“I refuse to tip-toe through life only to arrive safely at death”

That anonymous quote got me thinking again about the latest Ontario government initiatives to coddle its citizenry, protecting us from ourselves, and furthermore protecting us from ever having to take any real responsibility for our actions. (Previously blogged on here, here, and here.)

Nanny-state legislation, most often initiated as a political knee-jerk reaction to an unfortunate death or injury, seems particularly problematic in Ontario. And without a major backlash, its relentless progression will eventually turn us all into a society of zombies. As we move from one protective bubble to the next, we will live our lives totally unexposed and to some extent oblivious to the real world around us with all its excitement, beauty, and, it must be said, dangers. Unable to conceive of taking any personal risk, we will become solely focused on immunizing ourselves from life so we can survive forever, without fear and without pain. Ironically, in order to live longer we become the walking dead ourselves.

I’m certainly no Edmund Hillary when it comes to living on the edge, but I’ve had my moments (many of which I'm proud to say would now be against one or more laws) and I simply can’t imagine being 100 years old and only having a white bread life to look back on. As the old joke goes, the doctor says if you give up drinking, smoking and wild women you’ll live to be 100. To which the patient replied, why would I want to? Exactly!

Any life worth living is inherently risky. Sure, some of us pushed it too far and, paraphrasing James Dean, lived fast, died young and left a beautiful corpse. Other friends, colleagues and family members didn’t make it this far due to countless other factors beyond their or anyone else’s control. But most of us make it through just fine, in spite of it all. And facing those risks, feeling that excitement, winning... and losing, even those near-death experiences define who we are. They are the underpinnings of our character, the same human character that brought innovation and progress to the western world at an unprecedented rate over the past few generations. It’s the same human character that gives us our heroes, in war and in peacetime; the same human character that lets us dig deep to find that irresistible force needed when faced with one of life’s immovable objects; and the same human character that every society needs in order to survive and that we, as humans, need to truly live.

Losing a loved one before their time hurts, and it’s understandable that those suffering such a loss will cry out for more rules, more limits, more controls so that no one else will ever have to feel their pain. But personal pain is not a good forge for public policy, and we should expect our politicians to be wise enough to realise that.

Ontario's new motto: We don't trust you to be responsible

What is going on at Queen’s Park? Someone should check the water.

Earlier today I wrote about the McGuinty government’s infantilizing of Ontarians, only to find out later that they’re not satisfied with attacking young drivers, they also want to go after responsible adult motorcyclists in yet another misguided attempt to "protect the children".

Helena Jaczek, Liberal MPP for Markham, has tabled a bill, Bill 117, that would prohibit any licensed motorcycle operator from carrying anyone under the age of 14 years as a passenger. The Bill passed first reading on October 27, 2008 with 2nd reading scheduled for December 4.

As The Toronto Star reports, not even the Canada Safety Council agrees there’s a need for this level of government intrusion. According to Raynald Marchand, program general manager for the national charitable organization, "We've found that young children are probably transported (on motorcycles) by their parents, and they're typically on short rides and the parents are very careful about it. This is a solution looking for a problem." (emphasis mine).

I think I’ll take my depleted RRSP and invest it all in plastic bubbles, because soon the McGuinty Liberals will have us all living in them until it’s time to put us in the ground... in a plastic bubble, of course.

Infantilizing drivers

There’s been quite a debate over Ontario’s latest move to further restrict the freedom of its younger citizens when it comes to driving privileges. Supporters tend to be parents and politicians (Dalton McGuinty: “If that means a modest restriction on their freedoms until they reach the age of 22, then, as a dad, I am more than prepared to do that ... We're going to take special steps, special measures, to protect our children."), while opponents, not surprisingly, tend to be the young drivers themselves (and quite a few parents, it must be said).

The proposed legislation combines drinking and driving restrictions (which virtually nobody opposes) with limits on the number of passengers young drivers may have in their vehicles. Under the current legislation, a G2 license holder faces restrictions on the number of passengers during the midnight to 5 a.m. period only. The new law, if passed, will restrict any under-20 G2-licensed driver to no more than one passenger aged 19 and under until they have had their G2 for at least one year (i.e. approximately 2 ½ years driving experience).

It’s this latter restriction that’s getting the most attention as opponents claim it will seriously curtail the ability of young people to have a designated driver, for example, when planning a night out. Car pooling to school, hockey practice, even church on Sunday will become illegal if more than one non-related passenger is in the vehicle. Age discrimination, pure and simple, the more polite say.

But there’s another, more serious issue at play here. As Robert Sibley points in Saturday’s Ottawa Citizen, these restrictions on young motorists may have such unintended consequences as removing “the requirement of responsibility from those most in need of acquiring it”. Dubbed infantilism, the concept is that by taking the ability away from people to make their own decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions (good or bad), we effectively encourage a continued level of immaturity in young adults.

But it seems to be a selective immaturity. It’s hard to reconcile such legislation with the fact that these very same young men and women are deemed old enough and mature enough to vote at 18; they are deemed old enough and mature enough to enter into binding legal contracts including, ironically, buying a car; they are deemed old enough and mature enough to get married and raise families; and they are deemed old enough and mature enough to fight, and die, on foreign soil for the very rights and freedoms which they are being denied by the nanny state back home.