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Did you hear the one about the Congressman who crossed the road? A U.S. politician wants to pass a law that would make it a crime to cross the road while listening to an MP3 player or some other device that presumably screens out the noise of approaching traffic. For one’s own safety, naturally. People who wear iPods while walking around are a menace to themselves and this sort of bad behaviour should be banned immediately, naturally (sarcasm alert).
Alas, the story I have linked to does not give any examples of where a pedestrian was run over by a car because the person happened to be daydreaming while listening to Mozart or for that matter rocking to ACDC.
Music, it’s the new menace.
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I can almost guarantee that this politician got annoyed at one of those iPod people.
They should introduce a waiting period for legislation like they do with handguns. It will give these petty tyrants a much needed cooling off period.
It’s a New York State senator who represents a district in Brooklyn, where three (out of about a billion) pedestrians were struck by cars recently.
Should deaf people walking across the road be a crime, too?
Karl Kruger is my state senator here in Brooklyn. A very nice man and a competent politico, though he has strayed a little off the reservation with this one. His interview on Fox news this morning, made it clear that about 3 people have died as a result of electronic befuddlement and personal lethargy when crossing Avenue U or Kings Highway etc. Sad but there you go.
This will be another law, somewhat like jay walking, it will be on the books though rarely enforced. Maybe, all that is needed is, in this case, the oxygen of publicity by threatening to create such a law, resulting in hoy poloi taking note and looking before venturing a plunge under the B3 Bus on Avenue U or, better still, the bigger and faster BM3 express bus to Manhattan on Ocean Avenue.
As democrats go, he is one of the good guys on many things, and he is a good constituency senator. On this one he is just being a democrat doing what they usually do, trying to pass pointless laws that seem as though they might do some good.
First they went for our boom boxes. Then they went for our Walkmans. Now they are going for our MP3 players. Good thing I saved my Monja Diski.
Well they’ve had the ludicrous Jaywalking law for yonks.
This doesn’t seem much different.
My take is
If you moonwalk backwards off the pavement
into traffic
because you have just reached a funky bit
you deserve to be run over.
But it shouldn’t be an arrestable offence.
We should call it what it really is-
Natural Selection.
One problem with electric vehicles is that they are very quiet and therefore potentially dangerous to pedestrians. As indeed are bicycles. Do you think these environmental saviours will be made illegal?
Having done a construction project that tore up part of the busiest pedestrian/bicycle path in Madison, Wi, I have a question. Do earbuds cause stupidity? Or do they merely indicate it?
Since the project was in a recreational part of campus where I hung out anyway, my friends and I could sit around after working and watch people approaching and make wagers with each other on what they would do. It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to factor earbuds into the equation. With those things in, probability of illiteracy skyrockets.
We watched one textbook case (he was actually singing along with his unheard artist) climb over two or three barricades carrying his bicycyle while ignoring signs indicating an easy, mostly ridable same-distance detour, he walked around the final barricade, out into the lake holding it over his head waded through and around obstructions for ~ 120 feet and climbed up a steep bank back onto the path.
Needless to say, my friends and I totally lost it laughing. I gotta believe that RABs got it right with that natural selection thing. Who are mere congressman to interfer with nature’s natural processes so egregiously?
Nick, think airports courtesy carts. Loud beeping honking or wailing noises will be required. At which point the vehicles will be declared to be noise polluters and banned.
Yes, this dolt wants to be seen to “do something”. Let us hope the author’s colleagues expressed their disgust for the idiocy of the proposal.
Could we get an update/ correction on this chap being in the state legislature, not the federal one? I understand if it is seen as too minor a point and the post does not explicitly state that he is a federal politician or in the federal congress, but there are several words that suggest that he is and it’s something of a peeve of mine. Cheers.
James, I said a U.S. politician, and I did not say whether it was a state, city or federal issue. So what anyway? It is hardly material to the issue at hand. No correction or update is required.
Actually Jon, with respect it is very relevant, that it was at the state level.
If it were from some dolt in Vermont the most people would not be the slighest bit shocked or worried for instance. State politicians, especially Reps, try to do whatever they can to raise their profiles. Idiotic initiatives are a common way of doing it.