You Can’t Legislate Responsibility

As I read “A Call to Action” by Angela Daly, I was expecting to read a passion-filled and logical argument, but I was extremely disappointed. I completely agree with all the facts that Daly writes in order to support her opinion. The problem with her argument is that the argument itself is completely and absolutely unenforceable. She may have just as well have written that people who make dumb decisions about their own lives should be punished for being stupid.

Daly uses great logos to back her argument, however she never addresses the real issue. Being responsible with a cell phone in the car is no different than being responsible with the car radio. I had a friend who was involved in a fatal car crash because his radio was playing too loudly for him to hear the train whistle blow. He made an irresponsible decision to play the radio too loudly, but you can’t make a law that states, “You can’t have any noise while you drive.” When a person gets behind the wheel, he or she knows in the back of his or her mind that they are taking a huge risk. I can assure Ms Daly that there are many more things than just cell phones that can distract a driver. With technology continuing to advance in the automotive industry, a person has many more things take his or her attention away from the road.
The problem lies within the enforceability of the proposed law. You cannot legislate responsibility as it pertains to choice. We have already done this to a certain extent with helmet laws for bikers. There are many more pressing issues that our government should be focusing on rather than trying to remove another freedom that we, as Americans currently enjoy. If laws such as this are allowed to pass, you can certainly count the days until your next freedom is removed, and then the next. Finally you will wake up one morning and wonder, “How did I end up in a communist country again?” For it is the little things like these types of laws, those that go for the most part unnoticed, that lead the country down a path that our founding fathers never intended.

College students green, scared, and lonely???

As I sit in front of the keyboard trying to key on one topic to write about for my first ever blog, my mind drifts but eventually locks onto the generalization found in Kenneth Bruffee’s article on why a freshman in college joins a fraternity or sorority. After reading the article, titled, “Binge Drinking as a Substitute for a ’Community of Learning”, I was deeply affected by the author’s stereotypical views on incoming freshman. When I read that most all incoming freshman are “green, scared, and lonely,” I can’t help but think that this whole argument may be coming from his own experiences and not a great deal of research. Frankly, I don’t know any freshman who is going to admit to someone that they are scared about anything, particularly about fitting in. You might as well generalize everything else, while you’re at it. Fat people are lazy, kids that make bad grades are stupid, etc.. You can’t write an article that only addresses one side of an issue and expect it to be objective, that’s ludicrous. His entire argument might be true in isolated cases, but it certainly does not hold true for everyone.

As a quick side note, you do have to appreciate the way Bruffee writes to his audience. He includes every possible “hot button” topic that he realizes will affect professors and administrators. In my mind this is a brilliant example of knowing who your target audience is, and feeding them ammunition that supports their argument. The article is even written in such a way as to not be easily seen for what it is, a propaganda piece on the dangers of joining a Greek house.