ANOTHER BAD LAW

Day by day and year by year, we are losing our liberty. Our governments are determined to run all of our lives. There is nothing the government does not desire to control and yet there is no outcry from the people. This is because they are getting what they wanted. They were educated in the government schools and have been conditioned to accept, without question or reservation, any crazy law the legislature passes.

The government operates by degrees. They have not taken our liberties wholesale but slowly, one by one. It is a slow terminal death. Make no mistake about it, the government will not stop until they are totalitarian. Once they begin down this road, there is no area of life that the government will not seek to regulate. Government regulations are massive. An example is the Tax Regulations. The Tax Code is contained in two massive books. The Tax Regulations are five times that number. The government is determined to leave no stone unturned.

When the citizens have a new liberty, the government is going to find a way to regulate it. The cell phone is a technological marvel. An individual can take his phone with him wherever he goes. He is reachable wherever he is. Now an individual does not miss any calls. Important calls can be answered immediately and decisions made quickly. In emergency situations, the cell phone can be the difference between life and death.

This freedom is too much for the government to bear. They had to find some reason to regulate its use. They found their solution in public safety. The government in Washington state has passed a law making it illegal to operate a vehicle and talk on a hand held cell phone. This is the government telling its citizens what they can and cannot do in their own vehicles. What should happen is that the driver bears the responsibility should they have an accident while talking on a hand held cell phone just like any other accident.

Accidents happen for a majority of reasons. Someone can have an accident while changing radio stations, or drinking a cup of coffee, or a woman putting on her make-up, or someone reading a newspaper. In these examples, an accident is an accident regardless of the cause. Every possible situation cannot possibly be legislated against. In other words, there are going to be accidents no matter how many laws the legislature passes.

Here is the real telling issue about this Washington State Cell Phone Law. According to the Associated Press article, "In 2007, there were more than 141,000 collisions in Washington state, and reports on 158 of them listed "operating" a hand-held device–such as a cell phone or an MP3 player–as a contributing factor, according to the state patrol." These 158 accidents are .0011 percent. Hardly a major factor in accidents in Washington state. This law was passed, not for public safety, but for control by the state government over its citizens.