Yesterday, I saw my first “masked” person at the gym – again. The first time was just shy of four years ago, at the beginning of what people still refer to as “the pandemic,” which is like referring the pond out back as “the ocean.”
Anyhow, the “masked” man had his “mask” on but only covering his mouth. Not his nose. Which is like wearing Depends around your knees when you’re incontinent. And of course, Depends do actually work – if you wear them properly. “Masks,” on the other hand . . . 
I thought about asking him why he was wearing a “mask” at all – never mind not covering his nose – but I didn’t because I’m not very good at gently communicating with the mentally or politically ill.
But I did wonder. And then I thought of something. A correlation, possibly.
Seatbelt wearing – bear with me – has become a kind of virtue-signaling. Every TV show/movie that shows people getting into a car shows them “buckling up.” Many people expect you to “buckle up” even though – like “masks” – your “buckling up” does nothing to keep them “safe.”
Somehow, this strange business of being “concerned” about the “safety” of others has become a national thing. It is a very strange thing. A bellicose thing – wrapped up in mewly niceties. During the orchestrated Obedience Training regime that people still refer to as “the pandemic,” it was a point of order (literally) that others wear a “mask.” Why? If the “mask” protected the “mask” wearer, why did the latter worry about whether some other person wore a “mask”?
The answer, of course, is because the “mask” wearer was at least as concerned about enforcing virtue as about not catching the cold that was sold as the New Black Death.
Arguably, this all began with the virtue-signaling about seat belts.
There was a time – those who are in their 50s or older today will remember – when seatbelt-wearing was something you did if you felt like it but most didn’t and only ninnies made an issue out of someone else not wearing one. If you got into someone else’s car, for instance, there was no pressure to immediately reach for the seatbelt because it had not yet become an expectation and you didn’t want to deal with an argument over it, as often happens today if you don’t immediately “buckle up.”
You just hopped in and (ninety-nine times out of 100) that was it. Occasionally, you’d hop in a car and notice the driver was buckled-up.
I can’t personally remember an instance of that. I can remember my high school buddy’s mom sometimes driving me and my buddy to school before we were old enough to drive ourselves and not once was she “buckled up” and she never so much as hinted that we should “buckle up.”
It just wasn’t generally done, if you can imagine that. Just as “masking” wasn’t done, either – unless you were a surgeon or a homeless schizophrenic.
Driving was considered by most people to be fun rather than something to feared. It was a time when people were not generally neurotic, in other words. A time before it became “virtuous” to be neurotic.
That gradually changed.
Not all at once but – suddenly – everything had changed. It is now considered a kind of affront to not “buckle up” as soon as you get into a car, whether someone else’s or even your own. Just as it became an affront to not “mask up.” 
I have felt the look and seen the questioning eye when someone gets into my car and notices I’m not “buckled up.” Even more so if it’s one of the new vehicles I am test driving and I’m sitting on the “buckled up” belt, which I do as a a matter of course – before I sit down – to shut off the scolding buzzer that would otherwise never shut up if I failed to “buckle up.”
Which brings up an interesting aside about how these scolding buzzers are styled “reminders.” They are of course no such thing as I am well-aware as soon as the buzzer begins to scold me that I haven’t forgotten to “buckle up.” I didn’t put the damned thing on deliberately. The buzzer – which doesn’t stop buzzing – is meant to punish me for that by making it all-but-impossible to concentrate on driving the car because of the endless auditory assault. This same basic technique is used at Gitmo and other such places, by the way. Rather than beat the inmate to break his resistance, the inmate is driven batty by incessant annoying noise.
So I sit on the buckled belt, to shut the thing off.
I cannot tell you how may times my doing this has aroused the same kind of reaction I got when I showed my face during “the pandemic.”
There is a religious element to this. It’s not just a rule that must be obeyed because it’s a rule. It’s a righteous rule. Like a commandment. This makes those who abide by the rules feel virtuous – and contemptuous of those who question let alone ignore the rules.
I was thinking along these lines after I got home from the gym and got back to reading about the Protestant Reformation back in the 1500s. It was a time when questioning dogmas and rituals could get you into real trouble, the burned at the stake kind.
How close did we get to that during “the pandemic”? And how far away are we from the same coming to pass, again?
. . .
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Not that I support seatbelt laws or anything like that – I support freedom and am against giving the government another excuse to pull us over and harass us – but there is a difference between mask mandates and seatbelt laws. You’re right that “buckling up” does nothing to keep others safe, but your buckling up can reduce someone else’s liability if they get into a car accident with you. In other words, if you increase my liability by not buckling up, that reduces my freedom.
Let me add that I am aware of the “Peltzman effect” or moral hazard argument, which says drivers’ take more risks – their driving behavior changes – when they feel safer. So the net effect of seat belt laws could be zero or worse.
You just sit on it and that works? I asked the dealership to remove the buzzer sound for the seatbelt, but they said by law or company policy, they couldn’t do it. I was thinking of buying a separate latch to lock into the buckle, as a way to stop the annoying buzzer sound. Is it really the law in the deep south?
‘And how far away are we from [real trouble] coming to pass, again?’ — eric
Let’s ask the American people:
‘The desensitization of some Americans following the second assassination attempt of former President Trump is alarming. Seventeen percent (17%) of voters believe America would have been better off if former President Trump had been killed in last week’s attempted assassination.
That figure includes 28% of Democrats who say that America would have been better off if Trump had been assassinated. Another 24% of Democrats were not sure. Fewer than half (48%) of Democrats could bring themselves to say that America would not be better off if the opposing party’s candidate for president had been assassinated.
Scott Rasmussen, president of RMG Research, said “It is hard to imagine a greater threat to democracy than expressing a desire to have your political opponent murdered.”
https://napolitaninstitute.org/2024/09/18/17-say-america-would-be-better-off-if-trump-had-been-killed/
With half of Americans pretty relaxed about attempts to k*ll Trump, it’s easy to imagine Stalin-style mass purges of ‘far right’ elements under a Kackala administration. Digging their graves would provide jobs, jobs, jobs for 11 million migrants.
This may sound like dark humor. But Americans are now ‘good Germans’ in the 1930s sense. Absolutely any kind of depraved ultraviolence that takes out their perceived enemies, foreign and domestic, is now perfectly okay. Anyone who’s paying attention should be hearing the clanging bells of a coast-to-coast cultural fire alarm. The Reichstag is burning, or soon will.
“There is a religious element to this. It’s not just a rule that must be obeyed because it’s a rule. It’s a righteous rule.”
Great point, something I have observed myself. I have a relative by marriage who grew up with a religious parent he is estranged from and now hates religion and Christianity and is a total lefty.
Yet he is an absolute Puritanical mask and vaxx fanatic. Not only that, he is (ahem) right about EVERYTHING. He drives a hybrid and has an electric lawn mower. I have no doubt he’ll get an EV someday. If you disagree with him on anything you are simply a stupid untermensch unworthy of any respect, rights or authority. I really got to the point in the last four years where I really dislike the guy.
It’s obviously psychological transference. He’s substituted the moral superiority of the covid vaxx religion for the Christianity he now thinks is nonsense.
I think there is a lot of that going on, as surveys demonstrate a significant number of irreligious left-wingers and Democrats. The government becomes the church, and they must force the heathen Trump-voting unbelievers to accept their morally superior racial views, “climate change” views, gender views, globalist/open borders views, and mask-and-vaxx views. If you reject those views you will be excommunicated from work, promotions, social standing, political power, etc.
quote: “Somehow, this strange business of being “concerned” about the “safety” of others has become a national thing. It is a very strange thing”
The government is NOT concerned about our safety because the pandemic proved they were trying to kill us all off with a death jab, and if you were not fully dead, having been jabbed and made deathly ill, taken to the hospital – for final “treatment”. The proscribed treatment was equivalent to stuffing a pillow in the face of the elderly man to weak to fight back. Then to incentivized the “care” workers then gave the hospital over a 100 grand to list the death as from Covid.
The government forks over billions in weapons and military aid for Israel and Ukraine to kill as fast as is permitted by international law, walking a fine line between military action and genocide. The only thing Israel has not done (yet) is use nukes on the innocent in Gaza – and many of their top politicians and rabbis are indeed calling for nuking and killing every last man, woman, child, and dog Old Testament style.
So at home and abroad our government is a proven mass killer and not concerned about our safety. I have another pic for Eric to use for his Diaper Reports, I meme this pic “When you shit your pants because the natives shoot back”
https://cf.girlsaskguys.com/q5157995/op/42dcb73e-7679-40bb-b6fa-f02fe30ed4e1.jpg
And I might add to the list of reasons why the government is not conerned about our safety – when the CIA and Israel team up make pagers, radios, solar panels and cars explode>
Masks are a sign of party loyalty.
Look for more Good Germans making their allegiance known before the election.
‘How far away are we from [burning at the stake kind of trouble] coming to pass, again?’ — eric
One indicator will be how the US fedgov responds to Israel’s exploding electronic devices in Lebanon, which killed dozens and maimed thousands, including civilians and children. Today the Lügenpresse confirms that Israel manufactured these devices [NYT article, ‘How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers’]:
https://archive.ph/Kv6cP
The Leahy Law prohibits the US military assistance to security force units which violate human rights. As Wikipedia dryly notes, ‘press reports have indicated that security and defense units in [11 countries] have been denied assistance due to the Leahy Law. On the other hand, Israel has never been denied assistance under this law.’
By supplying arms to Israel, the US fedgov is openly participating in sadistic war crimes against civilians. For now, this slaughter is directed against foreign Untermenschen. But a rogue government collaborating in war crimes overseas soon enough will deploy the jackboot, the garrote, and the PETN-laced device battery domestically as well, to crush its opponents and critics.
Winter is coming. And yes, that’s a double entendre.
Right on cue, the Lügenpresse picks up my theme:
‘Imagine the unthinkable: a mass shooting of members of Congress that leaves a large swath of the country unrepresented and shifts the balance of political power in Washington.
‘In the current political environment, such an outbreak of violence is not as unthinkable as it used to be, according to a bipartisan collection of House members.
‘To address such a scenario, these four House members — two Republicans and two Democrats — are pushing an unlikely solution: a constitutional amendment that would allow members to be replaced quickly in the event of a mass-casualty event.’
https://tinyurl.com/25tcvkf9
These four get it: if Israel can blow up 5,000 people in Lebanon, exploding 535 Congress Clowns ought to be a breeze for AIPAC.
What shines out, though, is their megalomania: they think themselves so important that an administrative bypass is needed to appoint their replacements within ten days. A special election takes too long!
In reality, if Clowngress disappeared, it might take months before actual Americans would even notice. If the fedgov shuts down Oct. 1, I’m gonna try to hire an idle Congress Clown to weed-whack my lawn. Now rake it, bitch!
I sometimes forget to wear my seat belt. I broke the law, I cite myself and mail the fine money to the local traffic court.
It’s the law!
I can solve the mask wearing problem, conjure up a way to make exploding masks, maybe a thousand of them, detonate them all at the same time and disfigure 1000 people across the planet.
Have another thousand exploding masks for the ready, just to make sure.
Mask wearing will stop immediately.
You’ll be able to blame the Jews, they are the world’s oldest troublemakers, the violent likes that they are, and you’ll be off the hook.
Exploding masks rule the game.
Kikes, not likes. They never change, I wish they would.
Spell check was trying to spare you from a hate crime charge, comrade. /sarc
I would say there is a massive correlation between buckle up and masking because it is the same neurosis behind both. I have actual evidence of this from a recent encounter in fact.
Being very near DC the neurotic leftists here are nearly everywhere. I ordered an Uber for a short trip and the guy that showed up to drive me was wearing a mask, because… of course he was. He also had the windows of the car slightly open at very precise increments because I’m guessing that helps vent the deadly Covid to atmosphere? 😁
Anyhow, I get in the car to start my short journey and before he even puts the car in drive he says, “the seatbelt is directly to your left at the shoulder and clicks towards the center”. With almost police like authority, as if it was unthinkable that I wasn’t going to wear a seatbelt in the BACK SEAT of an SUV! LOL!
They are mentally ill, and I really wish mortgage rates would return to something resembling normal so I could get out of DC as soon as possible. I -despise- interacting with these people on a very deep level but, like many, I’m basically stuck with a house right now as I have no intention of being an idiot and taking some 30 year loan at like 7-8% like so many dummies that I unfortunately know have in the past few years.
The bigger issue is the loss of masculinity enforced manners. It was not long ago at all that a mouthy troublemaker would get a quick corrective punch in the nose.
Now that’s a “serious” crime. Without the discipline men imposed on society, it isn’t polite.
Nobody ever really cared about the LGB lot, they were freaks and we knew it and they knew it. If they got in the face of normal folks, though, there were consequences.
We pitied the poor crazies who were masks out in the world, and if they tried to force them on us there would be escalating levels of reproof.
And nobody tried to call driving the car you own on the road you paid for a “privilege”.
But femmunists and freaks resented this polite society, and voted in a totalitarian police state, complete with a standing army of goons.
The cleanup required to fix this mess is going to be epic.
Hi Ernie,
What you’ve said is very well-said. I remember the masculine-enforced manners you speak of; that was the world I and others who are Gen X or older grew up in. It’s gone now. Replaced by an absolutely insufferable, mewling/whiny parody of manners; that of obsequious deference to the feelings of deranged people and assholes. That is to say, of Leftists – for they are chiefly who we’re talking about.
Second that Ernie,
I don’t particularly care if someone is gay, bi, or whatever but don’t be in my face about it. WTF is it with all the “Pride” parades and such? Sorry, but there’s no reason to be proud of being a freak, and especially expecting me to celebrate it.
10-4 on that one.
We are who we are.
Live and let live, but please keep your preversions to yourself.
I do *NOT* want to hear about it.
“Sorry, but there’s no reason to be proud of being a freak, and especially expecting me to celebrate it.”
They do it because they are assholes and sadists who take pleasure in deliberately offending you.
If your wife gives you oral do you fly the Oral Sex flag outside your home and have an Oral Sex Parade down Main Street? Does your employer celebrate Oral Pride Month? Do U.S. embassies fly the Oral Flag next to the American flag in foreign countries?
No. And if you tried that, people would consider it “offensive” and unacceptable.
But men who do anal with each other can march down Main Street in bondage leather waving dildoes and if you don’t celebrate it, YOU’RE the one who’s the “bigot”?
Naw, Dawg. Fuk dat.
I still open doors for women. I still open the car door for my wife.
Depending on where I am (rural, urban), the percent of women that dislike my act is about 0% to 15%, ohhh well, still doing it. But I do get lots of positive comments/looks.
A funny, my daughter is going to have a tough time finding a mate, especially in an urban setting. The other day her best friend said to me “her date did not open the car/house door for her, and she was not too happy about it, I see you do it all the time for your wife, and now I know why”
Just speaking as a girl,but I do like it when a man holds the door for me. I always smile and say thank you. Women who make a big to do about this need to get the hell over it.
Hi RG, like masking, I call it a Tell……………. haha
Many people who became mask freaks during COVID and insisted EVERYONE wear a face diaper eventually became vaccine shills after the mRNA COVID jabs were available. It was almost like such people became members of a COVID vaccine cult. People who looked at REAL SCIENCE and questioned the narratives surrounding these experimental pharma products were called “Trumpers”, “Uneducated Anti-vaxxer”, “Science denier”, etc.
The same people who were COVID vaccine shills once upon a time and advocated severe punishment for people who refused to be guinea pigs for Big Pharma are likely also deranged Trump haters and may also push severe punishment for people who vote for Trump should Harris lose. These people also automatically label someone who questions the narratives surrounding Kamala Harris a “Trumper!”
Hi John,
Yup. And – just as you could expect to be harassed by cops for not “masking,” so also you can expect to be harassed for not “buckling up.” In fact, you may find yourself threatened with escalating violence if you refuse to do it.
Hi Eric,
I don’t know if you saw this, but Ford filed a patent to install spying technology in their new vehicles. The insurance mafia, corrupt governments, and technocrats would undoubtedly LOVE to use such technology to gather as much data as they can on people who drive an automobile with it.
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/police-state/ford-files-patent-to-spy-on-drivers/
You’ll be harassed if you are a middle/upper class white person out and about. A) you have money to be mined by fines B) you are low risk to the bacon during a traffic stop. C) you aren’t supported by a victim advocacy group going to rile up over “victimization”.
Contrast to our vibrant diversity sanctuary residents from way down south. Blacked out windows, including the windshield, cops aren’t about to pull them over but will show up after they crash and run. File a report, next. No money, high risk to the copper at a traffic stop, and the copper will be on the evening news for harassment of the poor ‘ol’ sanctuary class. So, selective enforcement just causes further disrespect and down the drain we go. Our local small city is now devolving into animal town.
I don’t know John…… Trump calls himself the “father of the vaxxine”,,, misspelled purposely because it was never a vaccine.
He also turned loose the governors to do what they “thought necessary” to control the new plague. Millions dead especially older Americans. Operation Warped Speed. Lock Downs, Masks, Follow the Arrows, Police beating the shit out of Citizens, and many other Stupid Things followed trying to equate rules with law.
Hold your nose when pulling that lever for any of them and wash your hands afterwards.
I don’t ‘hate’ anyone…
but I do hold them responsible for their actions and Trump needs to take responsibility. RFK is a hypocrite and they are all liars, thieves and traitors to the nation.
That is what I found the most frustrating, John. When the hospitals were using the PCR tests to decide whether someone had covid or not, I could not educate anyone to the fact that no one was supposed to use the PCR to diagnose because the test was too sensitive. A cycle threshold over 17 was too high. And most were anywhere from 35 to 45. The whole thing was a fraud and yet no one cared about the truth because it did not fit into their mental illness that they so clearly enjoyed and insist the rest of us as well.
Getting rid of God in your life means not having angles watch out for you. I understand the lure, indeed I once attended an atheist activist conference in Las Vegas (if that doesn’t bring you back to Christ I don’t know what will). “No evidence” of God means you’re on your own, bud, so you better take action to keep yourself alive. This is the genesis of the workout movement, the fad longevity diets and the Safety Cult. When you have nothing to hope for outside of this life, you’d better damn well make sure to live as long as possible. If you’re not worshipping God what are you worshipping? Yourself?
Amen readyKilowatt!
I almost agree with you RK, but I think the state has replaced God, as the only means of salvation. If you obey its psychoses. Fauci, Obama, et al are its prophets. Do as they say and you will live a life of bliss, forever and ever. Disobey and they might just kill you if they so please.
What you said!
You’re spot on that the rise of “safetyism” and “healthism” parallels the decline of religion, by which I mean the Judeo-Christian tradition.
If you believe that this life is all there is and that when you die, “that’s it, Fort Pitt,” then you naturlisch want to live as long as possible, even though it means making your life miserable while you’re living it.
When you stop believing in God, it doesn’t mean you believe in nothing—it means you believe in anything…among them safetyism, healthism, and environmentalism.
Atheist….no conscience…do whatever you like…uncontrolled idiot….psychopath…
Atheist….no hope…when you die….you just turn into dirt…
Atheist….uncontrolled idiot….do whatever you like…psychopath…no judgement day….
An effective way to respond to mask wearers is to laugh at them.
Hi Arrow,
Another method – if you can manage it – is to fart close to them.
That’s brilliant….I think I will be eating a lot of beans in the near future….
Then, when they notice the foulness in the air, you may explain to them that what is happening is that small fecal particles are penetrating their porous mask and are landing on their olfactory cells. And kindly remind them that these fecal particles are larger than viruses.
Seat belts… that’s an interesting topic for me. I remember being a teenager riding with my mom from here to there. From what I remember she never had an accident, but I was scared to ride with her. I always wore a seatbelt in the car. It help keep me in the seat. It was 1978.
I didn’t need a damned law to tell me what to do. I was against the first seat belt law passed in New York in middle 1984. What a bunch of crap!
I despise the fact that cars come with those buzzers to incessantly rant at you until you buckle up. I don’t think they should be required.
When I was in my 20’s I devised a very simple relay interlock system for my car and installed it. Not because I think anyone should be required to fasten their belts. Its for me and me alone.
The whole theory behind this post crash traffic safety crap is flawed. People should be able to do what the hell they want. Its their choice!
Hi Swamp,
One of the may things I find annoying about the religious fervor of “buckle up” laws is how blinkered the whole thing is. On the one hand, the fervent worship of the seatbelt by people who can’t stop pecking at their smartphones (including the ones built into the car) or be bothered to learn how to drive competently, which eliminates almost all of the risk of crashing and so obviates the need to “buckle up.”
Yeah.
I remember talking with my cousin years ago about the seat belt law. She said that she liked it because it reminded her to “buckle up.” And you wonder why i drink.
I heard that line of thinking again during the gas price spike of 2008. A low information dude at the gas pump says that he wishes the government would lower the speed limit to 55 mph to remind him to slow down and save gas.
And you wonder why i keep sniffing glue.
Brand new song about our good host Eric Peters! 🙂
..and all the other Firestarters
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14851627
The track is currently #1 on SC Rock Charts!
Thanks, AMC guy!
As an aside: I am trying hard to promote the EPautos Forum as a free speech (and reach) site where anyone can initiate a conversation about any topic and there are no limits to how long a post can be and no fee to post, either. See the new promo on the right side of the main page. Feedback from all who see this would be appreciated, too.
Eric, I like your idea!
I will check it out and do whatever we can to help share and promote the site.
Eric,
I thought you might like to know that for the last couple of weeks I have been seeing all your posts on Twitter.
Hey AMC Guy,
I checked out that track. A little basic for my taste, but I appreciate any liberty-oriented musical efforts.
Musicians aren’t all Leftists, after all.
I really can’t wait to get back to music, myself. Perhaps the office I will construct, before too long, can also double as a music studio.
Yeah BaDnOn, Everything helps, death by a million paper cuts. 😉
Eric: “So I sit on the buckled belt, to shut the thing off.”
Just get one of those seat belt extenders they sell to obese people, snap it into the buckle and the noise goes away.
As for the masktards I give them the ol stinkeye and dare them to say something, they never do.
Not only did we not wear seat belts, we had big bench seats in which the seat belts routinely got lost beneath. Those were especially useful as a teenager to put an arm around your girl whilst driving.
Seat belt laws –qui bono? Follow the money.
AGWs: another excuse to mulct, search, and harass
Insurance Mafia: in theory fewer injuries to a belted driver/passenger involved in a wreck
Government: more reasons to control citizens
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, said some wise man. But when the intentions aren’t good, then what?
You do whatever it takes for a course correction.
Censorship during the bat germ hoax…and misinformation spreading…
Senate commitee hearing…Josh Hawley Accuses Doctor Of Lying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Z88APUNt4
There’s something about this country that makes it feel particularly concerned for safety, even though we are supposed to be a free country. We have quite a high drinking age, 21, in the name of safety i suppose. Most other countries don’t have cops stopping people all the time on the roads like here. We have lifeguards at the beach requiring you stay within a hundred yard width of their sight, and don’t let them see you actually swimming beyond the immediate shoreline or else! Go to other countries like Mexico or Germany and they treat the average person with much more respect and like adults compared to here.
It makes me wish i spoke a different language and could get out!
I wish there was just a buckle that I could click into the seat belt to shut it up…when I am simply driving around the corner to the neighbors on a back road. It is the “check back seat” reminder when I shut the vehicle off that cracks me up. For that means some one left there kid back there and now we all get a stupid alarm.
Hi Shadow,
I still can’t figure out the people who “forget” they have a kid in the car. Even as a young mom getting by on two hours of sleep at night I never forgot my kids were in the back. Every time I looked back in the rear view mirror checking traffic behind me I saw them whether they were sleeping or awake.
I know isn’t that the most ridiculous claim. Then when the (usually fathers) explain what happened they never explain how not only did they get out of the car and leave the kid back there but how they also went into the house or office and were fine with having no memory of taking the child out of the seat, carrying them or walking them to their day care or inside the home and getting the child re situated. It is a ridiculous excuse and I do not believe they “forgot” anything.
I think it’s the cigarettes and booze crowd listening to 80’s music that forgets about kids in the car. It’s a sad commentary on society. That crap happens, yet, if you don’t have a g-d car seat or have johnny buckled in, expect a visit from the black suited thugs.
Hi Swamp,
The “safety” seat is probably the main reason I never had kids. I sometimes watch parents going though the ordeal of cinching their kids into these god-damned “safety” seats and think what an ordeal that must be for them both. I hate the Safety Cultists with incandescent rage. Because “safety” has almost nothing to do with it.
To bad about no children, Eric. They are truth speakers.I can remember driving with my oldest son ,who was two at the time, thru town not in a car seat and not buckled up. In a 1995 Ford f-150 with a bench seat and his grandfather riding shotgun , when somebody cut us off. The youngster quickly blurted out “idiot”. granddad lost it with waves of suppressed laughter.
The first task I partook with my 2019 f-150 was disabling the idiot seatbelt tone forever.
I like that the mentally challenged wear the masks, I know who to avoid.
We had a seat for our kids way back in the ’60s. It hooked over the front seat back between me and their mom. It even had a little steering wheel for them to drive the car. Likely a 30-day sentence today.
Let’s remember that forgetting kids in cars was never a thing until the government decided that you couldn’t have a small child in the front seat with you anymore due to airbags. And they had to be strapped to a special chair!
Another government created catastrophe that snowballed into more and more restrictions on freedom.
I have fond memories of standing on the bench seat of my dad’s pickup truck. He never forgot I was there, I can tell you!
Once you’re about 3 or 4 you can roll down a window if you need air…like I used to do…back when we had such things as crank windows.
You shouldn’t leave a baby in a hot car, no, but in a former & better time people exercised common sense & society didn’t make a big issue out of things like that unless they needed to.
It’s now to the point you can’t even run in for about 5 minutes to use the bathroom real quick.
I used to love running errands with my dad. Sometimes I’d go in the store, sometimes wait in the car. Wasn’t a big deal. I survived. Never was placed in any danger of broiling or suffocating.
It was a different time.
You can go to a junk yard and buy the male portion of the seat belt (for a couple bucks) and insert it so the buzzer stops or buy a small plastic putty knife, trace your buckle onto it and fashion a plastic insert with a utility knife or dremel.
There used to be a time where you could just unplug the buckle, but doing that to a modern car will likely trigger all sorts of alerts and code faults.
These are probably the same people that had those “baby on board” decals on the back windows, like we’re supposed to care.
MB
I always considered that an asinine decal.
SO WHAT???
Your body, your choice, Eric.
I make a different choice due to personal experience. I’ve “totaled” three cars in my 50+ years of driving. The first was my fault due to inattention and I rear ended another car at ~35mph. No seat belt in the ’64 Pontiac Tempest and I walked away with only bruises. The other two were not my fault and both were diesel Rabbits. One was head-on and the other broadsided. The first I was doing ~45 and the other compact car ~20 and the second was a mid-70’s Electra 225 which pulled across the road when I was doing ~60. In both cases the VW was crushed back to the firewall. In both cases I was belted and walked away. I can’t say what my injuries would have been had I not been belted. Thankfully no airbags were involved in either case.
I’ve raced both sports and formula cars. I’ve always said I feel safer racing than driving to the track. GooGull “idiots in cars USA” and watch the dashcam videos for a while. So long as GovCo keeps giving licenses to people who can merely fog a mirror and write a check I’ll do whatever I can to protect myself. However, should you decide otherwise I will respect and support you in your decision because YOU should be permitted to decide for yourself.
I would just add that when it comes to the Laws of Physics there is no Court of Appeals.
PS: I’d love to try motorcycles but, only on track. I don’t have enough guts to do it on the street.
videos: https://www.youtube.com/@MegaDrivingSchool
Good morning, Mark!
Naturally, we agree. I don’t take issue with seat belts, per se. I take issue with the unctuous (and tyrannical) virtue signaling about wearing them. Same with the “masks.” Same with so many things in this increasingly unctuous and tyrannical country, where it is an affront to live and let live.
Hi Eric,
I agree with Mark. I don’t require anyone to buckle up when they ride with me unless they’re my kids and they are seating in the front seat. If I am driving a short distance into town I usually won’t buckle, but for long distance road trips or inclement weather I will. We each need to make the decisions that are best for us. I don’t see buckling up as virtue signaling just a personal preference. To each his/her own.
Hi RG,
Yup; and no argument from me on that. But I’m betting you can remember when almost no one “buckled up.” And I say that time was a better time.
True, no one buckled up. I rode in the front seat of my mother’s Volvo station wagon for ten years not realizing what a seat belt was. It wasn’t until I was sixteen with my drivers license that I was actually required to use it and that was because of my father, not the actual state law.
“I would just add that when it comes to the Laws of Physics there is no Court of Appeals.”
So true!!
I’m not sure what all this “virtue” signaling language is about.
If you don’t want to wear a seatbelt that’s fine. If you don’t want to wear a helmet on a motorcycle that’s fine. If you think that being unbelted in the back seat is safe enough for your kids OK – so be it.
In each of the cases above, should the worst happen, physics is going to teach you a brutal lesson. For me, self preservation is in my own self interest and has nothing to do with virtue signaling.
Hi Burn it Down,
The virtue-signaling is everywhere. Just the other day, while driving home, I passed one of those roadside electric billboards. It read: Today’s lesson . . . Buckle up! Go to the DMV and see. Almost nothing about competent/skilled driving – but endless lectures about “safety” and “buckling up.”
And how about enforcement? If you don’t “click it” then “ticket,” in the rap-like idiot language of government. How is my “safety” any of the government’s legitimate business? Am I an idiot child? Or a free man?
We know the answer. At least insofar as the government sees it.
And that’s the main reason why I give the big FU to “buckle up” laws and have begun to insolently ride my motorcycle without a helmet.
Perhaps I’m reading “virtue signaling” the wrong way.
What you’ve referred to is government propaganda.
Wearing a seat belt isn’t virtue signaling.
Wearing a helmet isn’t virtue signaling
Driving on the right side of the road when oncoming traffic is present isn’t virtue signaling.
And of course I agree with you completely that if we wanted safer roads there would be real driver education, and a need to demonstrate competence behind the wheel. But that just brings us back to allowing for more government control over our which is never a good thing. In my ideal world there would be no such thing as a drivers license. We all know it is nothing but a government issued ear tag.
Maybe I’m just taking the implication that I’m virtue signaling too personally just because I wear a helmet or buckle up for my own self preservation. That’s my problem to deal with.
Burn it Down: “If you don’t want to wear a seatbelt that’s fine. If you don’t want to wear a helmet on a motorcycle that’s fine. If you think that being unbelted in the back seat is safe enough for your kids OK – so be it. ”
But…. But…. you will attended by public “first responders” and likely carried in a public ambulance to maybe a public hospital emergency ward. Where is your concern for the public expense? You didn’t build it, you know! (I presume no need for a /Sarc)
Same solution applied to correct this connundrum would solve the “migrant” problem, of course.
Mark, x-racer here too, motorcycle roadracer. No question racing on a track is way safer than street speed (maybe not street cruising low speed?).
Motorcycle track day riding is not as safe as actually racing. Lots of yahooo’s. But certainly go check one out. I’m sure different venues/promotors have different rules/results.
>I’ve always said I feel safer racing than driving to the track.
Race car drivers buckle up.
There is a reason.
>when it comes to the Laws of Physics there is no Court of Appeals.
Exactly.
But if you want your face to crash through your windshield, be my guest.
Just don’t ask me to pay your medical bills, assuming you survive.
Oh, I forgot. You don’t carry auto insurance.
GFL, chump.
I also have walked away from 3 totals.
Buckled up every time.
I thought airbags were supposed to save us from injury from a car wreck? Yet our cars have to have air bags now (increasing their costs) and we have to wear seat belts or we can be ticketed.
Do you remember the Hands-Free Me-Too Freakout all governments waged on us when we were told not to use your cell phone while driving or get a ticket? This was what? A mere ten years ago. Yet now, all new cars force you to use the car phone screen to drive and not a peep from the government overlords. I have a small phone in my hands and the cops pull me over and give me a ticket. I boldly and proudly swipe the big car phone screen over and over and the cops don’t do a damn thing.
This world is messed up.
I remember when cell phones firts came ou, the gyms told you to not have your cell phones out. This back when not a lot of people had cell phones, and was supposedly because people were annoying when they talked on them and there was the by mostly Karen women that the men were taking photos of women at the gym. Now that everyone has a phone, all those signs about not using a cell phone are gone.
Yes and plus now if you have an older car a lot of people have a cell phone holder on the dash so they can stick the phone in and use maps to navigate. So literally everyone is using their phone in the car. But I do recall when you were threatened with a ticket for using one. Same with window tinting, gosh don’t tint the front windows only the back. Now everyone does it and the cops can’t pull us all over.
Cameras on phones were going to bring out the pedophiles taking pictures of your daughter and her friends at the mall.
Turns out she posted the pics herself. Who would have anticipated that?
Right, now everyone can see a photo of practically anyone they want.