http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090531/OPINION02/905310313/-1/STOCK01
Decals for teen drivers bit silly, don’t you think?
May 31, 2009
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There has been a great deal of debate about the efficacy of placing decals on the vehicles of drivers under the age of 21. Apparently the reason is that other drivers will know that vehicle is being driven by a young driver and, as a response, alter their own behavior. Otherwise, what is the point? A plausible argument can be made that this legislation does not go far enough. It should be implemented worldwide for American citizens.
Many of our Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees patrolling the streets of Mosul and Abu Hishma in Iraq are being driven by young soldiers. How many Abrahms tanks are being driven in the mountains of Afghanistan by Marines under the age of 21? Here in New Jersey we know these men and women are not smart enough, as my mother always says, to come in out of the rain. After a combat tour or two, they can come home to New Jersey and buy a soda and talk with their friends down at the local teen social center about buddies who lost limbs or were killed in combat. On the other hand they are not mature enough to vote, purchase alcoholic beverages or buy a pack cigarettes.
As for driving a car, they are not to be trusted. Navigating the mean streets of Manville or Raritan is far more dangerous and complicated than driving through a combat zone in Iraq or Afghanistan with an insurgent sniper drawing a bead on your left eye.
As a country that prides itself on truth and fair play, don’t we owe it to the Taliban and al-Qaida to let them know when a Humvee they are about to blow up with a roadside bomb is being driven by a person under the age of 21? When the insurgents are planning an ambush, they need to know if the soldiers are under 21 so they can be careful.
Sometimes those kids drive a little too fast and that throws the timing of their IEDs off. Not fair play.
What we need is an ad hoc coalition of concerned citizen volunteers from New Jersey to go into combat zones and affix decals to vehicles being driven by American GIs under the age of 21. Any takers?
AMBROSE J. NELSON
South Amboy
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Yes! I think we should round up all the Trenton Politicians who voted for this non-sense and ship them to AfPak for “labeling” duty.
I’ll go one step further.
As a little L libertarian, I think we need to eliminate ALL drug, licensing, and most of the other “laws”.
If you’re not ready to go that far, see if you’ll take this FIRST step.
We “ask” children to go fight for us. Whatever age we “allow” someone to go get killed “for us”, then they have the RIGHT as a full citizen. Period! No restrictions.
If you agree with that first step, how about this SECOND step.
Our culture doesn’t teach youngsters to drink alcohol responsibly. So let’s take the age restriction off completely. Let’s encourage experimentation and education, long before they get to college. There they kill themselves drinking with their new found freedom.
If you agree with that second step, how about trying a THIRD step.
The pseudo “Drug War”is killing children is so many ways. Drug overdoses are a direct result of impure mislabeled and / or adulterated products. They are “products”. Just because they are “illegal” doesn’t take them off the market to children. Most will agree that MJ is MORE available than beer. Our prisons are filled with non-violent drug offenders. The addiction rate is far above the “natural addiction” rate. So, let’s get real here. The DEA is a total failure. They say insanity is “doing more of the same and expecting different results”. Lets admit defeat in the drug war. From Afgan to Columbia, a bunch of bad guys are profiting from our stupidity. And the children are the casualties in this war. It’s estimate that if “drugs” were not illegal, the cost of “drugs” would be comparable to aspirin. So let’s turn loose our “secret weapon” on the Drug Lords and Gangs … … WalMart! If drugs were a legal product, they’d take care of the problem. We’d turn prisoners into patients.
Laws aren’t the answer; common sense and liberty is the only workable answer.
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