Thoughts on life, love and faith by Plasticmind.

20 November 20061. ren:

"would people here be able to handle all that freedom?"

What are you implying? That the borderline socialists of Europe can deal with freedom better than we can? :)

Here's what I think: it would work in small towns and small cities. In bigger cities, probably not. My reasoning for this has firstly to do with the complication of large volumes of traffic and large numbers of streets (for example: how exactly would that work in rush hour DC? or intersections of 3-lane highways?), and the exponential increase in selfishness and self-interest you find on the road in bigger cities. One my biggest frustrations when driving is how merging becomes this competition to be won: if someone lets you in, it means you when not them. Or something. I'm not sure that it would be effective everywhere--at least not yet. Perhaps if it started in smaller cities and towns, and had a chance to seep in before trying it in bigger areas.

In the larger sense, I do tend to agree with his idea that the more authority tries to micromanage, the less people learn how to manage themselves. It kind of tends toward the "you just aren't capable of handling yourself, so we'll do it for you" idea. Of course, road rules didn't come about that way--they are enacted as a response to accidents--but in other areas of life, many times the rules are there to "protect" people from themselves (like recent efforts to ban trans fat in all restaurants, etc.). But that kind of protection often becomes just treating people like children.

20 November 20062. LaRosa Johnson:

let's just put it this way... i wouldn't want to be on the road with teenage drivers without rules & regulations...

lj.

22 November 20063. crystal:

Please have such faith in human benevolence. I however, do not have enough to support this idea.