The nanny staters aren't giving up yet.

According to KELO and the Argus Voices blog, the nanny staters are going to make another run at telling everyone how they're supposed to live their lives.

Good god, I hope we have a few Republicans left in the legislature to let this veto stand:
This year the South Dakota legislature tried to close that gap with a booster seat law, requiring all kids use them until they're at least 80 pounds or 57 inches tall.

Governor Mike Rounds vetoed that bill, saying the highway patrol would have to bring along scales to check children's weights and parents would have to bring along birth certificates to prove their age.

and...

Willadsen was shocked by the governor's veto.

Willadsen says, "When it's evident almost 60 percent of injuries and fatalities could be prevented by having a booster seat, it seems like a no-brainer to me. We need to have this. Kids don't get a vote. Kids can't say I need to be in a booster seat. "

Supporters of the booster seat bill need 10 votes in the house and three votes in the Senate to override the Governor's veto on March 26th. If they don't get it, they say they'll bring the issue back again next year.
Read that on KELOland.com.

If you can't tell, I'm pretty disgusted with those legislators of my party who supported this measure.

Why am I so up in arms about this? The thing is; day by day, week by week, inch by inch, we have our liberties curtailed. We have more and more laws and regulations telling us what we should do and how we should do it because someone in their great wisdom brought forth a study and decided that we should do it because "it's good for you."

Sure, 38 states may have already enacted it. You know what I say? Who cares.

We need legislators who represent the people of this state. The last I heard, they don't represent the overzealous who populate the legislatures of other states. Supposedly they lead - not follow the pack mindlessly as a sheep would.

Today it might be car seats. Ok. Tomorrow, it's going to be banning smoking statewide. The next day, it's banning trans-fats. Why not? They're bad for us New York did it, so it must be the thing to do. There goes cell phones in cars..... quickly followed by motorcycle helmets. We gave tanning a run - so let's make handguns and ammunition our next target. In a couple of years, it's going to be cooking with butter.

And the lists of things "bad for us" go on and on and on.

If anyone hasn't noticed, we're over-regulated to death. We're told what to do, how to do it, and that we should do it while eating a celery stalk.

I have identified with the Republican party all of my adult life because it professed to be the party of less government and personal responsibility. And yet some of the people we elect to the legislature seem to have the misguided idea that "there ought to be a law" every time they see someone do something as minor as break wind in public.

And it leaves me asking the question "why?"

South Dakota is supposed to be about the rugged individualist - the embodiment of the archetype of the frontier man. But for some reason, people would rather force us into this narrow minded mold of what they think we should be - how they think we should act - and how we need to adhere to their standards of living our lives.

And to see the politicians who claim they uphold the principles of "less government and personal responsibility" do the exact opposite just leaves me shaking my head.

Because they dishonor the values they claim to stand for.

Comments

Anonymous said…
7 year old kids may be safer in carseats, but that doesn't mean it the government should be making the decision for families.

All car passengers would probably be safer if they wore crash helmets while riding in a car, but that law would rightfully get laughed out of the legislature.

While Gov. Rounds' record has not been conservative, he does deserve credit for vetoing this bad legislation.
Anonymous said…
PP - keep the good stuff coming.
Anonymous said…
Let's hear it from the crowd!
Let's leave this one in VETO!!

Get those emails rolling.

Common sense is what is needed- not regulations.

Do i dare concur with 10:42p, i believe i do. PS I have 4 kids!
johnnie w. said…
liberties curtailed...right Powers. What about medical decisions concerning the use of marijuana for certain conditions? Where do you stand there Powers? liberties curtailed...yeah right Pat.
Anonymous said…
It appears that once again Senator Kloucek and PP agree!
Anonymous said…
grrrrr...we'll make you a criminal yet, pp. You can't escape BIG Government!! We discovered your vulnerability and we will use it! Hahahahaha...We have ways...We're coming for YOU.
Anonymous said…
Yes the government is limiting more and more of our choices. But children don't have the choice. The parents do and they should be choosing safety for their children no matter what. I used to work in a daycare in good old Pierre and I personally know how many kids between the ages of 2 and 5 weren't being put in car seats. We need to make moves to save these kids' lives. When I have kids, mine will ride in car seats till they are 5 and booster seats until the are 8.
Anonymous said…
anneme - Thank you - you seem to be the only one out there that realizes the law is not impeding parents - the law helps save the lives of the children who can't whine and bitch on this blog...
Anonymous said…
Yes, 1:56... YOU'RE choosing to keep YOUR kids safe! Good, excellent. What PP is saying is that it's none of the government's dang business.

Want to talk about injured children? Let's talk about statistics where 1.9 MILLION kids went to the ER in 2002 and those numbers have DOUBLED in 2005. Should we save those children from injury?

Well, let's get the government to abolish all sports programs. Yes, we must save the injured kids.

The number one cause of those injuries is a sport with NO PROTECTIVE GEAR at ALL! Shocking!

We should immediately abolish basketball.

When we were kids, we all rode bikes and I would guess we rode them a lot more than any of today's children. My kids don't ride all over town like we used to, or head to the river to go fishing by themselves.

I personally had never heard of a kid getting a brain injury from bike-riding. Today, most kids riding and quite a few adults ride with helmets. Not all, but quite a few.

That's a good example of education coupled with good, inexpensive equipment. And it's the responsibility of the individual.

Having the government legislate what is good for you is wasteful and stupid. Regardless of whether it's a "good idea".

Happy Trails!

Fletch
Anonymous said…
While we are on the subject.....
Infant mortality for heathly full term Moms is 6.9 (per 1000) for hospital births, 7.0 for totally unattended home births, and 3.2 for HOMEBIRTHS ATTENDED BY A DIRECT ENTRY MIDWIFE (knowledgeable attendent)

So where does our legislature get off making it illegal to chose to have a safe homebirth???

Shame on them--wasting our time telling us that we MUST keep out children safe in the car and then forcing us to chose the LESS SAFE hospital birth with all its costs and unnecessary proceedures!
Anonymous said…
I noticed I forgot to mention, or left it obscure, that the reason for the 1.9 million visits and doubling in 3 years was kids sports programs. Sorry...
Anonymous said…
Does the mindset rugged individualism and personal responsibility allow for gay marriage?

Seems to me that if you aren't the man/woman 2.5 children/Christian white family, you aren't allowed to exist in society or the law.
Anonymous said…
“Does the mindset rugged individualism and personal responsibility allow for gay marriage?”

The law applies to all no matter what the color of your skin. You can have all the children that you want or don’t want. You can work at what ever job you choose. You can join with others who worship as you do. You can even have sex however you like it—as long as you don’t force yourself on another or hurt our children. But why in the world would that mean that you should have the right to marry.

Marriage is for families to produce and raise the next generation even though some couples cannot have children and some are selfish enough to choose not to.

Homosexual relationships are not stable—esp. among men who (statistically speaking) change partners often, they are dangerous for children esp young males who are often the target of homosexual men.

Go ahead and pleasure yourself however you like—but don’t call your homosexual relationship a family—it is not. It is two unrelated people living together for mutual pleasure.
Anonymous said…
5:53, I wanted to marry a tree, but I decided it was "knot" a good idea. But if you were king for a day, I could have, and it would have been called a marriage.

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