CindyECC wrote:
AppyButt wrote:
Everything you have talked about here is a personal choice. You choose to take responsibility or not. You choose to care or not. You choose to patronize clinicians and trainers who practice what you view to be right. You choose to follow show rules and wear a helmet. You choose to set your own rules that all who ride your horses wear helmets. Or whatever it is that you have decided.

You weigh the risks and make a decision. Or you don't weigh the risks and blunder on ahead anyway. Those are also choices. People who do the former tend to make choices that improve their safety. People who do the latter will usually hurt themselves in some other way, helmet or not.

Personally I don't like others to tell me what I can and cannot do on my own time and with my own head. I choose to wear a helmet because I don't like the idea of going splat on the gravel road. If others choose not to, I can't make them, and I wouldn't really want to anyway.

Mandating personal responsibility is generally self-defeating. Responsibility is a choice, and one that everyone has to make for themselves. Forcing people into it doesn't make them more responsible, it just adds something else to the list of things they "have to do". A list of things they will happily ignore at the first opportunity.
So do you just completely ignore that your personal decisions have an impact on those around you?  Unfortunately, some people DO always make the wrong choices and have OTHER people paying the price for those choices.

I completely agree with you on not wanting people to tell me what to do or not do. I also don't want to live in a society that tries to enforce myriad rules on its members.  You've said that responsibility is a choice and I agree with that, too.  But the problem lies in what we do about people who CHOOSE to not take responsibility for their actions.  If you didn't wear a helmet and your head went splat, I can't choose to say "Um, no, you can't keep her on life support because I don't want my tax/insurance dollars to go toward her medical care."

I'm just saying that our PERSONAL choices impact other people's choices, and as such, we should take that into consideration.  I don't wear my helmet because I'm completely concerned about myself...I wear it out of love and respect for my husband and children, too.


You choose to consider and care about how your choices affect others. Or not. This too is a choice.

A personal choice is simply that, a choice you make about what to do or not to do with your own person. That doesn't mean that choice won't have ramifications or deeply affect those around you. Of course it will.

By not wearing a helmet, you are directly setting up only yourself for potential harm. Nobody else. Nobody forced you up on that horse, and only your skull will crack open should you fall. However, you are setting yourself up to indirectly harm others as a consequence of that choice. That is something you choose to take into consideration. Or not.