Loaning Lawnmower Laws

 Krayton Kerns
5/28/08 

Do you loan things?  If your neighbor, your kids, or your grandkids ask to borrow your lawnmower do you let them?  If so, do you direct how it is used?   

“No air borne stunts, only two people allowed to ride it at once, clean your beer cans out of the cup holder, and return it with a full tank,” you rightfully demand. 

No doubt, if you mortgaged your house for the 45 horsepower, turbocharged, zero-turn, turf busting model from Kelly’s Mower Sales, you have the right to dictate exactly how it will be used.  This ‘rights-and-responsibility’ thing is almost a code of the west. (Such codes don’t exist on either coast.)

 Applying that same logic to non-lawnmower issues; if your neighbor, kids, or grandkids request that you pay for their healthcare do you not also have the right to dictate what they smoke, drink, eat and how much they exercise?  (Ironically, only in America does the poverty class suffer from obesity.) 

If the government is going to accept the responsibility of giving you free healthcare they have every right to dictate anything and everything that might affect your well-being.  Remember, this is the same government that mandates your use of seatbelts, motorcycle helmets and the flush volume of your toilet, because they feel you are not capable of making such decisions on your own.  All you need to do is get up, go to work, pay your taxes, pay your taxes again, pay your taxes one more time, and they will take care of everything else in your life.  Aren’t you lucky? 

Do you think I am being facetious?  I’m not. This February the Mississippi State Legislature heard bill #282 to outlaw the feeding of fat people in state-regulated restaurants.  Fortunately, the bill died.  Across the Atlantic, Oxford University researchers report that the addition of a 17.5% value-added-tax to unhealthy foods could save thousands of lives each year.  This madness knows no bounds. 

So when a candidate delivers a campaign promise they can provide healthcare for all plus provide it cheaper; walk away.  Better yet; run away…the exercise will be good for you.