”
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their
disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society
cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be
placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more
there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of
things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions
forge their fetters.
”
~ Edmund Burke
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
~ Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke was right. One can see the evidence every day on the pages of The Dispatch.
Item: Councilman Charles Morales is arrested for another incident of driving under the influence, and the cry goes up that he should resign his office.
I certainly hope that none of the criers drive drunk. New evidence, from researchers at the University of Utah, shows that they better not be driving while under the influence of cell phone, either.
The researchers tested the driving performance of 41 subjects, having each one drive on a simulated multi-lane highway under four different sets of circumstances: talking on a hand-held cell phone, talking on a head-set cell phone, sober and cell-phone-free, and finally with a .08 blood alcohol level.
The test subjects had to brake for a car slowing down in front of them, then resume speed. Drivers who were conversing on cell phones were involved in more rear end collisions than drunk drivers, regardless of whether they were using handheld or head-set phones. Researchers found a 50 percent reduction in the processing of visual information while talking on a phone, and conclude that cell phone conversation draws attention away from the visual environment.
The study backs up one published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997, which demonstrated, based on accident data, that driving while using a cell phone increased one’s chance of having an accident by a factor of between three and six, roughly the same as the increased risk caused by drunk driving.
The point? We had to write laws against drunk driving because people couldn’t control themselves, couldn’t be responsible enough to refrain from driving drunk. Cell phone users now have a window of opportunity to avoid driving under the influence of cell phone. If they act responsibly, we won’t have to write laws to prohibit reckless cell phone use.
Item: On the Fourth of July, an illegal firework ignited a house roof, and a legal firework, used illegally near vegetation, ignited a juniper bush and then an apartment building. The police and fire departments were busy all night long, fielding calls from citizens reporting the use of illegal fireworks. Many people cry out that legal fireworks must be banned.
I would prefer to see a resurgence of citizen and parental responsibility.
Parents should be aware of what fireworks their kids have, and when and where and how safely they are setting them off. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that sometimes a testosterone-poisoned 15-year-old will sneak off and make a Molotov cocktail without seeking the sage counsel of his elders, but assuming the kid survives, if the parents ever get wind of it, that kid better be persuaded of the folly of his ways one way or another.
It’s when parents abdicate their responsibility, when they shrug and say, “Kids will be kids,” or “My kid says he didn’t see that he started a grass fire,” that the system breaks down. Kids are irresponsible; that’s why they have parents.
Citizens should be willing to confront unsupervised children, instead of just running off and calling the fire department on a busy night. A loud: “Hey! I saw that! That’s an illegal firework!” or “Hey! Where’s your mom? She’s supposed to be watching you,” will do more to discourage such behavior than any number of sneaky calls to our over-burdened public servants, and just might save someone’s property, or even a life.
It would be a real shame if we had to ban legal fireworks for the many who enjoy using them safely because some people won’t take responsibility for controlling themselves, their children, or their neighbors.
