How does government regulation manage freedom of choice versus regulation for the public good?

Question

For example, the use of seat belts, or if and where one can smoke, or the use or the carrying of firearms. How can government best balance the public good with freedom of choice?

Another way to ask this question is: How does government regulation balance freedom of choice versus regulation for the public good

Answer 1

I think the line is drawn when they make regulations about something that only affects you. Like seat belts. If you do not wear a seat belt, it only affects you. Which means that should be your freedom of choice whether you do it or not. But letting a maniac carry a firearm is endangering to everybody and should be regulated.

So that's my basic stance. If it affects you and only you - gov't should but out. If it can be detrimental to the people around you - gov't can have a hand in it's regulation.

Answer 2

...by leaving it up to the individual person to decide what is in his own best interest!!!!

It is the purpose and function of government to protect individuals' freedom from inteference by others, within and without, not to restrain individual freedom where it does no one else harm. Clearly, also, the burden of proof as to whether it does harm cannot be on the individual seeking to act but on those seeking to curtail the freedom - otherwise you could just shut down any activity you want by constantly coming up with assertions about it without ever proving any of them.

Thus mandatory motorcycle helmets make sense - you're likely to be hit in the head with a rock or other debris thrown up by the wheels of a truck, thus the helmet prevents accidents rather than simply limiting the damage assuming an accident.

Mandatory seat belts do not make sense, there is no evidence to support the argument that there are more accidents when people are thrown around within the cab - it's really a stretch. Seat belts limit injury assuming an accident, thus they protect you from yourself only, thus it should be up to you.

Some will argue that mandatory protections reduce the cost of medical treatment, some of which would be paid by the taxpayers - but the answer then is to not have taxpayer-funded medical care.

Answer 3

I don't feel this question can ever be answered with 100% accountability. Don't think you would have had to phrase it this way if that were possible. A right some in the states are lobbying is for gun control or to carry a gun.

Today the Prime Minister of Iraq voiced a plea saying; if we start withdrawing our troops there will be massive killings and each normal Iraqi individual will have to carry a gun. The U.S., in more ways than one, will be supplying many of these guns to the silent majority of Iraqi society.

Should we also pass out guns here in the United States? Would it be; pick up your gun before you fill up your next rationed tank of gas—or-- every person is required to carry a gun when taking and picking up your child at school?

I don't know what we should do to determine the answer to your question, but this is one question only our Commander in Chief must decide the answer to.

Answer 4

What government should do is stop pass immoral infringements upon people's natural rights. There should not be any mandatory seatbelt laws, no smoking laws, or gun control laws (gun control is particularly bad, as it leads to an increase in crime and makes people less safe; see the research by John Lott). Property owners may prohibit somebody from doing something on their property, but the government should never interfere with any choices somebody wishes to make.

There should be no drivers licenses, DUI should be decriminalized (if somebody kills somebody else with a vehicle, charge them with vehicular homicide, but anybody who drives drunk and doesn't hurt somebody doing so should be left alone), and all other victimless crimes should be wiped from the books.

There is no such thing as the "public good," unless you're talking about things such as war, genocide, theft, and other crimes against humanity. Government is inherently criminal and immoral. Compare the government with the mafia, for example. Both go around asking for protection money and committing violence against anybody who refuses to pay (government calls it "taxes"), however it is unfair to the mafia to compare them to government because the mafia actually provides the protection which it is paid for.

No organization that is inherently criminal should be permitted to even exist.

Answer 5

Freedom of choice is one thing but secondhand smoke is another. Freedom from secondhand smoke shouldn't have to be a choice. Effective gun control would save thousands of lives every year. There isn't a more violent country than ours.

Answer 6

It can't.

There is no sense in creating nanny state laws punishing people for a "crime" that has no victim.

A perfect example of nanny state stupidity is in Illinois.
They have a seat belt law where they can pull you over and fine you for not wearing one but you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet with no problem.

Answer 7

Why not take just about everything out of the control of the feds and give the states and individual municipalities those responsibilities. That would allow our voters to have more control.

I'm against the feds controlling nothing more than our national security. They flop at everything else. I don't want them dictating to me what is and isn't 'for my own good'.

Answer 8

The gov't will always eat away at our Freedom of Choice unless we can file suit to get their laws ruled unconstitutional.