If you’re an anarchist, just start a thread advocating that and let’s be done with the pointless diversion into drunken driving laws.
If your position is that there should be no state at all, you’ve been deliberately wasting our time with needling one law in particular. The distinction between this law and others is pointless if you believe there should be now laws at all and our efforts to explain why DUI laws serve a purpose have been wasted.
There are always places you can go where there’s effetively no state. Somalia, from what I understand, offers such luxury. Why have you not gone there?
That’s complete horseshit. There was no such hysteria.
Huh. It’s been awhile since I’ve worked with MADD, but I wasn’t aware that they had adopted a prohibitionist stance on adult drinking. I do know that they are seeking to reduce/eliminate underage drinking (which I applaud them for), but I haven’t noticed them taking it to extremes indicated here. Is this fact or is it simply hyperbole?
FTR, as for MADD’s efforts with regard to checkpoints and stiffer penalties towards drunk drivers, I have nothing but respect for them. Although, I will say that charging someone with DWI when they are simply sitting in their car in the parking lot is underhanded and really not cool. If anything they law should require that the vehicle in out of park or otherwise in motion to allow the citation.
I’ll not hold my breath, considering the weak argument he’s made here.
I think the op is either trolling or he…or she, maybe…is just a bit nuts. But as ths is not the Pit, I won’t directly say that here. I am still awiting an answer to that quuestion. I don’t expect one, unless its full of unsubstantiated talking points and propaganda, though.
But then he/she can’t live in relative comfort, provided by the “State” and yet tell us how eeeeevil the “State” is. "It would require some effort on the OPs part, you see…and sacrifice.
I am unfamiliar with this incident…but I’ll take your word for it over the OP any day, unless he/she can provide some cites to say otherwise. But cites would indicate some kind of organized reporting…not ANARCHY!. Guess I’m outta luck, huh.
Well, for starters, as I mentioned, the moving the drinking age to 21 (which they were instrumental in lobbying to get passed) is itself prohibition, that applies to adults aged 18-20. Also there is a big difference between campaigning against “underage drinking” and “underage drunk driving” the two are NOT the same thing, especially when you have a drinking age that prohibits a large section of the adult population from drinking (and in the case I mentioned, and many like it, the two are diametricly opposed).
According to wikipedia. Even the founder of MADD has since left and renounced it as “Neo-probitionist”:
There are numberable examples of MADD taking positions that make no sense from the point of view of preventing drink driving, or even in many cases underage drinking. This page clearly has a political axe to grind, but I think many of the examples they list are valid.
I’m sure you could argue that this is prohibition but it’s not since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 doesn’t actually prohibit drinking under the age of 21. It simply ties some federal highway funding to it under certain circumstances.
Further, although MADD was instrumental in lobbying for the Act, it had the support of the AMA and Institute of Highway Safety, IIRC.
She is also the person who said “If you want to drink, that’s your business. But as soon as you drink and get behind the wheel of a car, it becomes my business.” Notice she doesn’t say “…get drunk and get behind the wheel of a car…” She says “drink” which is a frequent criticism of MADD’s stance that they are no longer focusing on the most egregious instances of drunken driving, but have wandered into the “I had a drink and now I’m driving” territory illustrated by their support of a lower BAC threshold.
I’m not intentionally turning a blind eye to your position, but I can’t find anywhere in MADD’s position statements that contradict their stated goals of strict policy on drunk driving and prevention of underage alcohol abuse. The guy you linked to does seem like he’s got an axe to grind against MADD, but I couldn’t find any of the graphics he’s mentioned (but not provided examples of) that illustrates MADD is on a temperance crusade. Nor do I hold the “consumer” group he cites in much esteem as they are clearly a front for big corporations protecting their investments.
My previous association with MADD made me truly appreciate the comprehensiveness of their victim services. From my point of view, this is where they perform a fine service in this regard. Maybe that makes me biased. I’m not sure, but if you can find any of those graphics and ads that Dr. Hanson mentions, I’d be have to agree that those do not correspond to MADD’s stated goals and something is amiss in their marketing department.
She’s stated numerous times that she disagrees with MADD’s apparent zero tolerance stance, and would like the organization to return to its original cause, which is stopping drunk drivers, and harsher penalties for offenders. From an LA times article: “I thought the emphasis on .08 laws was not where the emphasis should have been placed,” she said. “The majority of crashes occur with high blood-alcohol levels, the .15, .18 and .25 drinkers. Lowering the blood-alcohol concentration was not a solution to the alcohol problem.” Now if you want to tell me that she actually meant to say “The emphasis should be on a single drink,” just because in one quote she used the word drink, instead of clarifying further to state specifically drunk (which people often use interchangeably - MADD does not), then we’re done talking.
I started reading this thread for the purpose of mocking the OP, except I can see where the OP is coming from.
The OP is either a cyclist or pedestrian and will never kill anyone while going from A to B.
Everyone choosing to drive a heavy vehicle from A to B that could strike, and kill, the OP is potentially going to do so.
Anyone not choosing to drive a heavy vehicle from A to B is 100% innocent.
The average driver, driving from A to B, will have a certain risk of killing the OP.
Of all the others with increased risk of killing the OP; the stupid, the poor drivers, the distracted, the angry, the elderly, the inexperienced, the drunk - only the last group is committing a crime by driving.
The OP feels that both groups should be equally culpable.
I think the OP should get from A to B in a Hummer.
Plenty of people are killed after being struck by cyclists. LESS than are killed by cars, but thats the whole point of the OP. Sober drivers are LESS likely to kill than drunk drivers, but still kill people. So if we ban one group we should ban both, likewise for cyclists. Cyclists are LESS likely to kill than drivers, but they still kill people so we should ban both.
Cite please. I did a google search but only saw one incident of a cyclist killing a pedestrian. The cyclist was speeding and deliberately plowed into a group of teenagers.
Well there’s your cite. One is INFINITELY more than zero, so by the logic of the OP we should ban cyclists.
There are plenty of more cases out there, however. Here is some stats from Oz:
Less than the number killed by cars in the same period I’m sure, but INFINITELY more than the number that would be killed by bikes if no-one cycled, and that’s the point the OP was making.
I wish I had a cite but last year a cyclist in Atlanta struck a jaywalking pedestrian and the pedestrian dies. It was a rare enough event that it made the scroll bar on CNN. It happens, certainly, but I’d hardly consider it to be ‘plenty of people’ (of course, 1 can be considered ‘plenty’ if it is someone you know.
