Reader Question: Saaaaaaaaaaaaaafety?

Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!

Bryce asks: In our saaaaaaaaaaafety-obsessed society, where cars are festooned with electronic and electromechanical nanny systems, where kids need helmets for everything except picking their noses, and where letting your kids play by themselves gets you a SWAT team visit, I have to wonder: How could such a saaaaaaaaaaafety-obsessed society be such fertile ground for breeding the opioid crisis in which thousands die and thousands more are injured or maimed in body and mind? And how and why did it come not from seedy back alleys and red light districts, but the legally sanctioned and regulated health care system? Methinks it’s because we focus on the highly unlikely and sensational while being blind to a manufactured and marketed crisis hiding in plain sight. That said, what do you think?

My reply: I think it is about control – not saaaaaaaaaaaafety. If it truly were about saaaaaaaaaafety, then – to cite one example – the government would have grounded every car with a Takata air bag or at least allowed temporary cut-off switch. The fact that the government is not only allowing but insisting that people drive around in these known to be defective and very dangerous cars tells us much about government’s true interest in our saaaaaaaaaaaaafety.

In the case of the drugs you mention, they are pushed by the government – as you’ve observed. There is control – and lots of money – at stake.

We’re not allowed freedom because it takes away from the control- and money – which is the government’s lifeblood.

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