A trip down memory lane...

to mandatory universal auto insurance coverage and One Nation, Under Surveillance.

I'm old enough to remember (or perhaps I heard my parents discuss) when car insurance was not mandated by law. I remember when the auto insurance industry started its campaign in State Congresses across the nation to make it legislation. During that same time, there was a noticeable increase in media reports of horror stories involving uninsured drivers and how they "devastated" entire families. Many people, including my father, had some choice words about the insurance industry and their influence in politics and legislation. I believe they are also the ones who wrote the legislation which ultimately became nationwide law.

The media reports of the horrors of uninsured motorists quickly died off. Apparently overnight, there were no more uninsured motorists on the road causing devastation wherever they drove.

Next came a time when the banking and security industries joined forces to install video surveillance at ATM locations. Privacy rights activists warned of the "edge of the wedge" and how allowing video cameras at ATM locations would be just the beginning of "one nation, under surveillance." They were of course ridiculed in the nightly "news" as more and more reports were broadcast in gory detail of muggings and murders at ATM locations across the nation. Fortunately, for those industries, there was also an uptick in horrific murders and shootings - appearing on the nightly news - at convenience stores across the nation. You know the rest. The cameras went into place and being surveilled for our safety and security is more and more common place.

The media reports of these atrocities, then as before, quickly died off. Apparently overnight, there were no longer muggings and horrific murders in convenience stores and at ATM locations across the land - at least as far as the "news" was concerned.

Around this same time came the multiple deaths of scores and hundreds of passengers on commercial commuter trains caused by engineers and deaths on the highways caused by truck drivers, all "under the influence" and became a regular feature of the "if it bleeds, it leads" nightly "news." Privacy rights activists again warned of the edge of the wedge in drug testing but were seen as callous and uncaring in the massive media coverage of all crashes "drug" related. Today, peeing in a cup is a new-hire ritual for everything from airline pilot, to bus driver, to the clerk at the automotive parts counter.

Again, overnight, according the the "news," people stopped dying in drug-haze-induced commuter and highway wrecks.

Am I saying these things did not happen? Of course not. But, have they stopped completely? Of course not. Yet we do not see the media coverage saturate the nightly "news" to the extent that we did when legislation was being fostered through the system around these distinct and specific issues which have gradually eroded our rights to privacy, sovereignty over our own bodies, or of making our own financial decisions, in the name of our "safety" and "security."

So I will reiterate, no, I am not saying these things did not happen. What I am saying is that anytime there is legislation in the works to enact some draconian laws which will further erode some Constitutionally guaranteed rights, the media exaggerates the number of events by focusing on those events to the exclusion of other horrific nightly "news."

For example, why do they not cover the number of uninsured or under-insured people who die each year due to claims denied or unavailable health care? Surely those deaths are at least as important. Why do they not cover the number of wounded and killed soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? Again, aren't they important, too? Don't these stories fall under the aegis of "if it bleeds, it leads"?

Well, I'm sure I just imagined it all and the media does nothing to fuel our fear or in any way shape our shared common knowledge.