Safe as Houses

Is it just me or are the Republicans in Atlanta growing more and more obsessed with micro-managing the day-to-day affairs of your social life ... all the while deliberately removing responsibility and obligation from big business across the state?

Fueling this ongoing meme is a recently approved House bill that bans teenagers from speaking on their cell phone while driving. While it's hard to argue that speaking on one's phone doesn't add another level of distraction for folks, I also have a knee-jerk reaction to any sort of attempt to curtail the ability of folks to ... you know ... do what they want to do behind closed doors (even if they are moving while the doors are closed).

Granted, teenagers are easy to pick on largely because, well, they can't vote and have limited First Amendment rights (and, let's face it, have a lot to learn about life). Still, something about this feels really wrong to me. It just seems that there's some willful glee exhibited by some conservatives whenever the topic of government serving as parent comes up. I mean, for years I've heard that we need to be in the business of letting parents take responsibility for raising their children, educating their children and disciplining their children.

And then something like this comes along.

Again, it's not that I don't concede that there isn't a measurable amount of distraction that goes hand-in-hand with speaking on your phone while driving, but I'm just very hesitant to say we need legislation that absolutely forbids this type of behavior.

At what point do we start hearing folks saying 'well you can't eat while your driving' or 'don't sip that Big Gulp while rolling down I-85' or 'you're gonna face a $100 fine for changing the radio channel' ... because all of those things are just as equal distractions.