Out of control Safty laws

So I was thinking about a book I read a while back called rash. If you haven't read it I would consider it my generations 1984. Heres a quick look on what its about.

Coming up with book titles can be difficult, but this one was easy—I knew what I wanted to call it from the outset. But then, as soon as I saw the first copy of the book, I wished I had titled it "2084."

•••

What do smoke-free restaurants, seatbelts and airbags in cars, and bicycle helmets have in common?

Fifty years ago none of those things existed. People smoked cigarettes everywhere--even in hospitals. Cars had no seatbelts or airbags. And any kid dorky enough to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle would have been laughed off the street.

Today, Americans are safer than ever. Accidents, violence, and disease are way, way down. Every year we get safer and safer...and safer...

That's good, right?

I wonder. Being safe is good—to a point—but I sometimes think we are so obsessed with safety we miss out on much of what life has to offer. I mean, if you wanted to be really safe, you would eat nothing but oatmeal, kale and lentils. You would never play contact sports, or ride a skateboard, or go for a hike in the mountains, or speak to a stranger, or drive a car, or give birth to a child...or do much of anything at all.

What if this safety trend continues? What will it be like in another fifty years? How safe do we want to be? Will sneezing in public be considered assault? Will tricycles have airbags? Will overweight people be sent to forced-labor diet farms? Will kitchen knives bear warning labels? (Caution: This implement can cause cuts!) Will French fries be as illegal as crack coc aine?

Thinking about these things was what led me to write Rash , a sometimes funny, sometimes not funny book about a teen growing up in the "United Safer States of America," circa 2074, when pedestrians wear walking helmets, football has been banned, verbal abuse is a misdemeanor, and obesity is a felony.

And because just about everything is illegal, nearly 20% of the population is in jail, where they provide the manual labor that keeps the USSA running.

This book came out around 2006, and it seems that we have become a society about our safety rather than our freedom. Even the famous words of our forefathers and warning about this our lost on us Americans.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

Here on ATS we talk a lot about the Ways the TPTB try to control us. Well could are desire of a safer world be the next step? The book talks about ridiculous safety laws and that breaking anyone of them gets you sent to a prison camp where prisoners are used as the world labors, basically slaves. The united states is already the worlds number one jailer.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

This is just something I was thinking about. A good majority of people have been convinced that people need to be thrown in Jail for the betterment of society. How far will this trend go?

The quoted post seems like a really superficial take on the subject. Written, I imagine by someone who spent most of their life sheltered in the world he is trying to describe.

While it is a good premise....

reply to post by Mcupobob


These laws are more about a money grab rather than safety.

More laws, more fines = more money for them and less for you.

This is why there are more and more ridiculous laws passed every day.

reply to post by boncho

This is the page for people who think that if someone wrote an interesting book, they must therefore be an interesting person. Don't you know that if you like an author's work you should hope never to meet him (or her) in person? More than once, I have admired a writer and then, upon meeting him, discovered him to be a self-involved jerk with the personality of a rabid weasel.

The bad news? I’m nowhere near as interesting to you as you are to yourself, and probably even less interesting to you than your lint-filled navel. Nevertheless, I am compelled by various forces to share information about myself—such as my middle name (Murray), how I like my eggs cooked (poached, or gently scrambled with fresh black Perigord truffle, please), and whether or not I believe in God.

Older fellow... mediocre life. The reviews I found around were more invoking than his synopsis.

Originally posted by jude11
reply to post by Mcupobob

 

These laws are more about a money grab rather than safety.

More laws, more fines = more money for them and less for you.

This is why there are more and more ridiculous laws passed every day.

Bingo. The key to dystopian stories is to make it apparent (albeit subtle) to the reader, the motivations of the antagonist parties, while keeping in line with the "official" story.

Although I haven't read this one, so I can't say much on it.

reply to post by Mcupobob

What do smoke-free restaurants, seatbelts and airbags in cars, and bicycle helmets have in common?

Just taking those three examples alone, the insurance industry drove the laws for the latter two. They were paying out too much in insurance for people not wearing safety belts, bicycle helmets, motorcycle helmets, etc. If insurance companies had just said "we won't pay out on someone that doesn't buckle up", we wouldn't have those laws (which I think we shouldn't).

The smoke-free restaurants, however, are a different thing. Those laws were partly driven by people who grew sick of being forced to breathe and smell that crap while trying to enjoy dinner at their favorite eatery.

/TOA

Safety has changed the whole game. I am over 3 aspects of safety for my employment, environmental, personnel, and food safety. I am supposed to eat, sleep and breathe safety.

Safety culture is a fail. Yea, it might save some lives, but mainly it is about saving money and getting our CEO some insurance kickbacks.

Then they want you to "take safety home with you". Teach your children to never take risks and always listen to how something is supposed to be done. Let's engineer everything "maverick" out.

It is the end of everything. I don't care what anybody thinks. We are so freaking safe that we will never be allowed to make mistakes to learn from.




The best thing to remember is that if we idiot-proof the world, it will eventually lead to a world over-run by idiots. Idiocracy was a stupid movie, but it is going down just like that.

reply to post by Mcupobob


I saw this coming years ago, I wrote this thread about seatbelts years ago and most got a good laugh about it:
Are seat belt law apart of the NWO plot.....

Personal safety should be personal choice. We have lots of victimless crimes in this country. Our prisons are filed with people that harmed no one.

In the last ten years the supreme court has ruled in favor of the police for their safety vs citizens safety. People that decide to become police officers know it's a dangerous job when they sign up. Then the government declares a war on drugs, this is a war against people, then they rule in the courts that cop lives and safety is more important than the citizens safety.

The anti smoking fascists don't realize that sugared drinks, chips and junkfood will be next, I expect gum to be outlawed because of the liter it causes. We have allowed this, it's our own fault.

Good thread!