HAIL TO THE CHIEF!

And that my folks is the final word on this subject!

as long as there are paranoid schizophrenicks, the thread may die, but the topic will live on

One thing to keep in mind, John Stossel is a libertarian. I tend to lean that way myself politically too, but he's probably trying to make a backdoor case for making the government stop regulating something that only affects ME directly. In other words, if my actions can only harm myself then it's not the governments job to keep me from doing stupid things. There's an argument either way, I just think it clarifies the issue.

What the heck this post is alive yet.

I agree with you, I think that we should have the choice as to whether or not to wear seatbelts or helmets-I choose to do both whether the law was there or not. It's the same with smoking, I choose not to smoke but I don't agree with San Diego and outlawing smoking anywhere including your home! Or Ohio saying truckers can't smoke in their trucks because that's a place of business?! But the government has this warped sense of reality that they think it's their job to babyset us, while they get away with not practicing what they preach. I understand that smoking, drinking, not wearing helmets or seatbelts cause insurance companies a huge financial burden so why not just tax the crap out of that stuff? It's funny that the government wants to regulate that kind of thing yet they don't seem to care that 98% of the poor people on welfare and other government assistance play lotteries all over America, wasting billions of dollars for the hope of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow while their families starve because their money got spent on Lottery tics. Lottery playing has cost the poor more money then drinking, smoking, seatbelts and helmets have cost insurance companies! I see poor people at grocery stores all the time paying for food with food stamps then buy $20 or more in lotto tics and they do this every week. One poor person in this town wallpapered their bedroom inside of their subsidized apartment with their used lotto tics!! Then this lotto money is suppose to go to schools but little makes it there, so our city has to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to pay for new school buildings, but thats another story that involves more then that.