Local man dies for freedom of choice

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   / Local man dies for freedom of choice
  • Thread Starter
#51  
Pat, Since you live close how about some details? "Blatant ignorance" may be why he's dead, but why he was in the creek? MikeD74T

Mike, All I know for sure (and not already reported here) is that he was last seen alive brush hogging on his NON ROPS tractor. Three days later our friend went for a walk and saw the tractor upside down in the pond and on closer inspection noticed some clothing in the water and called the authorities.

I did not go to the scene and "read the signs." Maybe he tried to mow the dam and rolled over. That is my best guess but it IS NOT confirmed by observation. I regret that he most likely lost his life through ignorance and "wrong headedness."

This is three tractor deaths in the local area in about 7 years that I know of (probably more as I do not subscribe to the local papers nor stay current on many aspects of local"news.") Two of the three were roll overs of non ROPS tractors and one was a guy working under a brush hog which fell on him.

Unfortunately, it is most likely that all three deaths were EASILY preventable. The other roll over was unloading a tractor off a trailer without removing all the tie down chains, The operator was pinned to the pavement under the steering
wheel.

What a very wide spectrum of posts. Some were even related to the topic.

I too desire personal freedom for us all but... when your personal freedom encumbers mine or your risky behavior costs me too much $ then you have pushed your personal freedom too far. (A variation on, "do your own thing so long as you don't harm others.") So long as your free choices don't directly harm me, go do your own thing. Unfortunately the motorcycle helmet thing and the crack baby thing and all the other similar things do UNFAIRLY cost me AND EVERYONE ELSE lots of $.

I regret that anyone gets hurt but if it is through personal choice (join the Pro Bull Riders Association or bungee jump or noodle for catfish or prepare fugu at home for your family...) then I want to be relatively well economically insulated against your choice(s).

The difference, to me, in where freedom of choice is appropriate and where it is not is where someone's freedom to choose meaningfully infringes on my life liberty and pursuit of happiness. If you want to dance around drinking poison while brandishing a handful of rattlesnakes that is OK with me so long as you don't cause a burden on my tax dollars should something go wrong.

This is a slippery slope! Once you infringe whatsoever on one person's total unencumbered freedom in order to protect the freedom of someone else you have started down the slope. If you mandate motorcycle helmets to save the taxpayer from the inevitable monetary costs of unprotected riding and ditto seatbelts then why not sharp table knives? Shouldn't pencil sharpeners be designed so that the sharpened pencil has a bit of a blunt tip to the lead and not a fine point? Here is where reason is involved and compromise is required.

It has been said that you can't legislate stupidity (or words to that effect in this thread.) Actually there is no need to try to legislate stupidity as it abounds naturally. The unfortunate fact is that you can't legislate intelligence. No law will make scofflaws intelligent. Here is where some practical common sense would be most useful.

Not that everything can or should be reduced to economics but time and money are two of the chief ways to account for value. Clearly there is value in seat belt legislation. In aggregate, seatbelts save us all time and money. (Please don't tell me about the one time in a million when someone's car was on fire and the belt wouldn't release or similar MINORITY cases.)

In order to live in peace and harmony so far as is practicable, value judgments have to be made in sort of a transactional analytical calculus where rules and their enforcement are employed to prevent a few from harming the many. If you want to go out away from the rest of us and do patently risky things that are likely to get you killed or injured AND society as a whole does not incur a loss then go with my and society's blessing. Break a leg!

I have a pilot's lisc. That is NOT SUFFICIENT to fly legally. I must also have a current medical certificate showing me to be free of myocardial infarction, have the necessary correctable vision( with glasses) and have recent practice in the same type, class, and category plane I am going to take passengers up in. This protects my passengers as well as anyone on the ground on whom I might fall from the sky and crush with my plane should I personally malfunction.

Should I have the freedom to fly over you and yours if I don't make the Government mandated minimum health and other requirements. Should I be allowed to fly a plane over you and yours that doesn't meet the Government mandated maint requirements? Is my freedom of choice being infringed if I am not allowed to fly over you in anything I can get aloft regardless of my impaired faculties? But I want to fly FREE!!!

Public safety. If your motor vehicle is patently unsafe you should be prevented from driving on public roads where you endanger the rest of us. Driving a motorcycle at interstate speeds with no goggles is NOT safe for the rest of us as you could easily be blinded by hitting a swarm of bugs (not far fetched) and cause a dangerous crash. Don't like laws applying to you? Don't drive on public roads!

If you want to embrace risky behavior, the consequences of which do not realistically or meaningfully impact the welfare of the non involved, then by all means go for a Darwin. When your behavior is likely to cost me many tax dollars then your risky behavior has infringed my rights and you are in the wrong.

Pat
 
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   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #52  
As mentioned before, some states allow motorcycle riders to go helmetless as long as they carry adequate medical insurance to cover them in case of an accident so that they don't burden the public with their bills.

The rationale behind this law is inherently wrong because the accident still costs the public money as insurance rates are raised to pay for all the accident victims.

In our complicated society, just about everything that everybody does affects everybody else.
 
   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #53  
In Holland, an owner-operator is free to work without ROPS. an employee is not. So if the operator is a director of a small corporation, he is employee too and needs the ROPS to be installed.

If your neighbour wants to borrow your non ROPS tractor, he's responsible. If you pay him to drive your tractor, you're responsible. Our law expects employees in a less strong position to demand for safety features than a borrowing neighbor. In practice, thats how things go: most folks dont want to bite the hand that feeds them
 
   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #54  
He died because he was blatantly ignorant as many others are.

i suppose his wife, kids, family will appreciate your opinion... I hope youĺl never come into a situation to know how it feels like, when you're in deep grief and somebody says that about the one you've just lost...
And even if you know it in your heart, (just like those families do) you wont admit that it might be a preventable accident in the first weeks right after the accident... :(

a ROPS is not something magical, nor the seatbelt... there are so many variants on this scenario when he could have also been killed with these safety features: Hanging upside down under water, people often cant release their safety belt. The ROPS might have sunk into soft lake bottom, giving not enough clearance between the seat and the mud lake bottom for a person to move out of.

Experience from very close, has learned me that we shouldnt judge a cause of death untill all facts about it are investigated.
I assume you've never lost someone in an accident that seems questionable. Your short judging about a lost life is disrespectful to the family and no less ignorant than the victim not having a ROPS while working on hillsides.
 
   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #55  
If you want to embrace risky behavior, the consequences of which do not realistically or meaningfully impact the welfare of the non involved, then by all means go for a Darwin. When your behavior is likely to cost me many tax dollars then your risky behavior has infringed my rights and you are in the wrong.

It would be cool if that statement applied to everyone's risky behavior but then we'd have a society that was actually responsible for their actions. Include that and take away frivolous lawsuits and it'd be a better place to live and cheaper as well. I wouldn't be paying $1200 per month for my healthcare because I have to pay for 5 other people who don't have it or the amount built in to my goods to cover corporate lawyer retainment.
 
   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #56  
When your behavior is likely to cost me many tax dollars then your risky behavior has infringed my rights and you are in the wrong.

A rock climber engages in risky behavior and may cost me many tax dollars so he is wrong and infringes on my rights.

Someone who drives an old car without air bags and other advanced safety features engages in risky behavior may cost me many tax dollars so he is wrong and infringes on my rights.

Someone who jogs along a street engages in risky behavior, at risk of lung disease or causing a traffic accident may cost me many tax dollars so he is wrong and infringes on my rights.

A smoker may cost me many tax dollars so he is wrong and infringes on my rights.

An overweight person may cost me many tax dollars so he is wrong and infringes on my rights.

Surfing in the ocean is risky and may cost me many tax dollars so surfers are wrong and infringe on my rights.

Zeuspaul
 
   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #57  
zuespaul

That upper part was not originally posted by me. I do not know how to use the "quote" aspect that darkens the original quote which is attributed to patrick g. I think he is saying that engage in any risky behavior (or anything anyone else thinks risky) just so long as you have the the financial and moral responsibility to cover yourself when a mishap occurs as a result of your decision. I'm adding to his statement in the below paragraph. If you go to a store just after a snow storm and slip as a result of ice on the sidewalk, you now have the right to sue. Of course it is not your fault for missteping. You were fine if not for the stores negligence even if they cleared the walk. I personally just don't buy into that stuff. We have lost the element of responsibility in this society as a result of enablement and other people finding ways to make a buck as a result. Show me the presidential candidate that makes a statement of "by the way, if you make stupid, reckless decisions that infringe on other peoples rights , safety or pursuit of happiness, you get to die in the gutter" That's the guy I'll vote for. Maybe midsize cuts or cars could then sell for thousands less if companies didn't have to pay lawyers who go before judges and juries awarding such behaviors.
 
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   / Local man dies for freedom of choice
  • Thread Starter
#58  
i suppose his wife, kids, family will appreciate your opinion...

Experience from very close, has learned me that we shouldnt judge a cause of death untill all facts about it are investigated.
I assume you've never lost someone in an accident that seems questionable. Your short judging about a lost life is disrespectful to the family and no less ignorant than the victim not having a ROPS while working on hillsides.

You are entitled to your opinion Renze but... You are ignorant of the facts. The man lived alone and had no close family, one of the reasons he was upside down in a pond under a tractor for a few days before being accidentally discovered vs having a concerned party looking for him.

Perhaps some of my remarks were not PC and or might be judged harsh out of the context of the sort of attitude exhibited. The deceased is just one of many people to my knowledge who, while still alive, would be on the side of the free choice to do dumb things argument.

I have other neighbors who have non-ROPS tractors who are probably nearly as safe over time as many of us are on our ROPS equipped tractors. I have nothing but respect for their safe operations (except the lack of a ROPS for just in case.) These others are not making grandiose statements regarding the need to jump free in case of an accident and do not show disdain nor look down their noses at people who show a realistic concern for tractor operating safety.

Pat
 
   / Local man dies for freedom of choice #59  
These others are not making grandiose statements regarding the need to jump free in case of an accident and do not show disdain nor look down their noses at people who show a realistic concern for tractor operating safety.

Pat[/QUOTE]

I once posed the question of which was safer on a smaller cut. To be belted in or jump free in case of roll over. I for one wasn't attempting to grandstand but was examining the fact that being belted in on a smaller cut may give one a false sense of security. One is so much closer to point of impact on a narrow, smaller tractor falling sideways that I question the effectiveness of the two point belt system on such a tractor and thus in some instances (I gave examples of such from my own experience) could it be safer not to be belted in? I think more of a harness type belt on these tractors would be the safer bet as it would catch the upper body from being so violently tossed to the side as to cause a side head impact on rocks or obstructions. A larger tractor does not provide that added ingredient as the fenders are wide enough to block body or head to ground impact.As what happens much here, holier than thou judgements were cast and my original point was obscured. All it takes is placing one little adjective and the opinion moves from objective to subjective then all **** breaks loose on any given thread.
By the way, how does one get the quote from another on ones thread. I've attempted different ways but fail each time and obtain no darkened field.
 
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   / Local man dies for freedom of choice
  • Thread Starter
#60  
By the way, how does one get the quote from another on ones thread. I've attempted different ways but fail each time and obtain no darkened field.

I don't think I'm sure I understand what you are trying to do.

If you click on "QUOTE" the entire post is quoted. You can delete some of the text if you are only interested in only a part as I did above. I also eliminated the markup, i.e. quote and /quote. If this is not what you are asking then please rephrase your query so I can get it through my head and if able I will be glad to help you. More likely someone else will chime in with an answer while I'm still thinking about it.

Give more input regarding "darkening."

doo dah doo dah
The above quote was generated by my typing a left square bracket, then the word quote, right square bracket and then some text (doo dah) and then left square bracket, forward slash, quote, and then right square bracket. Any text between quote and /quote is then "quoted."

Pat
 
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