Why are Aussies just so risk averse a society? (schools, taxes)
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From the laws saying you can and can't do this in the guise or masquerading as safety and public safety and heath and etc.
Like helmets, lockout laws, seat belts, no smoking public establishments, etc.
I hate public safety, safety and health reasons to prohibit something, wheres the freedom in this country and why are Aussie society so accepting of this, it drives me nuts, Im an Aussie but I hate the attitude of the general population, why not risk somethings, whats up with the risk minimisation attitude, Europeans and North Americans are more risk taking people, shouldn't we be????
Issues raised by the OP are legislated at the state level in Aus as well.
Thanks for clarifying that. It may very well be that Australians are in some ways more "risk-averse" than Americans; I don't know, but the issues mentioned by the OP don't seem to be a compelling argument for that.
Would anyone really want to go back to the smoking environment of forty years ago? Smoking in all workplaces, on trains, planes, staffrooms in schools, all restaurants? Having to wash your hair and your clothes after a night out if you happened to be a non-smoker? This is quite apart from the health considerations.
The cost of injuries caused by not wearing helmets and seat belts is paid by the community in our country, having as we do health cover paid from our taxes. Do you want to have to pay more tax for the freedom of choosing not to buckle up? We were just in Vietnam which is still very much a developing country. Wearing of helmets is very strictly enforced and the fines are relatively much heavier.
Most of the restrictions are accepted because most people think they make sense and contribute to the common good. All countries have restrictions. As an example, the US airport security screening would have to be the most zealous and unpleasant of anywhere I have travelled. But it is accepted as a necessary procedure to ensure public safety.
Would anyone really want to go back to the smoking environment of forty years ago? Smoking in all workplaces, on trains, planes, staffrooms in schools, all restaurants? Having to wash your hair and your clothes after a night out if you happened to be a non-smoker? This is quite apart from the health considerations.
The cost of injuries caused by not wearing helmets and seat belts is paid by the community in our country, having as we do health cover paid from our taxes. Do you want to have to pay more tax for the freedom of choosing not to buckle up? We were just in Vietnam which is still very much a developing country. Wearing of helmets is very strictly enforced and the fines are relatively much heavier.
Most of the restrictions are accepted because most people think they make sense and contribute to the common good. All countries have restrictions. As an example, the US airport security screening would have to be the most zealous and unpleasant of anywhere I have travelled. But it is accepted as a necessary procedure to ensure public safety.
I'll attempt to answer some questions posed here. My view is too many restrictions are purely an abuse of government authority and power in place because they can impose such, under a set of scenarios and reasons that remove personal freedoms and replace them with collective instructions, if not by law then by hoped for social sanction.When smoking was everywhere and I do recall the time, non smokers were not in any shape or form so outspoken on the matter. One simply as a rule, accepted the fact some people smoked, (majority in my youth) others didn't.
I smoked once and had girlfriends who didn't. It wasn't an issue in the day, but certainly became one when the powers above dictated what is good and permissible in society and what isn't. It doesn't take much to get the lemmings to comply and applaud the loss of yet another freedom and supporting the stance by turning around that proposition.
I recall the government attempts in France over a generation ago to ban smoking in cafes and related places. The day it came in everybody continued life as normal ,disregarding the government decree as anti choice and against the principles of the revolution. It was quietly forgotten and not resurrected until a considerable number of years later, when smoking was anyway of the wane and the process was introduced in a less abrupt manner.
Germany, too only complied to a ban on smoking later. This was under EU directive and not a government decision. They done it sensibly by allowing smoking areas in airports and the like. All stopped over time, in fact laws enacted when I was in the country at the time.
Most anything, has been showing will prove acceptable to the masses, if conducted in a particular way. Nothing like convincing folk, a public flogging, is really for their own health and over all benefit.
Well American immigration, is a reason I don't bother to go there anymore. An example perhaps, of over zealous administration imposing rules. Would that over zealous behaviour have somehow prevented the terrible events in 01?
Australians are among the most risk adverse people I have come across. Not an perhaps a characteristic, immediately associated with Australians, overseas, from folk that considered Australia along the lines of Crocodile Dundee, rough and ready types, the outback and a combination of so much fauna that could kill but alas all something of a distraction from the reality.
I don't have a problem with most of those. It makes perfect sense that people are required to wear seat belts in the car.
Where the country truly falters is in the way it needs to over regulate video games. Now that there is an R18+ rating for games, its time to stop policing that type of media and accept the fact that lots of adults play games and want to experience content designated for them. I don't need the government to tell me what I can or can't play.
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