My Inbox has been filled with piffle this week.
It turns out that I'm an anti-choice freedom-hater. And I'm also anti-Freedom of Choice. I'm not sure if there's a difference, 'cause, well, it's all so much meaningless marketing piffle masquerading as philosophy.
I blame the abortion debate. I'm sure the Piffle Wars predated the abortion dialogue (dueling monologues, really, but I digress), but if in modern times there were ever an issue in which everyone hid behind meaningless euphemism, that's the one. I, myself, am both pro-choice and pro-life. I like choosing, and I sure as hell like living.
At any rate, as soon as I hear such a slogan invoked, I tune out. "Use your words," I say in my imagination.
Which brings us to this "Freedom of Choice" nonsense with regard to motorcycle helmet laws. How noble that makes vainglorious stupidity sound. How heinous someone must be to oppose "Freedom of Choice." Bravo.
Alas, merely casting helmetless motorcycle riding as a civil liberty does not make it one; it is a privilege, not a right, and as such it is reasonably regulated by the people who issue you a license and ultimately pay for the roads and your reconstructive surgery.
In the spirit of compromise, though, I'll ally myself with helmet "Freedom of Choice"... just so long as that freedom extends to my health insurance company choosing whether or not they'll pay for repairing the fruits of motorcyclists' vanity.
Hell, I'll even support this imaginary civil right as soon as I hear women assert its existence, which would disprove what I really think: helmet "Freedom of Choice" isn't so much a moral stance as a vain, unimaginably stupid penis thing. Somehow I doubt they'd protest as much if, say, bad-ass leather jackets were required.