A tenuous, but I think fair comparison.

This is why we have a government people. I'm not sure that this is the soundest argument to push back against Republicans and their weird insistence that unchecked capitalism and total reliance on individual responsibility are the only way to America properly, but these:

And the rockets red glare...

"Yup, me again."

"Yeah, what even is that?" You might reasonably ask. Why it's a male to male--that is, prongs on both ends--extension cord. And if you're anything like me (not an electrician), your first response would be "surely there must be some application for such a thing, even if I don't know what it is." But evidently no. No, there is no safe or useful reason for such a thing to exist and yet it does and Jeff Bezos (and in fairness, a number of other online retailers) will sell it to you.

Right next to your lawn darts, 
Bucky Balls and Talcum Powder.

According to this article from Consumer Reports the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning the other day saying, and I'm paraphrasing here: "Holy shit, what are you thinking, stop buying these things immediately and if you own one cut it into pieces and bury it in the yard. What's wrong with you?" Evidently people have been buying these things, plugging one end into a generator and the other into like, a regular home outlet, under the mistaken impression that this will power their home in the event of an outage. Fun fact: it will not.

Instead, the more likely results are shock, electrocution, fire, and carbon monoxide poisoning when the generator shorts out or whatever. 

Turns out there's a reason people go to school and
apprentice for years to be an electrician.

Pictured: pedantry.

And what's more--wait, can I just tangent for a moment here, because this has been bothering me. A lot of people use the word electrocuted when they really mean "received and electric shock." Which, whatever, who cares, but the word electrocuted is a portmanteau of the words electric and executed and means "death by electric shock." So no, if you're around to tell everybody about how you were electrocuted, you weren't electrocuted. And sorry, yes, I know how I sound. Anyway, where were we?

What I'm saying is that dumbs are going to
dumb, but other people shouldn't have to suffer.

Right, the reckless behavior of online retailers who are selling a products whose only function leads to death and property loss and how I'm straining to make this into an analogy for the utility of government regulation. I guess what I'm getting at is that individual responsibility is super, but the world is full of dumbs who will try things like, say, plugging a generator into a wall outlet and hoping for the best. And ha ha, Darwin Award or whatever, but house fires have a way of spreading. 

That's why we have agencies like the CPSC. And I know, "boo, government interference!" but there's a difference between laws that say things like "you can't sell a product that kills people" and laws that say "you can't seek an abortion because it offends some peoples' religious sensibilities." Huh? Yeah, that's where I'm going with this. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that a commission telling businesses that they
can't sell dangerous products is infinitely more reasonable that laws telling
people they can't seek abortions because of other peoples' religious beliefs.