Preface to repost A commentator on my previous post accused me of being anti-fun. I’m reposting this to show I’m pro-fun, as long as other people’s fun doesn’t threaten to kill me.
Original post 11/11/02
Tim Blair, as usual, defends his right to play with dangerous toys, like guns and fast cars, devoting a comprehensive fisking to a piece by Hugh McKay about speeding. I didn’t find McKay’s article that interesting when I first read it, but judging by Tim’s response, it hit the target.
On libertarian grounds, I’ve been planning to suggest some sort of theme park, analogous to smoking rooms and safe injecting rooms, where lovers of guns and dangerous driving could act out their Grand Theft Auto fantasies without endangering the rest of us.
But I was wondering – where could such a park be located? Then it struck me that large parts of the US are like that already, except for all the ordinary decent people trying to live there. I don’t suppose it would be too hard to persuade most of the population of, say, South-East Washington DC, to move somewhere nicer, leaving the gangsters and drug dealers behind. The park would be there, ready-made, for Tim and friends to enjoy.
The economic viability of the park would be greatly supplemented by reality TV. I, for one, would happily sign up for pay-TV just to watch this.
Update I missed it, but Tim has indeed blogged again on this very topic, with the headline Government good. Drivers bad Certainly if the drivers I encounter on a daily basis are a fair sample, the second part of Tim’s headline rings true
John Quiggin 
There must be a hollywood movie based on this script out there somewhere.
Come to think of it, most hollywood movies are based on this script.
Escape from New York?
That’s gotta be pretty close to the pure specimen Jason.
Yes escape from new york
excepting it was a jail, bit like port arthur only closer to the suburbs
Shame you’ve lost your old comments John. I was just wondering if reposts attract recomments, actual or unintended duplications. Can the comments on certain posts be safely predicted? Are we all just like old boxers, going through the old moves?
Actually, this post fell a bit flat the first time, as I recall. I can repost comments threads manually and will try to do this.