It always amazes me that people seem so unwilling to respect the choices of others. Two examples appeared today in two separate newspapers of the total lack of regard for personal responsibility.
In the Chronicle Herald we have the classic example of experts lobbying the government to force adults to wear helmets when on bikes.
In the Ottawa Citizen we have Health Canada looking into more regulation for caffeine and alcohol mixed drinks.
Do we really need the government to tell us what we should drink and what we have to put on our head?
Yes we will be safer with a helmet, and yes caffeine and alcohol together is a combination that a friend of mine once described (in the morning) as being ‘deadly.’ But still isn’t that our personal business?
I doubt that there is an adult out there who is unaware of the risks involved in biking without a helmet or consuming the ‘deadly brew.’ So if somebody makes the decision to accept the risk for whatever reward he/she perceives, isn’t that really his/her own choice? Wouldn’t it be his/her own fault if he/she gets his/her head smashed in?
By allowing the government to make this sort of decision for us, we are giving up our responsibility for own actions. We are sacrificing the very thing that makes us adults and full members of society. We are becoming nothing but a nation of wards of the state.
