Post by RS Davis on Mar 13, 2004 16:28:09 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Paul Armentano Wrote:[/glow]Shopping for a new car?
For your “protection,” it will come equipped with airbags. Don’t want airbags in your vehicle? Tough. Not only is it impossible to buy a new car without them, but federal law prohibits owners from disconnecting airbags without express permission from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And even those drivers who obtain the necessary authorization will be hard-pressed to find a mechanic willing to perform the procedure. Of the more than 30,000 authorizations granted by the NHTSA, only 1,000 have been honored by garages and dealers because of the incomprehensibility of the federal regulations and mechanics’ fears of litigation.
The fact that citizens in a free society should have to beg the government for the right to modify their vehicle however they see fit (as long as their modifications pose no risks to other drivers) is a small, but illustrative example of what author Phillip D. Harvey calls “government creep.”
“Tell everyone you meet that our huge federal government can exert power over their lives and you’ll find that most, if not all, will agree,” Harvey writes in his new book, Government Creep: What the Government Is Doing That You Don’t Know About. “But very few people realize how much power today’s government has over private citizens and how tyranically it can — and does — exercise that power.”
For your “protection,” it will come equipped with airbags. Don’t want airbags in your vehicle? Tough. Not only is it impossible to buy a new car without them, but federal law prohibits owners from disconnecting airbags without express permission from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And even those drivers who obtain the necessary authorization will be hard-pressed to find a mechanic willing to perform the procedure. Of the more than 30,000 authorizations granted by the NHTSA, only 1,000 have been honored by garages and dealers because of the incomprehensibility of the federal regulations and mechanics’ fears of litigation.
The fact that citizens in a free society should have to beg the government for the right to modify their vehicle however they see fit (as long as their modifications pose no risks to other drivers) is a small, but illustrative example of what author Phillip D. Harvey calls “government creep.”
“Tell everyone you meet that our huge federal government can exert power over their lives and you’ll find that most, if not all, will agree,” Harvey writes in his new book, Government Creep: What the Government Is Doing That You Don’t Know About. “But very few people realize how much power today’s government has over private citizens and how tyranically it can — and does — exercise that power.”
Buy Government Creep: What the Government Is Doing That You Don’t Know About
- Rick
