Aww. This thread reminds me of how much I miss SmashTheState. Some of his ideas were just absolutely ridiculous, but as far as I could tell, he meant everything he said and at times could get our board to flirt with the idea of exiting Lockstep County. Ah well.
This thread may be over a year old, but my opinion remains the same: Impaired driving is bad (duh), but fuck MADD.
Cite?
Around here, we all know anecdotes aren’t data.
That statement is total horseshit. It is absolutely the reckless endangerment / property destruction / manslaughter that is being punished. In fact, an argument can be made that if you kill someone while DUI, you should be charged with murder and not manslaughter.
So, by your logic, if I go fire a gun at people and miss, I shouldn’t be charged because I didn’t hurt them. That’s what you are arguing for DUI drivers.
Amen.
And yet, if my brake lights are out or my* windshield has been smashed, I’ll be pulled over and given a fix-it ticket. Because it slightly increases the public safety, as based on probablilty. I can deal with that.
This thread reminds me of the study released last year showing that a magnetic pulse in the right area of the brain can change a person’s moral judgment.
Does that sound familiar? Amusingly:
My girlfriend is an alcoholic,she is presently in jail. She has gotten about a dozen DUI’s and totaled over 30 cars in her lifetime. I won’t go into the rest as this is about driving. When some alcholics drink they care nothing about the consequences including jail or even the death penalty for that matter. 95% of the time she is a normal, hard working, honest decent citizen. She suffers from bi-polar diorder and when that kicks in all bets are off. Drunk driving is flat out dangerous and offenders should either be jailed or hospitalized but certainly kept from driving.
Problem with the whole gun analogy is that it fails completely based on the fact that it is not legal anywhere to arbitrarily point a gun at a person. It would fall under assault or reckless endangerment depending on the circumstances, but of course you would need a complaint and/or a witness to prosecute. Kind of like the same no-harm-no-foul arguments that pepper this thread, or as Lucky Wilbury said, “anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.”
The glibertarian argument is that I should be allowed to do whatever I want as long as it does not harm you, but who gets to decide the definition and parameters of “harm”?
Well to the OP’s zombified point, I do feel that the situation should be taken into account. A person over the legal limit in a rural area driving a short distance on a mostly deserted road is quite a bit different then a person over the legal limit driving long distances in city streets and highways.
Besides, if you’re right with God, an angel will talk you out of trouble with the cops…
I don’t know much about the constitution (of either Canada or the US), but in Ontario, if you are simply CHARGED with DUI, you lose your licence for 90 days, IMMEDIATELY.
Then, your insurance goes through the roof for the next 5 years. And you haven’t even seen a courtroom to determine whether you are actually guilty of a crime or not.
This power belongs solely to the police.
I had this happen to me. I was NOT GUILTY of DUI, yet was punished quite severely nevertheless.
I would argue with you on this one, but it seems we have a fundamental difference in what government is and how it serves the people best.
I’ll try a different way… I think drunk driving is a poor decision. That being said, making it illegal makes drawing the line tough. If you have too much to drink, get in your car, and decide you are not capable of operating it safely, under current law you can still be charged with a DUI if the keys are in the ignition. Even if you are sleeping and the vehicle is in park. If you live in the country, and your friend’s house (the only one around for 20 miles) is .5 miles away, should you be charged with DUI? Are you truly likely to injure someone on a road that is hardly traveled?
I think sometimes people misrepresent a liberty based argument, thinking it to be anarchy based or completely crazy. In reality, I’m just asking people be held accountable for actions, not possibilities. Possible damage to property is completely different than damage to property. This is why attempted murder is tried differently than murder.
Tens of thousands of dollars in fines, jail time, and very high insurance premiums for life is very similar (punishment wise) to manslaughter. Shouldn’t there be a larger difference in penalty between the guy who’s .08 and “sleeping it off” in his car, versus the guy who is .3 and runs into a school bus at 3pm on a Tuesday?
Public safety is a very open statement. You can justify almost any action and law with saying it is for public safety, regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
Think of a law you disagree with. I’m positive you can. I could apply the same public safety argument to that law, although it wouldn’t be quite as hot of an issue.
A quick example would be a parking tag in your rear view mirror. You may be able to see quite effectively around the small hang tag, but since it is in your field of view, you can be issued a ticket in the name of public safety.
Again, I think you have a different view of what government is (or should be) than I do. I think it’s impossible to make the world safe, and “safer” seems to continually take away individual freedom and individual rights. Drunk driving isn’t a good idea, but quantifying how much, and to what degree is illegal is where it becomes blurry.
You are correct. My argument would be that this is not the proper way of governing people. A great example would be dangerous breeds of dogs. Do we kill off all German Shepherds, Dobermans and Rottweilers? Or, rather, do we hold the owners accountable for their dog’s actions should the dog become violent?
Probability is for statisticians and insurance companies. Punishing citizens should be based on fact.
In Ontario, the law (from what I remember, I could be mistaken if it’s been since changed) is actually NOT “Driving Under the Influence”, but “Care and Control of a Motor Vehicle”.
You needn’t be driving, nor even intending on driving, to be charged. If the keys are in your pocket, and you are in that vehicle drunk(even the back seat asleep), the police WILL charge you. With a decent lawyer you might beat the charge. Maybe.
But the damage will have been done anyway, as you’ve lost your licence for 3 months, paid to retrieve your car from impound, and have the 90-day suspension as a strike against your driving record as regards the insurance company, resulting in heavy increases to your premiums.
It was not, but I’ll look up that article.
Simply enough, I was talking with another man on a flight last week and this came up. I had no opinion either way at the time, as I had not thought it through. I began then to look online for logical arguments for both sides.
Clearly, the way of legality is where I went, however, that doesn’t mean I’m dumb enough to get hammered and get behind the wheel.
Here in Virginia, the keys must be out of reach of the driver. So we’re even worse off. Keys in your pocket means DUI.
The punishing is based on fact. If you are driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit, you get punished. No probability there, unless you want to talk about the probability of getting caught.
You could say there’s probability involved in the rationale behind the law. You could say drunk driving is illegal because it’s too dangerous, where “too dangerous” could be defined as “has an unacceptably high probability of seriously injuring or killing someone.” But that doesn’t make it any different from lots and lots of other laws (restaurant health codes, building safety codes, and many traffic laws, for example).
BAC isn’t a fact, but rather a standard. Someone at .08 may be way out of control. Another may be quite capable. Everyone reacts to alcohol in a different way.
In terms of it not being very different, you would be correct, but citing other laws which may not be effective or morally right doesn’t bolster your argument.
Does not stopping at a stop sign in a rural area where you can see intersecting traffic for miles warrant a citation?
My argument is that I have yet to see a good argument why laws shouldn’t take probability into account.
If you didn’t see the cop who gave you the citation, maybe you couldn’t see for miles as well as you thought.
Anyway, your general gist seems to be that people should be punished only for the actual harm that they cause, and not for doing things that might well have, but didn’t, hurt anybody. I disagree, at least if you want to make an absolute rule out of this, because, human nature being what it is, plenty of people aren’t very good at thinking through the possible consequences of their dangerous, boneheaded actions before the engage in them. While neither is perfect, I’d rather have acceptable risks judged by public policymakers than by an individual who’s had a few drinks.
You got the nail on the head, and that sums up my general point well. Yours is a reasonable argument, but I, personally, can’t accept it.
A decision made by an individual who has had a few drinks probably isn’t great. Generally, decisions made by public policy makers aren’t great either. (e.g. A toddler is run over, and laws are purposed mandating back up cameras in all new cars which will cost millions)
I can see where you’re coming from, but we differ significantly on how to handle things. I believe bad things happening are inevitable. Even with current DUI laws, people will, sadly, still kill people while drunk behind the wheel. I don’t believe the rational side should be punished for the possible actions of idiots. To this specific point, DC has a zero tolerance policy. (I believe it is still in effect.)
Should a woman, as cited below, be held to the same standard as a drunkard who killed a family?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101968.html
I could see your argument about siding on the safe side.
Personally, I don’t think society should give up that much liberty to do so. (I’ll spare you the cliche Ben Franklin quote.)