You are to be commended for having the guts to say what needed to be said in your Straight & Level of the December issue (False perceptions of danger: This is a free country, isn’t it?). I am sick and tired of people who have no knowledge of an activity telling me what I should and should not do as I participate in that activity. The people who initiate laws governing wearing motorcycle helmets have never ridden one. In my opinion not having helmet laws would improve the gene pool because stupidity is probably an inherited trait and anyone stupid enough not to wear a helmet may get killed before they reach sexual maturity and pass this trait on to the next generation.
In any case it is the individual’s right to be an idiot if he chooses to be one. In a similar fashion, the people who propose the myriad gun laws have never shot one.
Most notably in my experience is the corporate executive thousands of miles away in a totally different environment telling me as the engineer what I need to do in my factory. Although my father is gone his wisdom remains. He told me that “your sense of idealism is inversely proportional to your distance from the problem.” This premise seems to be verified by the folks who have no clue as to what is reality.
Chris Heard
Unionville, Tenn.