Miata Mailing List: May 1998, Message #97

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Just a realtively simple point of view...

Accepted fact, Air bags can and have saved many lives that would have
otherwise been lost

Fact, accepted by some or not, air bags have taken some lives that
otherwise wouldn't have been in jeopardy.  The cause and parameters are
well documented.  They happen in STATISTICALLY predictable numbers.

Fact - the government REQUIRES their installation and while it was
permissable for one to remove them theirselves it had forbidden that
trained technicians do it for the owner... thus havinf the effect of
forbidding their removal.

The government/powers that be have chosen to STATISTICALLY TRADE the lives
of a few for the lives of many.

BUT, this is not war. Even in war, those sacrificing their lives do so with
a sense of duty and selflessness.

 This is not an innocent caught up in the wanton acts of a terrorist.  In a
case like this, no bean counter or statistician has put the innocent in
harms way.  No individual has dictated a course of events that will
routinely put the innocent in a vulnerable position.

In the case of the air bag, their has been no free choice.  In most cases,
those at risk don't even know it.  In the case of the air bag, we are just
a number on a piece of paper that some beaurocrat or politician (who thinks
he can win some votes with the ?safety issue) has decided may be traded for
the common good.

It's not a case of informed consent... like here are the facts, weigh the
risk or NOT.  It's not a matter of whether I use them or not. (I do... but
then I'm 230 pounds and my wife is not exactly diminutive either.)

Any government or society that has devolved to the point of its parts being
numbers that may be traded indescriminantly, one for another, is MORALLY
BANKRUPT.  It has taken leave of its senses and is completely ASS
BACKWARDS.

A mountain of people saved will not justify one child or adult sacrificed.
I say SACRIFICED. (Sound like ancient pagans appeasing the gods???)  Hey,
there ARE other ways. Ones that don't put the innocent at risk.

The airbag issue is not one of does it save lives.  It's an issue of the
people driving the system or the system driving the people... a system out
of balance.  A system that acts as if if the people are creatures of it,
that exist at its pleasure, rather than a system that draws its legitimacy
FROM the people.

Whether others see it or not, there's a common thread here with many of the
other NMC topics of late (like law ENFORCEMENT) but I'll stop for now and
take my heart pills...  a little valium would be inorder (not help) but...

Ric

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From: AkiraRdstr <AkiraRdstr@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <miata@list.miata.net>
Subject: Re: Real Stats on Airbags (NMC)
Date: Friday, May 01, 1998 8:35 PM

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--
    "Akira"
'96 Chaste A/T      http://www.eunos.com/keith/stripes/akira.html

"Open the door.  Open the top.  Open the mind."
    ---from '99 Roadster sales brochure (Japan)
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