Why should anyone be forced to buy car insurance? Consider the question for a moment before answering.
Put another way: Why shouldn’t it be freely available for purchase by risk-averse people instead?
The argument – in favor of laws requiring people to buy insurance – is that it is a kind of security against the possibility that they might cause damage to someone else and the insurance assures the damage will be paid-for. What’s wrong with seeking compensation – when harm has actually been caused – via the courts instead? There would at least be the presupposition of actual damages – as opposed to the possibility of them.
Think about that for a moment.
Forcing people to buy car insurance forces them to pay for “damages” they haven’t caused. This is very bizarre – not to mention unjust – when you think about it for a moment. You receive a letter in the mail from a business you’re forced to do business with (you have the non-choice of doing business with another business if you’re unhappy with the first business but you cannot choose not to do business with any of them) that says you must send them a sum of money; if you do not send the money, this business will inform the government that you have not done that and then the government will send you a letter. That letter will tell you that your failure to hand over money to a privately-owned, for-profit business that you owe nothing has resulted in severe punishment; i.e., harm is now done to you for damages you haven’t caused.
The government punishes you for not handing over to this private, for-profit business by decreeing it is henceforth illegal for you to drive because you did not pay that private, for-profit business to indemnify you for damages you might cause by driving your car. You are subject to arrest if you continue to drive.
How this is different from the government hurling a fatwa that says you may not legally walk down the street because you might step in front of a moving car and cause damage? The difference seems to be one of degree only.
The core principle underlying the concept of justice is that of fairness. A person ought not to be punished excessively is a concept almost everyone understands and accepts. It is just to require that a person who shoplifted a candy bar give it back – or give back its value, in cash – and perhaps something more on top of that, such as a day spent cleaning up garbage. Almost no one would say it is just to sentence a person who stole a candy bar to 30 years at hard labor.
If that is unjust – and almost all of us agree it is – then how can be it just to impose punishment of any kind when there has been no harm of any kind caused by the accused? No property taken or damaged; no person harmed in even the slightest tangible way? In common law tradition, it was a basic requirement that a victim be produced to establish a crime had been committed. It seems a reasonable – a just – standard. It seems unreasonable – and so unjust – to punish any person who has not victimized anyone.
Yet that is precisely what laws that punish people who do not hand over money to the insurance mafia do. No other person has been harmed by a person who drives to work “uninsured.” This is inarguably true. So why is the person who drives to work “uninsured” subject to arrest as well as the possible seizure of his vehicle? How is this any different than arresting a person who is within a store who hasn’t shoplifted anything but might? Shoppers are not legally required to carry insurance that “covers” possible shoplifting. They are merely subject to arrest and punishment if they do shoplift. This important distinction is lost on those who support arresting/punishing people who drive to work “uninsured.” Their fear of what-might-happen drives them to support punishing people who’ve done them no harm.
This is a kind of derangement. An arbitrary kind of derangement (viz, the fact the while drivers are legally required to buy insurance to “cover” that which-might-happen, people who own large dogs – just one example of many – are not, even though it is also possible that something-might-happen). That which is arbitrary is by definition unjust.
It is also something else. It is a violation of the social contract. At least, the one that ought to bind a free society together. This is the contract that says you are only responsible for what you do, not for what you might do (or what others do). It is, in other words, the moral obligation to be accountable for yourself. But only for yourself. Its corollary is that the same obligation binds others. Interestingly, this brings us back to the common law idea of having to establish that a harm has been done before holding an accused accountable for something. There must a be a “thing” as opposing to no-thing.
The fear that someone might-cause-harm is exactly that. Nothing. It is an intangible worry; there is no substance behind it.
Rather than punish people for driving to work – or anywhere else – just because they are “uninsured” and punishing people financially by forcing them to hand over money for insurance to avoid being punished for not having insurance – why not just hold them accountable when they actually do cause harm? It is after all the same principle implicit in most other things. No one is arrested because they might steal something – or because they have not handed over money to insure the person or store they might steal from is compensated for the theft that might happen. Why then arrest people because they might wreck and cause damage with their “uninsured” vehicle?
It’s different! – screech people who seem unable to grasp that it isn’t.
It is always wrong to punish anyone for harms they have not caused that some worry they might. It is also a straw man argument to say that mandatory insurance laws assure everyone is “covered.” It is a silly argument. Of a piece with the argument that laws prohibiting (and punishing) the possession of firearms by people who have not used them to commit crimes prevents criminals from using firearms to commit crimes.
The fact is these kinds of arguments are worse than just silly (being self-evidently fallacious). They are tools used by malignant people to justify imposing harms on literally harmless people – as by obligung them to pay thousands to “cover” harms they haven’t caused and by subjecting the to arrest if they do pay the thousands – and that is arguably evil.
Res ipsa loquitur. It speaks for itself.
. . .
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“The objections which have been brought against a standing army,
and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be
brought against a standing government.” – Henry David Thoreau
No one should have full time government employment. Elected government officials should only be summoned on an “as required” basis and then immediately be dismissed back to their productive jobs. Government jobs should include contract dispute resolution, and little else.
There would then be little incentive for onerous government requirements and regulations such as mandated insurance or any number of other topics discussed here on a regular basis.
Fine article, Eric. The logic here is correct and inarguable among intelligent people.
So, why is it realistically impossible to get the situation corrected?
Because jews own the insurance companies and jews control the government. Likewise, big pharma, to whom the jews in government granted immunity from lawsuits in response to the big harma caused by their poison “vaccines” and other poisons called “mediciines.” Likewise, nobody was nor will be prosecuted for the UNconstitutional lockdowns (denial of our inalienable rights) over “viruses” they know do not exist.
(Even if such a “deadly virus” were to exist, government has no right to deny our rights. The People never gave government that power. Government was constituted to SECURE our rights and our borders. Thus it is also treason to deliberately infringe on our right to keep and bear arms — thus also to make, buy, and transport arms; and to encourage instead of prevent invaders, who the government styles “undocumented immigrants.”)
I could go on. But who with a functioning brain needs more proof? The naysayers are only the crypto-jews (a couple of whom have been outed) and the adamantly ignorant — both of whom infest the comment sections on this website.
Thanks, Jim –
I’d only say that control freaks and assholes (I know, I repeat myself) come in all colors and both sexes. A man is only my enemy if he makes himself so by trying to mind my business or pick my pockets or harm me or some other innocent person.
It’s that time of year for me to compare home insurance rates. Why is it that the cost to insure a house that costs many times the value of cars is much less than insuring those cars?
Sure a car can cause damage that a house can’t but the cost to pay out is much higher with a house.
Some part of this comes from the fact that people want their money *now* when someone owes them.
My solution is to have car accident loan companies. If it is so judged that a car accident is your fault, you can either pay out-of-pocket or get a car-accident loan. Yes, this business will likely be a bit predatory and have high interest rates, but the option is much better than having to pay an insurance company all your life whether or not you require their “services”.
If you choose to do neither and not pay, I see Eric’s period of indentured servitude as reasonable. I doubt that most people will take that option.
RE: “car accident loan companies”
Never heard the term before.
…What the Hell is That?
Well, nothing yet but an idea, Helot. A guilty party in an accident would be ordered to pay for the damages and then he or she would go to such a business who’d give them a loan to pay the accident victim. Then said guilty party would pay the loan back with interest, of course. Very simple. And this “system” doesn’t require anyone to pay anything who doesn’t cause an accident.
Nice idea. Nice dream.
I hope it’s realized.
Thank you, Helot! Unfortunately I have too little money to loan, but that could change one of these days. Then the legislation would have to change. These are difficult but not insurmountable issues. The greatest obstacle would undoubtedly be the deeply entrenched insurance mafias who’d not be quick to cede territory.
I like it, BaDnOn!
Bottom line, it seems to me a fallacy that most of the people who incur damage could not be compelled to make restitution. Granted, there are and always will be a few who are – effectively – judgment proof. That sucks. Life is unfair. But why generalize and institutionalize unfairness? THat is what forcing everyone to buy insurance is. I’ve not left anyone holding any bags for anything. So why is that I am $20k light – at least?
At least, I’d imagine, Eric! Not to be in any way offensive, but you’ve probably been driving for close to 40 years. Even at an average of $100/month, that is $48,000. And, I imagine you somehow contribute to the insurance you must pay to drive your press vehicles, which is probably a great deal extra, though that is just a guess.
What could you have done with $48,000? Probably invested it, for one, in which case you’d probably have much more than $48k. It could’ve been a piece of remote property and a small house. But all gone, for nothing. Strong-arm robbery.
Indeed, BaDnOn!
We’re all victims of this scam. This strong-armed robbery. But there is an upside. I long ago figured out that a law is just a law while right and wrong just are. When a law is just a law (i.e., no moral wrong is entailed ignoring it) then it is fine fun to figure out how to flout said law and doing so. I am working on this insurance business. Because I tire of paying for harms I have not caused.
Don’t listen to the naysayers, Eric, and keep fighting. Good luck and godspeed.
“Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law” – Henry David Thoreau
He goes further and says it’s our obligation.
Here’s a quote from Thomas Jefferson that’s applicable to today given what we’ve been forced to endure just since 2020: “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”
Eric,
“They are tools used by malignant people to justify imposing harms on literally harmless people –”
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LogoykSFjhM
Car insurance is mandatory. So is buying “uninsured motorists” insurance. Why is the latter even a thing if insurance is mandatory?
Cause . . . There is nothing the State can’t screw up.
Jails are full. The poor can’t afford insurance.
When they cause accidents they aren’t prosecuted, they cannot pay, and there is no indentured service (to either the injured party or to the State). So why not go without?
From the perspective of the poor, it makes complete sense to be uninsured.
This exactly. Since they cannot be sold into slavery, and you can’t get blood out of a stone, if you get hit by someone who is “poor”, and you are not carrying un/underinsured coverage, you are screwed.
That said, your state requires un/under, @Horst? Didn’t know that was a thing. Anywhere.
It’s part of the required coverage here in Taxachusetts, a Catch-22 to squeeze a few extra bucks from the serfs.
Free Market where you have the option to choose between many competing insurance company’s for a policy that’s covers ALL possible issues.
More affordable than any option today this policy would still be bit pricey because your neighbor may choose not to buy any insurance.
Over time natural social pressures will find most folks buying a policy driving the price down even further.
Rest sorted by the courthouse.
Life without criminal gov interference. Imagine that.
‘What’s wrong with seeking compensation – when harm has actually been caused – via the courts instead?’ — eric
Over a third of people, even in this relatively affluent country, have little or no assets. You’ve seen the Federal Reserve statistic, estimating that 37% of adults in the US would be unable to cover a $400 emergency expense using cash, savings, or a credit card paid off at the next payment.
Generally it’s unavailing to sue such people. You can obtain a judgment from a court, but you can’t collect on it. Attorneys call them ‘judgment proof.’ And there are a lot of them.
Like many social policies, mandatory auto insurance compensates for an underclass that’s not able to be financially responsible. Third-party insurers probably aren’t the best way to do it. But the gov-operated welfare state, also intended to serve them, appears to function even worse. If the cost of welfare were levied separately as a ‘premium,’ it would be enormous.
Hi Jim,
Yes, but I’ll argue the answer in those cases is to put them to work until the debt is paid. That’s just. It’s not just to force me or you to buy insurance because they might not pay.
I’ve probably had to fork out at least $20,000 for “harms” I never caused via mandatory insurance. That’s my money. I owe no one else a red cent because they worry I might not pay for harms I might cause.
I don’t understand your approach? How do you value the work, hourly? At what rate? What if they can’t work (like an 81 year old disabled man? What work? For whom? What if the victim doesn’t want or need the work they have to offer? What if the harm goes beyond property? If they destroy an orthopedic surgeons hands, and he can’t earn his $800,000 a year salary anymore, how do you pay off that harm? Explain this all to me, as this debtor prison is short sighted.
https://criticalthinkingacademy.net/index.php/blog/the-perfectionist-fallacy
Hi BAC,
All your points are valid; I think the bottom line is it’s wrong to punish people who have not done anything to cause harm. If that means some scumbags get away with causing harm, that’s the price of freedom. Some other person’s ne’er do well activities do not justify imposing costs on others who did not cause them. The person who caused them owes the person injured. If they can’t pay, then make them pay by spending time in jail. Seems much more just to me than arresting some guy and impounding his car merely because he drove “uninsured.”
Hey BAC,
What happens in general when you damage someone’s property and have to make restitution?
The horse is dead. Beating said equine cadaver ain’t gonna make it get up and go.
All these things, mandated insurance, mandated carry/purchase permits, mandated seat belts, mandated vaccines, mandated motorcycle helmets, mandated child support, mandated tax filing… every single one has no place and no legitimacy in a free country.
All of them are predicated on there being a ruler, and subjects. The American people were ignorant and they ignored their status as free men, masters of their own fate, and accepted a comfortable subjection.
Worse, most of them are stupid enough to to believe in democracy, glorified mob rule and a base form of communism.
Thus endeth the rant. Get back to work. If you done do what you’re told, the subjection will get a lot less comfortable.
Hi Ernie,
I don’t think it is dead – which is why I beat it. Same as “masks.” I think of both as I do Dracula. Until the fucker has a stake through his heart and his head has been cut off, he’s still worth killing.
Hi, Eric. I appreciate what you have here in your speakeasy. Don’t ever stop doing what you do.
Having said that, the car insurance rant has become a bit stale, at least to me, as a regular here. I humbly suggest you get away for a few days, it’s hard when you have a homestead and livestock (chickens), but it is still important to recharge the spirit occasionally.
No, I disagree. Mandatory car insurance, property taxes, income taxes, lack of alloidal property rights are very much an encroachment. Just as much now as they were 50 years ago.
Bringing them up and fighting against them in some form or fashion is not wrong at all.
By 1986, when I began fighting the 55 mph speed limit in earnest, people were telling me “it wouldn’t happen” and I sounded like a “broken record.” I wasn’t going to have any part of it.
We shouldn’t tolerate this or any other disabuse of our natural rights. We ought to have fought the TSA when it first was established.
Ignoring and denying reality is crap. I don’t embrace the shit.
Amen, Swamp!
The issue here is the general principle: It is wrong to make a a man pay for harms he has not caused. It is wrong to make a man pay for services he did not contract for, does not use and does not wish to subsidize.
In my humble opinion; if insurance became optional a method of insuring payment for losses must be implemented. For example: if a homeless crack head with no assets causes an accident that results in a financial loss to you how would you be made whole? It looks to me that some form of bonded servitude would be the only solution in some cases. I can already hear the left scream “That’s SLAVERY”.
Hi Landru,
This one’s easy meat:
Compelling a debtor to pay up what is owed is not slavery. It is working off a debt. The difference is important.
Nothing wrong with indentured service
When I was caught TP’ing houses and soaping windows I was indentured to clean up the mess I had created. Simpler times.
But I think the State has confused people about the nature of insurance. If you’re worried about the crack head, you would buy uninsured motorist/comprehensive type coverage.
Likewise if you can’t afford to cover your damage to someone else you would buy insurance as you now do.
But as usual – once the State gets involved via the threat of violence – things become convoluted . . . Cause if you don’t comply with our demands . . We will kill you or cage you.
Despite this threat . . . The indigent poor cannot comply with insurance requirements are are still out there regardless of what you do
Of course, we already have a solution in place to deal with this issue.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/
When taking a suit for damages. First question is; “is there liability, (did someone do something wrong that is actionable. Second question is; are there damages (Harm of some kind ) Third is can you collect anything (deep pockets)? If the answer to any of those questions is negative, any lawyer with sense will decline the case. What insurance does is bring in the possibility of collecting something. That said the business of insurance companies is collecting premiums NOT paying claims.
Losses are losses and mostly stick where they stop. Do what you can to stop the bleeding and move on.
The primary reason for the protection of bankruptcy is to stop the bleeding.
The requirement for people to have insurance expanded to health insurance back in 2010 after the bill falsely called “The Affordable Care Act” was signed into law by then President Barack Obama. I’m sure we remember the various lies uttered by Obama & supporters of Obamacare. Instead of making health care MORE affordable, it made it LESS so, and may have also set the stage for the federal government to try to MANDATE that people take an experimental pharma product 11 years later.
And yet, there are people who STILL think Obamacare is a wonderful thing, and those who refused to comply with it are selfish. People who actually tried to repeal Obamacare were framed as “Trying to take people’s health care away”.
Obamacare actually took peoples health carr away, by takinv away their money and restricting their choices. It’s still doing that.
Not that the system was all that great prior to it.
Much like every other massive piece of legislation, there are a few things that were somewhat improved but overall the result is more expensive and worse than if they had done nothing.
One of the major reasons why wages aren’t going up, is because all of the money that would/could have gone to wages, goes to pay for increased benefit (mostly “health” insurance) costs.
(In my best Internet troll mimicry voice)
“But Eric, driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right!”
Using technology for the benefit of Uncle Sam is nothing new. Uncle say “My roads, my rules!” and we all comply because the alternatives are so bad they were effectively driven out of existence for most of us. And because Uncle wants to enslave us the establishment is happy to assist private enterprise in their quest for dollars.