On Tuesday, Nov. 8, I'm going to get in my car, fasten my seat belt, drive to my polling place and strike a blow for freedom. How? By voting no on Question 2 -- voting, that is, to repeal the Legislature's compulsory seat belt law. Frankly, it would be more satisfying to repeal the overbearing nannies of the Massachusetts Legislature. But there are nearly 200 of those, and I can only vote against two.

Already the government confiscates the largest part of your income, controls what you can watch on TV, decrees the curriculum your child must study, tells you what to do with your trash, decides what contraceptives you're allowed to buy and may throw you in prison if you enlarge your house without permission. A compulsory seat belt law may be only a minor encroachment on our freedom compared with the ones we've already accepted. At least let us resist the minor encroachments.

An update on Tuesday's column: Tony Martin, Wellesley College's tenured Jew-baiter, and Fred Leuchter, the self-titled "engineer" who says nobody was gassed at Auschwitz, have pulled out of that Holocaust-deniers' conference in California. A new missive from the conference organizers reports that "several persons who had been announced as conference speakers in the May-June journal will not be able to participate after all." Martin and Leuchter are among those listed.