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It’s All About Respect   (Will They Police The Obese?)

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Treating people with respect is one of the cornerstones of our civilization.  And most of us do a pretty good job of it in our normal, everyday lives.  We may disapprove of the choices other people make in their lives, but we respect their right to make mistakes and to suffer the consequences.  If someone we care about wastes money, is promiscuous, or engages in other behavior we think is unhealthy or unwise, we might try to persuade him to act differently, but we do not get out our guns and force him to do what we think is best.  This tolerant, respectful approach has, in the past, been summarized very well by school children who responded to playground bullies with phrases such as "Mind your own business", or "It's a free country; you can't make me!"

But, as tolerant and respectful as we may be in our private lives, we frequently take exactly the opposite approach when it comes to government. Instead of respecting other people's preferences, and instead of trying to persuade, many of us vote with the intention of forcing others to do things our way. We may use government to forcibly extract other people’s money to spend as we think best, or to pass laws to punish them for smoking, or to pass laws to require them to wear their seatbelts.  In all these situations, we are acting with great intolerance and lack of respect for our fellow citizens.  We seem to have forgotten those old schoolyard phrases of "Mind your own business" and "It's a free country; you can't make me!" and have ourselves become the bullies.

Following are recent letters to and from my elected official reflecting our very different views on the subject of government as bully:

1.         Dear Elected Official -

I am very disappointed in your vote to allow police to arrest drivers for failing to wear their seatbelts.  I did not elect you to be my nanny. While I wear my seatbelt all the time and require those riding in my car to wear theirs as well, I should be free to do as I please.  Whether or not I wear my seatbelt does not increase or decrease the safety of other drivers on the road, and therefore it should be none of the government's business.  If this becomes law, I will be at greater risk of injury from the rubberneckers and  traffic problems that will be created when police stop someone for a seatbelt violation!

Bad call on your part.

Resa
 

2.         Dear Resa –

Thank you, and I understand that.  I went into the session planning to vote against this bill.  For two hours I listened to the floor debate, and although I am aware of the problems that could be caused by this, the testimony favoring it was much greater.  It is already the law, and if we can save some lives I guess we should.  I was the last person to vote, and when I saw that my vote would not change the out come, I just thought it was the right thing to do.  I sorry we disagree on this one. 

Elected Official

 

3.         Dear Elected Official –

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think the principle involved here is extremely important. If you think your job is to protect us from ourselves, then there is no logical limit to the controls you can put on us, using police with guns to make sure we live as you think best.  I guess the next step will be that the fat police will follow us around to be sure we eat only healthy foods, the floss police will check to make sure we are
practicing good dental hygiene, and, eventually, you will have us all living in little padded cells so we can't fall down or run into a wall and get hurt. And, if we refuse to go along, then we get shot by the police.  After all, it's all done in our best interest!

You forget that you are supposed to treat us with respect, not treat us as little children who need to be controlled by you because we are too stupid to run our own lives.  Don't forget that we stupid masses, who you apparently think are too dumb to make decisions for ourselves, are the ones who elected you.  If you continue to act as if we are too dumb to run our
own lives, then, the next time we get a chance to vote, we may decide to become smarter!

Resa

 

4.         Dear Resa –

I am sincerely hurt to think that you believe I would cast a vote because you are dumb.  I am put into a position to cast several hundred votes every time we are in session.  I try hard to weigh all sides of an issue.  Yes, some of my votes may not be acceptable to you, but some I make that you agree with are not acceptable to others.  I spent hours listening to the arguments on this.  As an attorney, surely you understand that.  This is
what your profession is all about.  I hope the next vote will sit better with you and your readers. 

5.  Dear Elected Official –

I appreciate it when you vote in favor of individual liberty, as you did in the VET issue.  However, your vote to give police the right to arrest us if we fail to buckle up is overstepping the proper limits of government and shows great disrespect for the voters.  Your job is to enact laws to defend us against the bad guys, not to protect us from ourselves.

Don't forget, when you pass a law, you are authorizing the use of force against someone who refuses to obey.  That's pretty serious stuff, giving the police the authority to point their guns at people, and, ultimately, being willing to pull the trigger.  When you enact laws to protect us from ourselves, it's like that recent situation in which a man was beating himself in the head in the park, and the police came with the intention of protecting him from himself and ended up killing him.  If you respect the
voters, you respect them to make their own decisions about their own safety. Whether or not I wear a seatbelt has no effect on the safety of other people on the road, and therefore it should not be the basis for giving a policeman the right to arrest me.

If you think your job is to protect us from ourselves, then you might consider that obesity is much more dangerous than failing to wear a seatbelt.  You might consider passing a law requiring us to weigh in, and, if we are overweight, requiring us to start on a diet and report our progress periodically until we reach an acceptably safe weight -- kind of a probation for fat folks.  Then you and I probably would get to know our local police pretty well!

Resa
 

Conclusion -

Obviously, my elected official and I were talking past each other.  He fully believes he has the right and the duty to pass laws on anything, whenever he thinks the merits of one side outweigh the merits of the other.  While he notes that people have different views on issues, he does not consider the possibility of leaving people free to act in accordance with their own views, without the government dictating to them.  From his point of view, if he thinks one side has the stronger argument, then he should vote in favor of forcing people to do things that way, no matter what they think.  The concept of large areas of our lives being totally outside the proper scope of government control seems to be completely foreign to him. 

The first question my elected official should have asked was not, "Do I think it is a good idea to wear seatbelts?" but rather "Is it a proper role for government to force people to wear seatbelts no matter how good an idea it may be to wear them?"  In a so-called "free country", people should be free to make a wide range of choices as long as they are not breaching contracts or aggressively harming others, such as the choice of whether to buckle a seatbelt.  Unfortunately, these days, most voters and politicians seem to think that our choices should be limited to things like which TV show to watch, which church to attend, and which team to root for.

I wonder how school children respond to a bully these days. Obviously, the old standbys of "Mind your own business", or "It's a free country; you can't make me!" don't work anymore.

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