I can feel sympathy for a mother who loses her
child in an accident. I can feel only antipathy, however, for such a
parent who shirks her responsibility and seeks absolution from the
State for her flaws by imposing even more limits on parental rights and
individual freedom.
Carol Ellert Keezer is one such coward and bully. (See
here.)
Her 12-year-old son died in an ATV accident. Even while wearing her
grief upon her sleeve, this exemplar (not) of the proper parental role
tells she, “Gee,
I didn’t know someone could be killed on an ATV!” (a motorized vehicle
designed to travel over
rough terrain!). “
I didn’t know they could go that
fast!” (Shown in the video story.) Golly! Boo-hoo! “Please oh please
force others –– preferably those who make ATVs –– to be held responsible for such problems. (But please oh please don’t hold
me or my husband responsible for our willful ignorance and bad parenting. Don’t charge
us with child endangerment or involuntary manslaughter. Haven’t we suffered
enough???)
Bleah.
Just as with firearms or fireworks or a plethora of other
things,
such anti-freedom creeps as Keezer want to hold innocent individuals
criminally liable for the stupidity of people such as herself. It’s not
the ATVs fault when bad parents allow too-young or untrained children
to engage in dangerous behavior. No ATV manufacturer compelled a parent
to let her child drive an ATV. (Though sadly the ATV industry is
complicit in Keezer’s idiotic statist mindset when it favors mandatory
training, helmets, adult supervision, and/or sale prohibitions.) Yet
Keezer is blinded to this simple fact. For her and her ilk, the only
answer is “there oughta be a law.” It’s the
ATV industry’s responsibility to inform her about the dangers...rather than
her responsibility to educate
herself about such a major purchase.
And even if the parents
are dutifully responsible in how they
train and supervise their offspring, tragic accidents can still happen.
Everything we do [or don’t do] carries risks. The only way to avoid all
future risks is to be dead.
At least many of the comments on the CBS site about this story reflect
the fact that not all parents in this country have abrogated their
responsibility for raising their children.
(from
Don't Get Me Started!, 7-31-07)
