The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an office within the U.S. Department of Transportation, just finished its annual campaign to get us to wear our seatbelts under a program called "Click It or Ticket." States receive federal subsidies to ticket drivers if they or their passengers are not buckled up.

The NHTSA's "Click It or Ticket" program is another step toward making Americans serfs of the state.

Let's start with the question: Who owns Walter E. Williams? Is it President Bush, the U.S. Congress...or do I own myself? I'm guessing that any reasonable person would agree that I own Walter E. Williams. The fact that I own myself means that I have the right to take risks with my own life but not others'.

Some might rejoin by saying, "Williams, if you're not wearing a seatbelt...and become an incapacitated vegetable, society will have to bear the expense of taking care of you." That's not a problem of liberty and self-ownership. It's a problem of socialism.

When we buy into socialism, we buy into paternalistic government...For those who agree with "Click It or Ticket" because it saves lives, would they agree with other possible lifesaving mandates?

The justifications used for "Click It or Ticket" can easily provide the template for government control of our diets and other lifestyle features..."Click It Or Ticket" is just softening up the rest of us for what lies ahead in the future.

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I'd just as soon pay an extra $50 when I get my licence and say the hell with wearing a seat belt. It's just another tax without calling it so. I wonder if someone ever did a study of living in various states when you take in account stupid laws?

I've been fighting the primary seat belt laws (cops can ticket you for that infraction alone) since they started. I've always felt that was when the breakdown in freedom began; once the public accepted the state telling them what to do in their personal lives, they would be willing to accept the next state-sanctioned personal behavior, and the next, and the next. Smoking became "the next" state controlled behavior after the seat belt laws. Alcohol may be the next "next", or junk food, or both. The American public is slowly being conditioned to accept government control of their lives. If Americans had this attitude in the 1700s, we'd all be pledging allegiance to the Queen today.