Where Do They Find These People?

A question for my New York friends: who the hell is Democratic State Senator Carl Kruger, and who let him out of the house without first clamping his mouth shut? From USA Today:

Democratic Sen. Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, according to WCBS-TV, is worried about walkers getting killed when they’re not paying attention to what they’re doing. Today he’ll introduce legislation that would turn crossing-while-plugged-in into an infraction similar to jaywalking.

“We’re talking about people walking sort of tuned in and in the process of being tuned in, tuned out,” Kruger told WCBS. “Tuned out to the world around them. They’re walking into speeding cars. They’re walking into buses. They’re walking into one another and it’s creating a number of fatalities that have been documented right here in the city.”

First things first - what exactly is the “number of fatalities” that Kruger refers to? Is there an epidemic of iPod-listening street-crossers being run down by taxicabs?

What ever happened to personal responsibility - as in, you are personally responsible for making sure your dumb ass doesn’t get run over by looking both ways before you cross the street? I learned that watching Sesame Street, so it can’t be that difficult a lesson. If you die due to your own stupidity - e.g. walking into the street without paying attention - you’re not proving that the iPod is a danger to society. You’re a data point in the proof of natural selection.

Lawmakers who propose these sorts of measures don’t hold their constituents in very high regard. Every time a bill like this is brought up, we’re essentially being told that we’re too stupid to take care of ourselves - that we need the government to concern itself with when and how we cross the street because we aren’t capable of simple self-preservation. Every creature born to this planet is supposed to be hard-wired to protect himself above all else; it’s the only reason any of us are here today. Why would we ever want to save anyone whose survival instinct is so flawed that it shuts off the second a poorly-conceived pop tune comes through his earbuds? Is this really the guy you want making little clones of himself? If you’re Carl Kruger, the answer is yes - they’re the only kind of people stupid enough to vote for keeping you in office, and you need as many of them as you can get

from Jason Kirk's "Catching The Antichrist"