More From the Calorie Cops

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm sick of the government thinking it knows what's best for me. I understand that burgers, salt, BBQ wings, beer, pop, and ice cream are all bad for me. Our shoddy public schools taught me that much at least. But I want the freedom to use those things in moderation if I choose to. If I die 5 months sooner because I enjoyed some of those things throughout my life, well then so be it. That's my choice.

"But Brandon," my liberal friends will say, "when your health care costs go up, we all pay for it." Socialism's a bitch, ain't it? Perhaps if we had a health care system reliant on personal health savings accounts rather than shared (socialized) risk through insurance, people would be responsible for, pay for, and take an interest in their OWN health without imposing costs on their friends and neighbors.

What brought all this up was one of the more ridiculous headlines I've read in a while. From Politico.com, the headline Childhood Obesity: A Security Issue jumped out at me. Apparently many of our military recruits are a tad overweight and aren't qualified for service.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate fat kids to a national security risk. We have plenty of people qualified for the military, and those who don't make it that want to join will probably get after their weight problems so they CAN join.

But manufacturing a "security risk" is certainly grounds for taking away freedoms, isn't it? Higher taxes on foods deemed bad for you--in the name of national security--are on the way. Just another excuse for the government to control your life and take away your choices. Don't think it can happen? British school systems are already severely limiting the things that kids can eat/bring to school. And don't forget the girl in Texas who got a week of detention for having a single Jolly Rancher.

It's The Host's Fault?!

Here's an article I found in some newspaper (I forgot which one, I apologize to the author in advance). Apparently if someone drinks alcohol at a party you hosted, it's your fault if anything happens to that person.



Again, personal responsibility in this country has gone out the window! It's THEIR fault if they get a little tipsy and do themselves harm. The host did not force anything down the person's throat...the individual made the decision to have too much to drink and do themselves harm. It's ludicrous to hold someone else responsible for the decisions and choices of others. It also goes to show how much reform we need to our legal system.

On Fiscal Irresponsibiliy

The stupidity of government never fails to amuse me. Look at the recent American International Group (AIG) bailout fiasco. The president signed the bailout bill without hardly reading the table of contents, and lo and behold Senator Chris Dodd, with the encouragement of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, inserted language that allowed for $165 million to be paid as retention bonuses to AIG executives. Public outrage prompted several senators to insist on taxing these bonuses at rates of up to 90%.

This situation disturbs me on so many different levels. First, we have the government singling out specific individuals for taxation just because the government feels they deserve it. Second, what other asinine things were in that 1000-plus-page document that we have yet to discover? And last, this really shows how redundant and inefficient government is. They buy a bailout on our ever increasingly maxed-out credit card, give $165 million to executives, then decide against it and tax the money back. The government gives with one had and takes with the other, all the while senators and bureaucrats are paid in the process, wasting our money as it gets passed around. We become mad at the people receiving bonuses and demand that money is returned, but it should be noted that President Obama received $130,000 in 2008 campaign contributions from AIG. Is he giving that money back? All our representatives in Congress are granting themselves bonuses and pay raises, many of whom were responsible for either promoting policy that led to this mess, or did nothing to prevent this crisis. Why aren’t more people outraged over that?

Not only are our spending practices off the hook, but also so the amount of spending we’re doing! President Obama also promises to cut the budget deficit in half? Nice. It would sound better if he didn’t triple it first!

All this is part of a broader misunderstanding on the part of the public. Remember back at the end of President Clinton’s term in office when we had a slight budget surplus, and there was all the debate in the 2000 about how best to spend it? Pay off the national debt! Government is sneaky in how it abuses your money, and gives us a sense of victory when we have a little extra money for the year. A budget surplus simply means that we spent less money that year that the government collected…but we still DEBT back then. So Obama can promise to cut the DEFICIT in half, but that doesn’t do anything to help rid us of the national debt, which is the accumulation of years of budget deficits ($11,052,095,977,798.83 as of writing). President Bush took us down the road of huge deficit spending, but President Obama, with his massive new spending proposals, made a huge left turn that got us on the interstate.

All these problems stem from a greater crisis, in that we as a society have been spoiled with a sense of entitlement from the government. We have been granted governmental services for years that we as a nation cannot afford. Few are willing to give up these provided services. For example, the bailout money given to South Dakota was used to keep the South Dakota Art Council going. A great program, to be sure…but that was kept by throwing the cost on the national credit card, because we simply cannot afford it. Years of unfunded spending will come back to hurt us, and we need to change that now.

I have a simple solution. Why doesn’t some brave representative propose legislation requiring of the national government what the states and we as individuals must do? Spend only what we have and live within our means.

Personal Responsibility

Here's my most recent article, published in the SDSU Collegian:

Personal responsibility. I’m not sure anybody knows what that means anymore. Placing blame on others when bad things happen seems to be the norm. We see it every day on TV: when something happens, everyone freaks out, looking for someone to blame, regardless if someone is at fault or not. Lawsuits are a multi-billion dollar industry in our country, and it gets worse every day. Each time a suit is settled, precedent is set that creates fodder for lawyers to make even more ridiculous arguments in the future, which prompts organizations, individuals, companies, etc. to conjure up liability forms. These liability forms essentially boil down to “hey, if you hurt yourself it’s your fault, not ours.”

The promise of a monetary settlement is very tempting for some people, when in reality no one can really be blamed but the person filing the suit. We’ve all heard the story of the woman who dropped hot coffee on her lap at McDonald’s. Whose fault is that? It’s common sense that coffee is hot, so be careful! It’s not McDonald’s fault, but because of the suit, now companies everywhere put disclaimers on everything, letting us know that the hot coffee is HOT.
Here are some other examples:

-A lady in Detroit sued her employer because her coworker’s perfume was too overpowering. A federal judge allowed this suit to go forward. Where’s the personal responsibility? Take the initiative and talk with the person whose perfume is bothering you. How is that the employer’s fault?
-When you throw your Wii remote into your new plasma TV, ask yourself: is this Nintendo’s fault, or should I just be more careful next time? Nintendo was sued by a few people who felt it was Nintendo’s fault and did not take personal responsibility for their actions.
-A kid sued his teacher for waking him up in class, citing “hearing problems” due to the noise that woke him up.

As crazy as some of these lawsuits are, the mere fact that some of them were allowed in court gives organizations pause, as the possibility of going to court for something stupid is still a court appearance and will cost money, so organizations have to take steps to protect themselves from these things. Some activities may not even take place, because they are deemed too much of a liability risk, eliminating the possibility of participating in fun things that we were once able to.

The worst cases are those that emerge from a situation where no one is at fault. For example, look at the U.S. Airways flight that went down in the Hudson River. The pilot performed magnificently: he successfully landed the plane in the water and everyone survived. All this was the fault of some geese that flew into both engines, something that was out of everyone’s control. Already there are some lawsuits against U.S. Airways, citing emotional damages and nervousness during flying after the accident. The plane going down was no fault of U.S. Airways. In fact, if they hadn’t trained their pilots so well and communicated with the harbor rescue perfectly, most likely everyone on that flight would have died in a crash or of hypothermia in the river.

Suing should be reserved for when someone has truly wronged you, not serve as compensation for something that is either someone’s own personal fault or the result of something out of everyone’s control. Accidents happen, that’s just a reality of life, and closure should not come about through use of a lawsuit against someone who is not truly at fault.
You want to talk about change? Let’s reform our legal system so that it punishes legitimate wrongdoers, rather than creating a society of victimization and blame for monetary gain.

Seatbelts Anyone?

I can't believe how stupid big government spending can be sometimes. Here's an article in the Rapid City Journal, and I became progressively more irritated the more I read.

First off, seat belts save lives, and that's a proven fact. But here's my gripe:

According to the article, if South Dakota simply makes a seat belt violation a primary offense (currently it's a secondary offense, and you can't be pulled over for just that), the Federal government will give us a five million dollar check. In times of a budget deficit, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Not so much. Should South Dakota accept that check, there are strings attached that require the money to be directed toward seat belt campaigns (everyone's probably heard those stupid "click it or ticket" campaigns in Minnesota) and safety-related things. The article states that seat belt compliance in South Dakota without any laws forcing us to do so is at 72%.

So bottom line, accepting that five million dollars of taxpayer money basically goes toward making commercials to remind us to do something that 72% of the state does already.

In addition, why is it the government's responsibility to protect us from ourselves? Why aren't we responsible for our own safety in our vehicles? We know it's smart to wear out seat belts and most of us do, so why not use five million dollars for more worthwhile causes or perhaps not even take it from us in the first place? Criminalizing not using a seat belt will do very little to increase the 72% compliance anyway, and I think it's ridiculous that this appropriation takes taxes from the entire country to pay for seat belt radio ads in South Dakota.

These kinds of stupid, redundant appropriations are why our spending is out of control and we have a trillion dollar budget deficit. You want to talk about change? Let's start paying attention to how dumb the government's spending practices are.

Personal Responsibility

Sometimes things are just stated better by other people, so I'm posting this link from the South Dakota Voice blog, which stresses the importance of personal responsibility and how it can better society. If all of us practiced this a lot more, the days of moronic lawsuits would be gone. If we don't, the country as we know it will be no more.

Check it out:

http://www.dakotavoice.com/2008/07/turning-back-culture-of.html