As IF Times

link Super Spicy Snacks Send Kids to Emergency Room – ABC News.

The finger wagging nannies which increasingly run government and exert their influence upon the lives of the regular folk never seem to run out of things to regulate.  Over the years, many simple and innocuous pleasures and activities partaken simply for their amusement or convenience have been done away with because someone thought the activity was too dangerous or  too offensive.

Long gone are the days when you could just pile a bunch of your buddies, or your excess children, into the back of the pick-up truck for a ride to the beach.  In most cities, it is now illegal to hop on a bike for quick trip to the store without first wearing a helmet. It is illegal to drive infants around in cars without approved car seats.  I guess someone can make the case that wearing seat belts or not texting while driving through mountain passes may be good ideas, but do we need to expend untold amounts of money on police work to enforce this?

It’s  the regulation of simple things that people do purely for self amusement or enjoyment that are annoying.  We are familiar with nanny Bloomberg’s efforts to regulate the size of soft drinks at convenience stores as well as restricting the amount of salt allowed in food served at restaurants in New York.  Who asked him to be the Jewish grandmother?  It’s pretty much accepted by most people that once we become adults, we are free to pursue whatever happens to amuse us…to excess or otherwise.  If we want to eat a block of cheese the size of a car battery and wash that down with enough booze to turn our liver into a solid, that should be our business.  Frankly, if they want to regulate things for the good of people, they should control Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, both of which are far worse for the human condition.

The roots of this nanny-ism increasingly encroaching upon our adult lives may spring from the compulsion we have developed in modern western society to protect our children like Faberge eggs at every step of their lives.  Everything is done to shield the young ‘uns from any and all harmful activities.   Much of what passes as sports at the juvenile level these days is essentially paddy cake with uniforms.  This is all misguided and runs counter to the natural pull of evolution. Kids, especially boys, want to do dangerous and competitive things, it’s in the wiring of the genes.  Today’s children are way too restricted on their fun activities.  From the dawn of time, kids have always found novel ways to amuse themselves.  There’s a good chance that young Grog ate a bug or tried to grab a hot smoldering rock simply to amuse his cave-boy pals. Ever since then, kids have found innumerate ways to amuse themselves whether by setting explosions, jumping off high ledges, chasing wild animals or dating dangerous girls.  So now, they’re worried about kids eating spicy foods?  How wimpy are we?

Recently, we wrote about the so called sport of “longboarding” in which kids rode supine on long skateboards down steep public streets while dodging oncoming cars.   People actually wanted to regulate this.  I say let ’em do what they want.  If we don’t allow Darwin to cull the herd, we wind up with a society full of idiots which then necessitates more dumb laws.  Embracing risky behaviour will lead to some undesirable results certainly.  In the extreme case, some hospital bills or maybe the odd death.  The entrepreneurial ones achieve fame by making movies in the “Jackass” genre which are essentially chronicles of glorified self inflicted head and genital pain.  Or we wind up at the other end with people like Steve Frayne, the guy who jumped off a space capsule to fall to the earth from the extremes of the earth’s orbit.  We can argue that even Christopher Columbus was a bit of a nutter by sailing off into the unknowns of the world at the time.  The point is, that while risky behaviour is dangerous, it is probably a manifestation of man’s desire to improve his condition.  We don’t know what we can achieve unless we try it, or find someone crazy enough to try it.  Think of the guy who first stuck his hunt of the day into the fire and created cooked meat.  Think of the guy who ate the first raw oyster.

It’s a bit of a stretch to equate eating spicy chips to discovering America, but we can’t stifle the urge to take chances and to chase thrills.  The only legitimate way to make it through the natural path to adulthood is to get a few bumps and bruises along the way.  What kid hasn’t stuck their finger in an electrical socket.  You’ll notice there are no laws prohibiting this activity.  Of course, odds are, we’re going to lose a few along the way, but that’s nature.  History glorifies the guys who took chances and achieved things, not the guys who stood around wagging fingers and making laws telling people what to not do.   As well, most societies have their own mechanism to sort out the dumb and stupid; it’s called shame and ridicule. That’s a lot more effective than stupid laws.

link 630 WMAL: Stimulating Talk – Breaking News.

To say that logic has been stretched by the media in reporting on recent events is like saying a cow has nipples.  In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting, conservatives, specifically Sarah Palin, were linked to the shooter through some gossamer thread of logic despite having no evidence of this at the time or since.  Logic and Reason 101 are not required courses for a journalism degree.  Now, Michelle Obama is being linked to increases in pedestrian fatalities because of her widely advertised “get out and move” campaign.

Reasonable people might find both accusations presposterous in their claims as both are undoubtedly rooted in partisan sentiments.  Certainly in the case of Palin, but doubly so in the case of Mrs. Obama.   The author of the article is may be a bit delusional if they think that a prodding from the wife of the president would encourage people to get out and walk.  However, it is refreshing that someone of influence can motivate the slack jawed masses to action.

Notwithstanding the fitness and green propaganda overwhelming people on a daily basis, in reality, people would drive to the kitchen from their bedrooms if they could.  The likely culprits for the increase in pedestrian strikes are more likely attributable to:

1. Poverty.  After years of declining real estate prices, high  unemployment and upticking gasoline prices, people can’t afford to drive cars.

2. Complacency.  Because of the culture of entitlement, people are not afraid of being harmed by cars, instead they assume that cars wouldn’t dare strike them because of their rights as pedestrians

3. Darwinism.  Related to the above, people don’t know any better than to step out into traffic without regard to tons of metal, glass and rubber bearing down upon them at any given time.

4. Distraction.  People are increasingly absorbed in texting and phoning so that they become oblivious to their surroundings.  A recent you tube video shows a woman walking in a mall, so absorbed in her texting that she headed straight towards and fell into a reflecting pond in her path.  No doubt she will sue for her own carelessness.

Of course, the real answer is probably all the above.  Apart from reason number 1 listed above, all of the other explanations are rooted in modern cultural conditioning.  People have offloaded responsibility for their own actions onto the ever crowded lap of “society”.  Somebody else is always to blame and more importantly may be a source of reparations.  This being the case, the federal government may now be found responsible for the uptick in pedestrian deaths and it’s only a matter of time before a class action suit is filed on their behalf against the federal government.  In legal parlance, they “knew or should have known” that exposing people by walking would contribute to injury or death.  If found culpable, the government, which means the public, will pay out compensation to all those injured.  That’ll be good for the deficit.  More likely, a new tax will be imposed on drivers to pay into the compensation pool.  Some genius will invent pedestrian insurance. 

The worst part will be new propaganda programs instructing people how to be cross streets.  We’ll have the likes of George Clooney and Bono doing Public Service Announcements exhorting people to cross only on green lights as well as urge them to go inside if raining.   It may be determined that being a pedestrian is too dangerous in the presence of cars and we may see cities banning cars all together in favour of pedestrians to ensure a safe environment for them.  Good luck getting to the theater on time. 

That Michelle Obama, like Sarah Palin, such enemies of the state.