Exactly. I just wish people would own up and accept that there are risk in life. I have MANY hobbies that can result in injury or death; most people do. MMA, snakes, guns, football, hiking, camping, driving, whitewater rafting,power lifting, horse riding...people can die doing all of those things. That is a fact of life. Children die every year playing football--one of my brother's classmates collapsed and died of a heart problem on the field during practice. It happens. Doesn't mean football should be banned or too heavily regulated. You take a physical, pray for the best and accept the risk.

I (and many of my friends) engage in hobbies with the understanding that we may be hurt or killed while doing them. Since we're all sane-ish we do try to minimize our risk, but the risk is still there. And we do it anyway because we enjoy these activities, and because it would be a damn boring life if we only cared about saftey. Somethings are dangerous, but enjoyable enough that we do them anyway. That is our right as adults. We need, I think, to defend this hobby on that level, because it is the only intellectually honest way to defend it. We can't pretend it'll ever be 100% safe to work with hots or giants. We have to recognize the inherent danger that they pose to us, and assert our right as competent adults to keep them anyway.


PS--yeah, I vote Libertarian.

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