Whataboutism is only when the topic brought up has no direct relevance and is used to distract from the conversation.
Multiple times in this thread others have brought up tax or insurance costs, which makes discussion of those costs and people’s attitudes toward them directly relevant to the conversation, especially when it comes to how contradictory and hypocritical those criticisms are in the first place.
Thanks for the detailed and empathetic response. I’m going to disagree with you again here, but I don’t bear you any ill will for your opinion, especially in light of your wife’s experiences.
I don’t think I’ve had any real life experience color my view on this, thankfully - I’ve always worn my seatbelt and have never been targeted by cops. My strong reaction to this issue (and I’ve had literally all of the conversations currently happening in these comments over and over for years now, on here and on the other website) is due to just how ridiculous and self-contradictory it is for people to actually support seatbelt laws based on the arguments you’re seeing in these comments.
I’m pretty sure the deeper truth here is that people (or most people at least - I don’t think this is true of you, based on your comments here) actually don’t care about the safety and trauma they always bring up in these comment sections, not really - I think they just take it personally for some reason that someone else has the audacity to make stupid decisions (even though they themselves are also frequently making stupid decisions they don’t notice, and which have their own set of externalities - those stupid decisions are fine, of course), and it makes them feel morally superior to impinge on those individuals’ right to make their own choices freely, especially when they have the easy refuge of flimsy “safety” arguments to retreat to. They’re moral busybodies, and it’s infuriating.
And pointing to nanny state European countries infamous for “protecting” their citizens from the audacity of making their own decisions doesn’t settle the argument. Two countries can do the same thing for very different reasons (and if you think European cops defend the working class and not capital I have a bridge to sell you - each of those countries’ cops have their own socially acceptable groups to harass instead).
I’m also a part of the tax-paying public, and I’m not happy that seatbelt laws are strict. You spend far more of your tax money on the crazy number of people who need early, intensive medical care due to dozens of different kinds of unhealthy life choices. In fact, I’d argue that the one-time costs of car crash deaths stemming from loosening seatbelt laws is far cheaper than the years or decades of intensive, expensive treatment for preventable conditions arising from other knowingly stupid choices, and yet, once again, for some reason it’s stupid choices regarding seatbelts of all things where people come out of the woodwork to be worried about the toll on people and the economy.
Or to act worried so they can feel morally justified (literally) policing the actions of others, at least.
Again, thank you for your comment and your perspective.
Absolutely - we make decisions every day on the assumption that the people around us are making smart decisions as well, and that’s not always the case, and other people sometimes suffer negative outcomes as a result of those stupid, but legal, decisions.
And when you’ve come to the point where you’re having to fabricate the kind of incredibly specific scenario you’re proposing to get even a hypothetical externality, you’re probably dealing with a situation that should be left to individual choice.
I’d also be completely fine with immunity to charges of manslaughter against anyone hit while not wearing a seatbelt, or something of that nature (and significantly higher insurance rates too, of course).
I understand the counter-argument that you’d probably suffer increased trauma in this incredibly specific scenario that you’ve concocted, but death is a fact of life, and with how far removed we are in this scenario from the likelihood of direct negative outcomes, I still feel that the agency to make one’s own choices far outweighs any hypothetical marginal social good of legislation.
And yet here I am having to needlessly explain that that’s only necessary when the chance of those externalities is severe enough to warrant this consideration.
As I’ve shown in this thread, that’s not the case, and the dangers you’re all supposedly worried about aren’t actually real dangers.
But you’ve all confused shouldn’t with can’t (whether intentionally or otherwise), and your moral superiority complexes over people having the audacity to make stupid decisions won’t let you acknowledge that.
I’m not the person you responded to here, but the difference is that all of those things are very likely to cause negative externalities to other people, while, as I’ve pretty definitively shown in this thread, that’s not at all the case with the negative outcomes of not wearing seatbelts, which are almost entirely limited to the person making the decision.
How so?
I absolutely care about human life, and it’s sad and senseless when people kill themselves with stupid choices.
I just respect their humanity enough to not impose my will on theirs, when their decisions don’t cause significant enough externalities for the people around them to justify treating them as less human than I see myself.
Seatbelts decrease auto insurance costs.
And legal penalties for high BMI decreases health insurance costs, which are much, much higher than car insurance costs (as well as preventing far more needless deaths, since you’re such a humanitarian).
Why is freedom of choice valid in the more egregious cost scenario but not less egregious one?
We seem to be in complete agreement then, except that I’m at least a little bit sad for the idiots that make this choice.
I just don’t believe in forcefully preventing other people from making decisions I think are stupid, as long as those choices don’t significantly affect others around them. And from the way everyone in this thread is grasping at straws to fabricate incredibly flimsy “harm” scenarios, I think we can safely conclude that that’s not actually the case with seatbelts.
Death is a fact of life, and the existence of it is not a sufficient justification for curtailing freedom of choice.
Especially when the entire purpose of that curtailment is so that bastard cops have more of an opportunity to attest brown people. Y’all are getting played.
So… still no evidence whatsoever for that “proven fact”, then, eh?
The difference is that flat earthers are presented with evidence that they’re ignoring, but nobody has presented any evidence in this thread for me to ignore, even though this is supposedly such a huge problem.
Great argument, I’m convinced!
And how far exactly would you like those goalposts of yours to be shifted?
Not everyone’s cut out to work in medical care - it’s a tough field.
That’s fair, but it just frustrates me the way that people bend over backwards to justify what is clearly an excuse for bastard cops to a) fill their coffers and b) more importantly, find an easy excuse to pull you over and violate your rights even further.
Everyone is acting like this is about safety, and about “the trauma of poor road cleaners”, but the cops and legislators who put this in place don’t give a fuck about your safety, and they certainly don’t give a fuck about the trauma of blue collar road workers - they just want to give themselves more opportunities to arrest brown people, and it’s ridiculous that the people in here spouting ACAB all over Lemmy don’t recognize that.
<3
At least the other people complaining and downvoting here are bringing actual arguments to the table and engaging in productive dialogue.
What a useless comment.
Ah, there’s the “what about the other passengers in the car” argument I’ve been waiting for.
The problem is that all other objects become deadly internal projectiles in the case of an accident as well. If we really cared that much about the danger from projectiles, then by law, cars should come with multiple tie-downs all over the interior of the vehicle, and it should be illegal to have an object in the car over five pounds not firmly secured by them.
The reason, of course, that that isn’t mandated is the same as the answer to all of the other questions in this thread: in the end it’s really just about policing people’s behavior and choices (and securing an additional revenue stream for cops, as well as a handy excuse to pull people over).
Which is exactly what I would expect from a hexbear. Like I said, in the end it was just a cover for your authoritarian need to police other people’s choices and behavior.
It’s clear that we have a fundamental difference in values here that aren’t reconcilable.
Responding with nothing but an endless list of fallacies is the clearest sign that one has no worthwhile argument to make, so I think I’ll be ending my engagement with you here.