OFF THE WIRE
It is a valid argument, and one that should be used; helmet statutes violate the 9th Amendment. There is, naturally, a right of an individual to make decisions for ones' self. This is especially true in regards to important decisions of individual safety. Natural rights such as these are so obvious that they should never have to be enumerated as a protected right.
Similarly, individuals have a natural right to freely travel anywhere within the country, so long as you are not trespassing or breaking other laws. Notice that I did not say a right to drive. Words are important. When you are pulled over by a cop, he will testify that you were driving. To be a driver implies the title of an occupation associated with commercial travel, and that the collective people have chosen to have commercial travel be regulated. You were not driving, you were traveling. Since you were traveling, and since there is a right to freely travel, any time you are detained or disallowed from freely exercising that right, it is a violation of your right to travel, which is a natural right. However, if your right to freely travel has been violated, there are numerous case precedences in which the courts have allowed police, just as there are exceptions which allow the police to justify violating your 4th Amendment rights - some of them are more disturbing than others. In some states, the license you apply for is to allow you to operate a motor vehicle. Again, to be an operator of a motor vehicle might imply a kind of skill-based occupation in the eyes of the state. You are a traveler, and are not conveying any goods to any market.
There are some travelers who are not drivers or operators who insist on their right to travel, without restraint, using prevailing contemporary mode of non-commercial travel, with refusal to be licensed, and refusal to register their vehicles with state government, but they typically get constantly harassed, locally, until they win many rounds in court. However, they are few and far between, and had to study the system thoroughly. For most people, being arrested and appearing in court on an almost daily basis for years is not a realistic option.
From the state governments' perspective, when you applied for a license or an endorsement on your license, you agreed to be subject to all regulations regarding the use of public roads, and are in breach of contract if you do not comply. The state owns that license and believes it has the right to check on it at any time to see if you are living up to your end of the contract.
The strawman arguments are worth looking into, and knowing about, because with the strawman arguments comes a new understanding of your relation with the society that regulates you, and this understanding can be very empowering, but practical application of strawman arguments, for most people, are not at all realistic. The strawman argument relies on testifying that in order to freely travel using contemporary conveyances which are prevalent, you obtained (or did not obtain) permission (license) from the state and that you were coerced into it by people armed with guns. It goes on and on to understanding Uniform Commercial Code and Admiralty law, and how traffic courts are a house of cards ready to crash in on itself. The problem is that if one were to get a thorough understanding of strawman and commercial code and how traffic courts work, in order to represent enough of a threat to undermining the entire traffic court system, all the court has to do is dismiss the case in order to have the problematic case disappear as though the arguments never surfaced. The same is true of people who argue against the tax system. If the courts are compelled to render a not guilty verdict, they also have it within their power to seal the case, thus preventing the spread of the knowledge for use in other cases.
jan
