A beginning

I was hit by a thought sometime ago. We, the westerner, claim to be relatively free people. That we are mostly allowed to do what we feel is right as long as we don't put yourself and/or other in a danger. Or are we?

I mostly have Sweden in my mind while writing this but I am sure this can be applied to almost all OECD countries. Here we are always adding new laws where we are prohibiting things that may be dangerous. A classic example is bicycle helmet, all kids under the age of fifteen must, by law, wear it. Now, first time this doesn't sound so bad, actually it sounds quite good. Less children get injured or even killed in accident. But this may have repercussion that is far worse then a very slightly less serious injuries.

First, and to me the most serious one, is that this relief parents of their responsibility. They do not need to consider the situation, does my kid really need this helmet or not, why and why not? Instead the state has fixed that situation for them: Just force the kid to use the helmet or be prepared to pay the fine. "Well, isn't that nice, less problem for the parents, right?". No, being a parent is all about knowledge, valuating the situation and the needs etc. To learn how to be a good parent. Taking this away from them will make them less capable to deal with the kids.

Also, there is a very common rule by schools that kids under the age of eleven aren't allowed to take their bike to school. The reasoning: The kids periphery aren't developed yet so they cannot yet fully comprehend the traffic. And then they put a helmet on these kids that reduces their sight even more! This actually happen to me when I went in second grade. One teacher saw me coming to school on a bike, told the principal, who which sent me home, on my bike! Of course my father got furious over this.

Before this gets to long let me remind you of the situation in Australia. There everyone is forced by the law to have a helm when riding a bike. The sales in bikes completely went down the drain, the number of people taking the bus and their car just went straight up. Save a few people in accident resulted in more damage to the environment and lower peoples health by lesser exercise...

Enough about that, back to the point. There is constantly new laws added, and generally it isn't a bad thing, but a few of these law have a horrifying effect: it place the people more and more into a box. The bicycle helmet was one example of the state trying to save a few people for the price of freedom.

Step by step we lose our freedom, step by step we loose our ability to deal with our life without guidance from the state. A step closer to 1984.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin"