A reader wrote in response to an article I did recently on the tyranny of mandatory insurance laws. He had been hit while on his motorcycle – and crippled for life – by an oblivious driver who ran a light. He told me he believes that not only should insurance be mandatory but that all drivers should be required by law to have at least $250k in liability insurance – or about twice the current maximums required in many states.Â
There is a saying: Â “Hard cases make bad law.”
It means an emotional desire, in the wake of a horrible incident, to “do something” about it. This often takes the form of pushing for a new law to more severely punish those responsible for causing harm/damage – and also (so it’s argued) to deter future such events from occurring at all by making it clear there will be serious consequences, etc.
But mandatory insurance laws don’t keep people from driving without insurance anymore than DWI laws (or revoked licenses) keep drunks from driving. Like gun control laws, they impose restrictions and cost on people who are (mostly) not the problem.Â
Why should responsible drivers who do pay attention to their driving, who are skilled and attentive and who never get into at-fault accidents (millions of such people exist) be compelled to pay big bucks for insurance coverage that is massively expensive precisely because it is compulsory, and because it  forces them into the same risk pool with the irresponsible few such as the person who hit the guy in my example?
Granted, there is always some risk an accident or injury may occur – no matter how good the driver – anytime a person gets behind the wheel. But most “accidents” really aren’t. They are the result of driver error, especially failing to pay attention, following too closely or driving too fast for conditions – all of which can be avoided  – and are avoided by millions of careful drivers who go a lifetime without ever causing an accident.
True, they may hit a deer or slide off the road in a snowstorm – genuine accidents. Things over which they have no real control. But such incidents are rare – and the point is, shouldn’t the individual have the right to decide for himself what an acceptable  level of risk is – and insure himself (or not) accordingly? Â
Is it reasonable to  require that everyone  insure against any conceivable risk, and to an extent that assumes the absolute “worst case” scenario?Â
Most of us have to strike a balance between our means and what we spend on various things. Many people would probably prefer to throw say an extra $50 each month at their mortgage balance (or the family food budget) rather than literally throw it away on an over-priced, compulsory insurance policy they will probably never need.Â
If, that is, they were allowed to do so.
The amount of money we are forced to spend on insurance – car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, home insurance, etc. –Â Â is enormous – and historically unprecedented.
It’s no wonder people are broke and in debt up to their eyeballs.Â
My argument is not with insurance per se but rather with it being compulsory as this is what has been driving the cost of premiums to ridiculous levels – even for good drivers with no history of at-fault accidents.Â
Personal anecdote: Even though I haven’t had an accident in more than 20 years and have a “clean” driving record I still pay out more than $500 annually to insure my two trucks (both older models, one a 1998, the other a 2002) plus another $300 or so for my three motorcycles – which don’t get used for 3-4 months during the winter and two of which see less than 1,000 miles annually of road time regardless. Compared to what some people are paying, it’s not much – but over ten years’ time, $800 annually is $10,000 thrown to the winds; money that I could have – and would much prefer to have – put to other uses.Â
If I could do so legally, I’d opt not to carry insurance for at least two of my motorcycles, which I rarely ride – and for one of my trucks, which mostly just sits in the garage. I judge the risk that I will have an at-fault accident with any of these vehicles to be very low, given that none of them sees more than 2,000 miles of road time each year and given that I am demonstrably a “good driver,” based on my accident-free driving record.
But I’m forced to pay anyhow – just like everyone else.
With mandatory insurance, there is no incentive for the insurance industry (which has largely become a cartel) to price policies fairly or competitively because we’re all forced to buy its product. Insurers can insoltently jack up our premiums over things like “speeding” tickets (often the result of deliberately under-posted speed limits) or even our credit rating that arguably bears no correlation to our driving skills or the likelihood we will cause an accident – and we have no recourse. Sure, you can switch policies, but as anyone who has tried this knows, they all use the same formula – and if you have a ticket or two on your “record” (even if you’ve never filed a claim or had one filed against you) the you’re screwed, blued and tatoo’d. As Bob Dole used to say, you know it, I know it, the American people know it. Â Â Â
How many of us have been hit with a “surcharge” on top of our already high annual premium (which can easily be $1,000 or more per year for the average person with a late model car) merely because we had the misfortune to run afoul of a radar gun in a speed trap?Â
And there is only one way to cut the legs out from under it:Â
Let good drivers to say, “no thanks” to overpriced insurance coverage.
Insurance companies would be forced to offer more competitively priced policies to good drivers. Policies based on actual risk as determined by the driver’s record of at-fault accidents. Not trumped-up “speeding” tickets.Â
And the bad drivers? Let them pay according to their risk profile – just like smokers have to pay higher insurance costs.
What if  an uninsured driver causes damage or injury? Make ’em pay or otherwise bear the consequences. If they have assets, seize them. If they work, garnish their wages. If they don’t work – make them. Nothing wrong with making deadbeats clean up trash by the side of the road or dig ditches… whatever.
Until the debt is paid off, no matter how long that takes.Â
That’s right and proper.Â
But forcing others to pay for the irresponsible actions of others isn’t.
Throw it in the Woods?
I have a simple solution….but would anyone go for it.
Simply put insurance in the gas…sure gas would be higher, but at least there is a way to avoid paying insurance.
Think about it
1 Anyone that has gas in their tank IS insured
2 Same price for everyone regardless of car type…or type of driver
3 You pay more for insurance if your using the road more…this makes sense…and also if you are using more gas you are probably in a higher ratio to have or be in an accident.
4 If you don’t want to pay for insurance don’t drive as much.
5 NO more billion insurance commericals
America has become a Fascist State and the only people that can stop it are the citizens with the power of the boycott and American Citizens are way too lazy to join together to take our country back. They follow like sheep. The Auto Insurance Scam gets worse every year. Now insurance companies could care less about doing business with a customer. now they advertise that you can lose your vehicle and even go to prison. These are very scary times in this country. The future for our Free Country is looking very dim.
Hi Ray,
Yup. Have you seen the commercial for one of the big health insurance mafias? The announcer intones ominously that it’s the law.
Fuck the law and everybody who wants it. We paid our $650 this year to “not” have Obamacare. Now that’s sick and when they finally have everything we have on paper(coming soon and maybe for all of us), we won’t have anything to lose……right? The man who has nothing to lose is the most dangerous thing the state can create.
I love the term Founding. That is the best term for what America was. Some Europeans Found some excellent land lightly defended by a few unorganized local yokel simpletons and they went ahead and Founded America.
In recent times there’s been a Cyberfounding of a new artificial intelligence realm. The internet is the New Online World. Where every information superhighway is paved with gold. Go Online, Young Man.
More and more, it’s becoming apparent that its a cybercommunist territory. And it is taking over everywhere just like the Founders did a little while back. Everywhere you go in the new Cyberia requires you to identify and report.
Of course you object to having a Cyber-comrade in charge of your vehicle. Your home and utilities. Maybe a while back you had a secretary. Office support staff. Some clerks and assistants. Those are all obsolete now. It’s just you.
You and a worldwide workplace filled with good soviet comrade bots. They just take orders and execute as expected. They’re happy to spy on you and report you to the Cyber Command and whatever else their doubleplus good programming tells them to do.
Well, shouldn’t say much more. Wouldn’t want to be sent off to the Cyber Gulag now would I? I love my Big Brother Bots. Wouldn’t want to anger any of the Agent Smith Programs and Nanny Beacons of the Matrix of course.
I propose the one way forward is a more rigorous and systematic dissertation of what is “wrong.” A lot of excellent things have been pointed out. I’d like to see us go much farther
We’re still far too close to a child accusing his elders and minders that they’re “wrong” simply because what they’re doing contradicts with the officially declared concepts of what is “illegal” or “immoral.”
This is insufficient I would argue. We can’t hoist them on their own petard. That’s a version of the stolen concept. We have to erect our own petard and then see where various individuals need to be hoisted based on our proprietary system of morality.
They’ve made it abundantly clear they’ll murder us if we don’t comply. This should be all we need to make new arrangements that don’t depend on them. This doesn’t mean we have to fight them even. It’s no different than when you become an adult and move out of your parents house to live your own life.
We need to move out of the entire Judeo-Christian house and all its muddled values and recursive smoke and mirrors. Whatever good Judeo-Christianity might have once done, is immaterial. The living extant version of Judeo-Christianity is one that says “comply or die.” I think we can all agree that’s no way to live.
I think we all can work together to create something better for ourselves. We can construct a new body politic. One that’s healthy and less homicidal and suicidal.
Only 800 for two trucks and the motorcycle!? Man that’s cheap as hell.. Here in British Columbia, Canada, our provincial insurance monopoly (run by the provincial government as a crown “corporation”) runs a tight racket, and annually cores my rectum for 1600 bucks; all of this for just ONE piece of shit old truck that has the minimal coverage I could get (no damage coverage), and this for a record of driving that has no accidents and only one speeding ticket.
Yeah – I’ve heard about that – and I think it’s coming here, too.
The whole thing’s a greasy con. Enforced by the tag-team mafia of Big Business and Big Government.
All to keep us safe, of course!
you forgot the children!
Speaking of the big business in bed with government racket, the thing about that which irritates me the most is the fact that too many people point to it and call it capitalism, leaving me to explain as patiently as possible that it has as much in common with genuine free markets as a cancer tumor does with muscle growth.
keep us safe or prenting to keep us safe
I’m no expert, but I do know competition drives down prices.
Sure am going to miss ole Clover.
Eric, you guys sure had good thing going! ha
See my post about Mega Corporations.
Mandatory requirements are obeyed only by people with
something to lose, who have respect for “the law,” etc. But of course,
people with little to lose, or no respect for the law, will ignore
mandatory insurance requirements and drive without it. When they cause
an accident, there are no consequences. They aren’t forced to pay, they
don’t get their wages (if any) garnished. Maybe their license will be
taken away – but that will keep them off the roads as effectively as
gun control keeps guns out of the hands of felons.
Meanwhile, responsible people get to pay more because there’s no threat (to the insurance companies) of being able to say, “No thanks – your charges are excessive and unwarranted. I think I will cancel my policy.”
Eric you are so involved with yourself and your political beliefs that you do not even know the facts throughout the states. In many states you can not renew your registration if you do not have insurance. Hopefully that is true in your state. Yes you can not get rid of every person that does not have insurance or the ability to pay but if you get 95% or more of them to then we are all better off.
Also go and take your gun control philosophy somewhere else because that hss nothing to do with driving without insurance.
I also do not believe in your philosophy that says you can not get everyone to do something right so you let them all do bad things. Why is it that when someone is stopped for speeding that everyone else around seems to slow down. Once you let people do bad things they will continue to do bad things and even worse things.
You might do a reality check. There are (as an example) countless illegal aliens who aren’t even supposed to be in the country (let alone in possession of a valid U.S. driver’s license or insurance) who drive – and cause accidents…. and the system can’t or wont do a thing about it. Same goes for the po’ white trash or ghetto black who drives his not-inspected, uninsured old piece of crap and piles into you after running a light.
Mandatory car insurance is a relatively recent thing, incidentally. Prior to the 1990s, it was legal in several states to drive without insurance. Mayhem did not ensue.
My problem is not with insurance, per se. It is with mandatory insurance. I oppose it in principle (just as I oppose Obama’s heaf-cayuh “reform”) but there are practical reasons, too – including that by making it mandatory, the insurance cartels have us by the balls. Even if you have a clean driving record and have never been involved in an at-fault accident, they can still charge you an exorbitant premium and you’ve got little choice but to pay up.
If you could decline the coverage, the insurance cartels would be pressured to offer fair, competitive policies.
That would be to everyone’s benefit because it would make insurance more affordable, which would encourage more people to buy it.
Which would mean most people would carry insurance – law or not.
Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
That would be a good deal for everybody as the prices will reflect people’s actual accidents rather then speeding tickets and make it actually harder for non insured people to get away with accidents.
However there is one problem.
What we need is laws that ban monopolies from happening so these insurance companies wont’ be gobbled up by other companies till all you have is one mega corporation controlling everybody.
The major problem with our economy is both political parties (Republicans and Liberals) want mega corporations either in the form of a rich elite controlling person or the government monopolizing everything which are killing the free market either way.
It’s more akin to0 a “Damned if you do” and Damned if you don’t” situation though at least with the Republicans you will still stand a small chance at being an individual but with government telling you what to do you have no chance whatsoever.
The government needs to only be for the defense of our country at war and nothing else period.
You should look up the McCarran Ferguson act. It’s crony capitalism at it’s worst. It exempts the “business of Insurance” from anti trust laws, allows them to price fix and redline. This along with mandates gives an unfair advantage and stifles competition.
This like most regulations was put in place to protect corporations from competition.
The problem with regulations is that they are written by corporations for corporations. They have nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with fascism, corporatism and crony capitalism.
What the Liberals don’t realize is they are shooting themselves in the foot with increasing regulations because the government doesn’t care about them anymore then they care about the rest of society which is nothing!
Then when reality hits them with all these laws which will take in effect between 2013 and 2014 they will cry fowl and blame the Republicans or some other ethnic group instead of accepting responsibility.
if you cancel where you are going to go next one the bigger shark then one before
The people that would not have insurance if it is optional are the people that do not have anything. That is why there is maditory insurance. If you can not cover your damages that you may create, even if you are an excellent driving, then you should not be on the road.
So stupid I can’t even respond properly…
So, Premises:
People have nothing (no money) + Mandatory Insurance (COST) = People can drive!
Obvious idiot is obvious.
Troll.
You say that you can have the deadbeats clean up along the road or take their assets. That is fine if they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets but if they do not then who is supposed to pay for the damages they cause? You are wrong about maditory insurance. It takes very little anymore to cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages but you must be living back in the 50s when things were cheap.
If your worried about the non-insured then make sure that YOU are insured. If a non-insured is at fault in an accident with you then you are still covered and your insurance company can go through the trouble of obtaining restitution from the non-insured. In a truly free market, there would be many ways to go about this. But coercive, mandatory insurance is never the answer.
not true most insurance companyies will chicken out paying anthing at all by saying driver was un insured and can,t be found another con trick thats why i think word insured is not worth the paper is writen on compulasary insurance in western world in my opinion is big con trick for froudsters to steal money out of nieve citizen scare them and they will pay more and more and more, that,s why i think it about time we in uk get rid off compulsary insurance in law, by the way world survived without insurance 3000million+ why is it going to end just know our own created greed for past 50 yrs or so
Mandatory insurance is a scam employed by the insurance industry, anyone who drives a car “assumes the risk” just as someone who goes into the ocean, they know they can be bitten by a shark.
In truth anyone who drives should have the choice to insure or not to insure, all policies should include uninsured coverage, no reason it should not, if the other party is at fault then the law should deal with it just as it has done for the last hundred years. If insurance were required 100 years ago the west would never have been won from the indians.
Failure to pay insurance now days results in your car being impounded, your drivers license taken away causing you to loose your job and now you have to go down and depend on welfare.
That is the sad truth about mandatory insurance and it is killing our economy as a nation.
I’ve been ranting along the same lines for years, Hellsjoker!
Mandatory insurance is systematically impoverishing the middle and working class. Next, they’ll mandate life insurance.
Can’t be too “safe,” right?
It is fine to not insure yourself when you are driving but that is not the main reason for manditory insurance. The insurance is there for mistakes that you make or accidents that you cause and you destroy my vehicle or disable me or my family possibly for life. It is fine that you do not like insurance but what is going to happen to the thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs that you cause others? Yes there are a few people that get by with driving without insurance but with manditory insurance it significantly reduces my costs for uninsured motorists cost coverage! In most states there are ways to bypass the need for insurance by demonstrating in some way that you can pay for any damages you cause.
Your statement about a cartel if flat our wrong. The insurance industy has many companies fighting for your policy and do it by trying to give you the lowest rate possible. That is why there are those advertisements out there about saving you money compared to other companies!
those “advertisements” are all lies… you SHOULD know this… Progressive for ONE example says 5 minutes could save you 5% or more! my current insurance agent is amongst the MOST expensive in the country oops ‘former’ as I am currently driving for almost a year with NO insurance and no registration FUCK the 6 grand I spent over he last 8 years paying for ONE fucking vehicle that NEVER got in an accident never hit anything never got damaged until the engine died and NO amount of coverage will EVER cover THAT!!!
I hate ’em, too… when that Flo twat come son the tube, I feel like Elvis did when Robert Goulet came on… and feel like doing the same thing he did…
Clover,
How are you posting here?
Anyway – You can apply similar arguments to Microsoft and Apple these days.
Microsoft isn’t a monopoly, because you could buy Apple. (Or, install Ubuntu linux or other Linux or Unix variants.)
But de facto is not de jure. When is the last time you went to a store to buy a computer? Remember how many had Linux, Unix, Debian, OS/2, Novell Netware? Do you remember selecting the operating system when you brought it home and turned it on?
Oh, it CAME with Windows?
Why? Oh, because everything RUNS on Windows.
…
…
…
But it’s not a monopoly.
____
So, I can choose Allstate, Geico, Progressive, State Farm, Farmer’s, Etc.
Been there, done that. All about the same (though I didn’t get into the coverage rigamarole, I didn’t have accidents.)
So, whichever insurer I have, I pay through their anal probe. All about the same price, given the same coverage limits.
Why it’s almost like they all used the same plan…
Like they all ran on Windows, ya know?
I got to choose which brand I wanted seared on my @$$, anally raping me every 1/3/6/12 months. WHAT A CHOICE!!!!
I could choose Levi’s, or LEE, or Jordache!
You DO notice, even if I “cross the aisle” – I’M WEARING JEANS.
Mandatory insurance is saying you WILL wear jeans.
Only the Elite get to wear a suit.
Back to your pig farm, swineherd, Gore the Master has to save your worthless hide from Global Warming! Doesn’t matter you pay more for heating the home in winter these days. Doesn’t matter you’ve burned less FUEL, which should indicate a real-dollar cost DECREASE in heating. (IE values go down, you throw mroe $$$ at it, but buy the same amount of fuel. Here, we’re spending more to buy less, heating less, consuming less – and still paying more. Real Dollars are disappearing.)
People like you are the reason I want to euthanize so many. You grow like wildflowers in the summer wind, “fiddling” like the grasshopper of yore, and spreading your shit everywhere. Ants like me prepare for the oncoming storm, and get mocked routinely…
Fed up watching you fiddle and dance and play, while you piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.
I CANNOT WAIT for the winter to come and freeze you to death.
Problem is – your kind will be back in the springtime thaw, perennial as the Clover you get your name from…
Gee jean, that was a rant…..and a good one to boot. I enjoyed it. But did you know you can be the victim of a wreck and be counted as the perp? I had never thought about that aspect till July of last year when a frac sand truck driver ran over my rig from behind. So now hospitals, collection agencies and anyone else aware of the situation is standing around waiting for me to fill their pockets. Me??????? I was stopped at a mandatory stop for road work and got run over from behind. So how am I the guilty party? Simple…..insurance companies and greedy friggin hospitals. I want the guilty party’s insurance to pay my medical bills but that’s pissin in the wind these days. it’s my name on the bill and they’ll screw my credit till I pay $21,000 for what is probably a bill that’s less than $4500, their first bill, before realizing it was an AUTO ACCIDENT…..and then they reassessed their bill and more than quadrupled it. You only need to be involved to realize how much worse it really is than simply paying and standing on the sidelines.
So their excuse is due to “statements I made” during that crisis. Statements? let’s see, I said MY VISIONS IS SCREWED and a few minutes later said GOSH, I MY BACK HURTS A LOT, MY NECK AND HEAD SPECIFICALLY…….since I had just had the back of the cab of an 18 wheeler hit my seat so hard I was thrown out and into the windshield(thankfully, I wasn’t wearing a seat belt or I might not be able to type if even be alive if I had). All said though, I was lucky in that I’m still alive so that oughta be worth a measly $21,000 eh? Of course that doesn’t cover medical costs since then. And then there was the malfunctioning train signal where the Northern Pacific ran over my rig. Lucky fuckin me. I now “own” two companies as everybody without a clue says they would. No, I am now “owned” by two companies till I holler uncle or pay some outrageous bill or both. yes please, give me MS(that other horrible entity) everything so I can pay for my own demise.
Can’t wait for clover to get run over with that company logo on the side.
In today’s Moral Majoritarian Matrix, you’re still liable even if you save someone’s life. The old stories of being a Good Samaritan and helping someone often include a sinister plot twist now where the Good Guy finds himself being dragged to the gallows for some technical foul, even though he did what is consider the decent and human thing for another.
Before you stop to help someone, consider that you’ll be made to identify yourself if the heroes arrive. They’ll run you in their databases. They’ll demand you answer their inquisitions. They’ll compare your actions to their behaviorial approval protocols to decide if you broke any laws while you rendered aid, or saved another human being’s life or property.
I tell you what, I’m not necessarily stopping for anyone in need who’s probably a clover, bootlicker, or makes a living via shaking working men down for their “shared responsibility payments” and such.
Go ahead and bleed out. Die in a ditch of a heart attack. Stand alone helplessly and unarmed while some petty thugs pick you clean and rough you up for fun. You dogooder hoplophobes have it coming to you.
You go ahead and eat that whole shit sandwich you’ve made for yourself. Don’t expect me to risk my life and freedom to do anything for you unless I have good reason to believe you’re someone worth risking my freedom for to help you out.
Mandatory Insurance as it exists in the United States is a Racket designed for the rich to take money from the middle class and do it collectively using the law to extort payment.
There are no benefits to being a good driver and if you have any problems even a “no fault” accident the insurance agency will try to bring fault into it and in turn raise your rates. These leaches know every trick in the book and their evil scheme has destroyed millions of lives and been one of the main causes of the rise in welfare, think about it, some slob trying to work and pay his bills cant afford over priced insurance policy, it lapses and he gets stopped, his car is stolen by the cops so there goes his transportation to work and thus there goes his job and only way to earn a living.
I often hear that they say driving is a privilege not a right, well I disagree, in our society a car is a must to maintain a job, or just to get around to do our daily activities, we have no mass transit to speak of so to take away our right to drive is taking away our right to survive, mandatory insurance only serves to “cripple” a man, woman or a society in itself, slowly choking it until it can on longer breath, we the people should demand a change in how our insurance laws work and must be made more accessible at more affordable rates, I say if the government mandates insurance then the government should supply that insurance at an affordable rate, not the private profit gouging private profiteer’s.
Agreed, Hellsjoker.
For me, the bottom line is that, absent the ability to say “no thanks, your rates are too high” – and decline insurance (legally) you’ve undercut the sole market mechanism that’s available to keep rates reasonable (for those who wish to buy insurance). Since we’re all forced to buy in, we all pay obnoxious rates that bear no equitable relationship to costs incurred or even risk threatened.
More deeply, though – on a philosophical level – it’s simply wrong to compel a man to hand over money for any reason other than harm actually caused. That he might cause harm is not morally sufficient justification to punish him (and what else would you call threatening him with violent repercussions unless he “pays up”?) and, indeed, is absolutely outrageous given the fact that he hasn’t actually caused any harm at all.
The average person pays several hundred dollars annually to the car insurance Mafia. Over a period of 30-40 years, this amounts to many thousands of dollars. And that money is gone forever, even if the person never so much as dinged a door.
I am thinking that libertarian minded people are deviants. Most people with our sort of understanding of the world would use it to profit at the expense of the masses. The insurance mandate is simply a manipulation of the emotional mind for profit as is most everything else. I learned that mandatory insurance doesn’t mean a damn thing. There are lots of people driving without insurance.
I don’t know if its more evolved to not want to dominate and rip off other people and just be left alone or if it’s some sort of defect. It seems the human world has two basic types those who dominate and those who submit but the person who is neither just doesn’t fit.
And I always suspected that the “go along to get along” crowd was almost the whole of society……with the exception of that few. Percentage wise, Tx. had lots of those and so did other states and places….just don’t look for a great many on either coast(all the good easterners done left long time ago as would my forefathers be indicative of). i’d admit we’re an aberrant crew compared to the clovers of this world. But honestly though, who would you want to align with? And the fact that we know other ways to live would indicate to me we don’t have to be dishonest and rip-off artists.
Hi Eight,
Most people are not liberty-inclined. The only reason you and I grew up in a country that still had a remarkable degree of liberty is because the fumes of the Founding had not yet dissipated. There were still cultural inhibitions that stifled the “safety” and “security” neurosis that has got us to where we are today. And what dissipated those lingering fumes of a more independent-individualist time (what I call, the “What’s up, Doc?” Bugs Bunny era)?
Among the certain factors: The ugly thing called feminism. Not (though it’s styled as such) equal rights for women (there are only human rights and everyone shares them equally).
http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/02/24/the-fumes-of-the-founding/
I think about this a lot, Brent.
We may well be sociopaths with a conscience. Dexters, who don’t harm people who don’t cause harm. Who just want to be left alone and in peace.
It’s having a conscience, I think, that keeps us in check.
“Oh, I had a conscience once. But alas, I seem to have forgotten where I put it.” –Chandler
The Declaration of Independence says we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If that does not include the RIGHT to operate means of transportation on tax funded roads, it means nothing.
Amen.
Especially when we are forced to “help” fund said roads – and have no realistic alternative but to use said roads.