupidity thinking it every bodies fault but their own. Men holding up and reading the Wall Street Journal at daybreak driving at breakneck speeds to rush to get that stock trade in before the market opens. People driving after drinking weaving all over the road. That is a real problem. Of all the road fatalities last year how many were caused by drunk drivers? How many were caused by careless drivers? If you really care about life do something about that. Stop worrying about a few kids. In the big picture they are irrelevant.

Children don’t listen to parents. A screaming child will distract even the most patient parent. Just because they should be in the child seat (regardless of if it is installed properly) doesn’t mean you can keep them there all the time. The statistical probability of a child being injured the few times it isn’t in the proper restraints is very small. Society needs to stop trying to regulate everything. Give police / parents a little discretion. Don’t accuse them of manslaughter just because a few kids are hurt/killed because of an accident. Bring back some common sense to the world. Stop thinking your morals are superior to everyone else’s.

If we don’t stop the insanity of regulation now in just a few decades we won’t be able to live life. We will be doped up on drugs so we don’t have ANY emotion no love, hate, fear, joy, anything. Your kids won’t be allowed to climb a tree or swim in a river. You won’t be able to hike in the forest or enjoy loud music. Your life will be grey, from morning to night. You will only be a slave to the system. The second your child says an inappropriate statement it will be pulled out of class doped up even more and be subjected to electric shock therapy. It will be taken out of your custody and given to the state because you were a bad parent because your child said an inappropriate thing. The slightest infraction you make at work or in your home will remove all your privileges. The state will own your life, you will own nothing not even your own thoughts. You already lost your genes, they are owned by big companies like Celera and Genentech, and your proteins are being patented as you read this. The food you eat isn’t yours it is owned by a biotech that will sue you if you replant the seeds. Not that you should eat a tomato that has squid DNA, or corn that has a gene from a rat, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

All of this outrage over such an insignificant issue. Why does anyone care if government forced Toyota to come into compliance on a regulation? Toyota knew about the regulation before the vehicle was built. They chose to ignore it, and instead of everyone blaming Toyota for not designing a proper child restraint system into a pickup truck as if people should drive trucks for family cars they are complaining about the government. Trucks are work vehicles they are not for the family. If you want to have children buy a minivan or a sedan or a station wagon or even an environment killing SUV. A truck no matter what kind of cab is not a family vehicle. The government didn’t tell Toyota to disable the switch but not do anything to improve the safety. The government told Toyota to make the vehicle comply with regulations. Toyota had the choice to fix the truck anyway it chose. Toyota chose to make it less safe for small children in car seats. This should look bad for Toyota and everyone should go out and carry signs in front of Toyota dealers that say Child Killers.

For those of you who are thinking why we should force parents to not drive trucks it puts an undue burden on them if that is the only vehicle they have. My reply is that if they can’t afford a family vehicle they have no business starting a family. How will they afford the health care, the diapers, and the hospital stay for birthing? Why it is that society should be forced to bare the expenses and have another family on welfare just because someone couldn’t keep his zipper zipped.

My opinion is people have to bare the responsibility for their decisions. If they don’t have the money to give birth they do it like it was done a hundred years ago at home with your mom acting as a midwife. If people drive and don’t properly restrain their child and that child dies. If it is gross negligence charge them with manslaughter if it was simply an unfortunate accident from a one off situation society doesn’t need to punish them. They have to live knowing that they could have prevented that child’s death. Society doesn’t owe you anything. Our tax dollars are not for special interests and charity. Government is not supposed to micromanage individual choice. Laws should be created and enforced for issues dealing with society as a whole, such as if you drink and drive you go to jail. You don’t go to jail for having had alcohol you go to jail for putting the public safety at risk by driving in an impaired condition. Public drunkenness is another if you are simply drunk in public but not disrupting anyone no jail, but after you cross the line and start disrupting people you go to jail.

We don’t need a million laws. We need a few simple laws that are enforced. The first law should be personal responsibility. You are responsible for your actions. You can’t blame Hostess for making Twinkies have too much sugar or McDonalds for making french fries with fat. You ate it you killed someone or you got fat, it is your fault. You can’t blame tobacco for giving you lung cancer you smoked it, it is your fault. (Except for those people that started smoking because of health claims. If you create a product and claim it helps people’s health but it turns out to kill them it is that company’s responsibility for damages, and if employees of that company knowingly withheld information they are liable and should go to jail.)

I can go on and offend just about everyone because we all have things we think we are entitled to. The truth hurts, you are not the center of the universe society doesn’t owe you anything and we are going to force you to take responsibility for your own actions.

Start spreading the word.

If my truck is recalled I will refuse to have the switch removed. I believe I have enough smarts as to know when to disable the air bag. And to re-enable it.

I don’t have young children or babies but have friends who do.

I think that the problem with government regulation is that they usually regulate the wrong entity. If those statistics don’t alarm you like they do me, then this will be a moot point; but I can’t believe that NO government regulation at all will make matters worse. Children have NO SAY in the matter at all, and parents are entrusted to protect their saftey to the best of their abilities. If children cannot be trusted to protect themselves, their parents cannot be trusted to protect them, the manufactures of both motor vehicles and car seats don’t care about protecting them AND the government doesn’t want to protect them, then WHO WILL protect them?

Like I said before, under most circumstances I would agree with you all on less goverment regulation is best, but when it comes to issues of PREVENTABLE child death (for the most part… I’m not implying that I think children CAN’T die in a car accident), then I can’t believe that any GOOD AND CARING parent would complain about being “forced” to buy a car seat that CANNOT BE MOUNTED IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF A CAR! My 20 month old nephew is lucky to have two parents who put his saftey ahead of their own free will, but If they didn’t do that and I couldn’t “make” them, then I would be ESTATIC if the government MADE THEM DO IT then have to attend his funeral because nobody gave a damn.

But laws don’t make people much smarter. If they are going to defy the current law to hold a child in their lap in the front seat of a car, I have little hope that any further regulation is going to help much. Government regulation gets us strange things like the above which clearly is counter-productive.

I’d rather see such parents charged with homicide. One or two of those would smarten up the rest very fast. No further government regulation necessary.

Is this really the best way to correct this epidemic though? If parents have statistically proven time and time again that they can’t be trusted with the lives of their children, then the government MUST do it for them! What’s more important to us as a country… Knowing there are bad parents who’s ignorance caused the death of their children or hearing bad parents bitch and complain about how the government is telling them how to raise their children?

I’m being very serious about this… I am no longer willing to empathize with parents who claim ignorance as their excuse for the death of their child(ren). Let’s be totally realistic here… If the majority of child deaths in a car accident is the faulty logic of parents, then that is the ONLY thing that we should be focusing on. PERIOD. Nothing has yet been gained from allowing it to happen, right?

“Pickup trucks with passenger airbags and no “shut-off” switch and no back seat cannot safely transport babies under 1 YOA. Babies this age must ride rear-facing and always in the back seat; the front may only be used if there is no danger from an airbag.”

And “not properly restrained” often means not restrained at all…or sitting in a parent’s lap. Regardless of what system you use, it won’t change stupid people’s stupid habits. And if you are confused about your vehicle or your car seat, a quick stop at the police station will give you trained officers installing the thing for you. We had to do that with our Saturn because the seat belt just would not hold down the carseat which was built for the LATCH system our Saturn did not have.