In Which...the author horrifies people at driver's ed.

So today in driver's ed, we talked about such things as safety, what to do in emergencies, Evil!Road!Rage, and....that's about it.

Well, although I am happily establishing myself as "Random Homeschool Nerd Who Knows Everything" (I'm generally coming in 1st or 2nd in all the pre-tests.)...today I became a Libertarian for about 30 seconds.

Although I would kachunk my ballot as a Conservative, I would maintain that the Libertarian party has some pretty good points. Furthermore, Libertarian views tend to do a really good job of freaking people out. Which I don't really mind either. I figure, "Hey, they're gonna be freaked out...might as well control the place and the time." Almost like Socio-Economic-Political Suicide. (Not advocating suicide... by the way.)

Anyhoo. The moment came when we were discussing motorcycle safety and the wonderful instructor (He really is awesome! I'd recommend him in less than a second to anybody!) mentioned Motorcycle Helmet Legislation that would make it mandatory for people to wear helmets when riding a motorcycle. In my state, such legislation is not present. So he asked the question, what do you think?

Now of course, most of the girls are offering sensible and creative ideas such as, "It's a good idea...because otherwise, you could DIE!" Brilliant, Holmes.

And then...he says the fateful words: "Come on! Why doesn't someone play devil's advocate."

Now I fluctuate between actually believing that such "Keep you safe" legislation is a bad idea (Not the government's responsibility to babysit) and a good idea (but these are human lives we are talking about). It's a tough debate. But I decided to let my inner Libertarian run the gamut.
"But, it's not the government's responsibility to protect us from ourselves."
Silence fell.

He was expecting that argument and went on to explain that maybe this theoretical driver had a wife and kids at home and needed to be saved from himself. (I have a feeling the unstated sentiment was: and keep the family of the deceased from being on welfare.)
He then went on to cite the example of: Well...we have speed limit laws which do essentially the same thing.

Now...I was tempted to lob back the argument of: Generally, if you kill yourself in a motorcycle accident, you are the one paying the price..you aren't going to hurt another person because you die (with the exception of your family, but that is a risk you take by doing such reckless things...and generally, your family would pressure you). In speed limit laws, the legislators are saving the lives of OTHER INNOCENT people...not just one person. I mean, generally speaking, you could say that such legislation is protecting the family from emotional harm...but you must admit, it's a slightly different situation.

But I didn't lob back said argument...because the teacher is awesome and didn't deserve to have his classroom be turned into a political debate-hall.

SO yeah. I became a happy little libertarian for about 30 seconds...it was most enjoyable being the evuhl person.

Not edited...so enjoy the grammatical errors.