Re: SouWinner - Yo-lota Lancruisers
Chris,<br /><br />What about basic personal freedom? That is the defining principal that America was founded upon. The guys that wrote the Constitution of the Untied States believed that as long ones actions did not infringe upon the life, liberty or pursuit of happiness of another person, then one should be free to do what one chooses. They knew that although everyone is created equal, not everyone is endowed with the same interests, education, intellect, and ability to reason logically, however, they believed that it should be the legal and unalienable right of the individual to have the freedom to make their own decisions in life; such as my decision to try to get a Unimog to use as my daily (on pavement )driver. Do I need a Unimog? No. Would I ever use it's capabilities off road? Maybe sometimes when I feel like playing, but very rarely. But never the less, freedom to choose is what allows human beings to achieve greatness. Your last post brings to mind countless scenarios of repression of freedom of thought. <br /><br />Think how much further advanced in knowledge the human race would be if the Church of Rome hadn't repressed early science and astronomy based on what they believed. Any time you limit the actions or thoughts of other human beings, you limit the extent to which the human race can evolve in culture, technology, knowledge, etc. Having a special license to own and operate a four wheel drive vehicle is the same thing....even worse, it's a form of a tax. Taxes are used by governments to limit things they don't want or tightly control things they are benevolent enough to allow, such as tariffs, or hunting and fishing licenses. Here is an example of the danger of making 4X4 ownership a licensed and therefore specially taxed endeavor: Take capital gains taxes for example. They allow the government to confiscate a portion of any profit that your money earns on an investment. This type of tax discourages investment; but business needs investment in order to order to finance growth. So a capital gains tax discourages a healthy, growing economy; just as tariffs discourage foreign competition in domestic markets and visa-versa. Licensing 4X4 ownership would discourage 4X4 ownership, this would devalue the four wheel drives in Australia (I'll AU as a model for the sake of our discussion since that's where you are) which would cause financial injury to everyone who owns a 4X4, because they would have to either pay for a license to drive a vehicle they already own, or try to sell the vehicle in a market flooded with vehicles that everyone else in their situation is trying to sell, thereby meaning that they would have to practically give their trucks away. At any rate, the population of 4X4 vehicles would radially decline, which would mean that there would be no option of using a four wheel drive in situations wherein a four wheel drive would be a safer and more desirable vehicle to use, such as slick or icy roads, etc. Not to mention the damage that is done to the human spirit each time it is faced with erosion of freedom....the fading away ambition...the incremental destruction of innovative thought.....the demoralization of all of humanity when even the smallest and seemingly inconsequential freedom is taken from us, especially when it for our own good, forever removing from us the option of pursuing that deeply seated human need to find out for ourselves.<br /><br />The bottom line Chris is this, not everyone can make the right decision and/or choice in life every time, but we as freedom loving human beings should have the freedom to live our lives as we see fit, to make the choices we wish to make for what ever reason we deem appropriate; not living under the yoke of tyranny wherein our choices are limited by someone else, or God forbid they are made for us by someone else. Let that someone else live their life and stay the heck out of mine. I don't want to tell you or anybody what you can or can't drive, why would anyone want to exercise that kind of control over another human being? (Saddam Hussein maybe?) You say that most crashes involving 4X4 are single vehicle crashes, sounds like those who wish to drive 4X4 aren't hurting anyone but themselves, and when society steps in to try to protect people from themselves, then we cease to be free.
