DISCLAIMER: The Chief does NOT want kids hurt in car wrecks….but…this was yet another of those cases where a benevolent legislooter is out to protect us from ourselves.
The Chief wonders how people managed to survive so long before without this sort of governmental interventionism. The main pusher of this act of enlightenment ultimately fell back on the all-too-usual Donk habit of pulling statistics out of thin air, whether or not they made any sense at all.
Rep. Mary Glenski, D-Sioux Falls, pleaded with the committee to send the booster-seat measure to House floor. She said about 100,000 children have been injured in the past 10 years and as many as five children have died each of those years as a result of not being properly restrained. “I hate to think of another 100,000 kids being injured just because we decide to defer for another year,” Glenski told the committee.
Hmmmm. Let’s see what’s being said here. 100,000 kids in the past 10 years. South Dakota has approx. 750,000 people TOTAL. So then 13.3% of the entire population of South Dakota was injured by not being in booster seats over the last 10 years. Somehow this demographic seems dubious, at best. Also, note her statement that another year’s deferral will result in “another 100,000 kids being injured”. At THAT rate then we could look forward to a cool 1 million such injuries in the next decade!
The Chief wants to know what Rep. Glenski’s secret plan is to increase the South Dakota population that much? Bring in Mexicans and rename the state Dakota del Sur? Push for a whole new interpretation of sex-ed? One has to wonder.
This is yet another illustration of what Thoreau observed: “If someone were to approach me with the express intent of doing me good, I run fleeing into the woods.” (May not be exact quote, but you get the idea.)