You want to talk logic? Okay, I’m certainly game, but it’s pointless if you’re not playing, too. Last time I checked, there wasn’t a single post from anyone in this thread that supported giving anyone a license to drive without their having first demonstrated an ability to do so. If your severe epileptic has demonstrated an ability to drive (maybe due to medication that prevents seizures), what EXACTLY is YOUR logic for forbidding it? What about someone with high blood pressure? They are statistically far more likely to have a heart attack and die while driving; shall we bar them as well? What about people that eat a lot of fatty foods or have high cholesterol? How about people that are over 60? Over 50? 40?
I keep waiting for you to realize that anyone who accelerates a car is putting other people in danger and conclude that no one should drive.
Still practicing your “logic” skills? Riddle me this: How does one become a convicted pedophile without hurting anyone?
Who is doing the allowing? Are you asking me if I would “allow” an unlicensed surgeon to operate on me? Would you allow one to operate on you? If I WANTED to let an unlicensed surgeon operate on me, would that matter to you? Would it even be any of your business?
And the problem with YOUR logic is that I can probably find a statistic somewhere that makes you more “statistically” likely to commit any number of crimes. I am just not particularly in favor of punishing people for crimes they haven’t actually committed or inventing laws that criminalize a “likelihood”. Making laws that are focused on preventing an actual harm deter people from committing that harm. Making laws that criminalize behavior you don’t approve of invariably has unpredictable–and often harmful–effects.
It deters them from getting caught driving drunk. This is not quite the same thing. It also deters independent-minded people from respecting the law or the police. It deters irresponsible people from feeling a sense of responsibility for making bad decisions. How many people do you suppose are giving any thought to whether they should drive while talking on the phone? How many people are thinking about the danger they represent to others when they drive while really sleepy? How many more, do you suppose, are assuming that if it is not illegal then it must be fine thing to do? After all, I am not responsible for driving safely or protecting other people from my car, I am only responsible from avoiding illegal activities.
If you make an assertion and I disagree, making the same assertion again is not going to make me change my mind. From what I can tell, you seem to think that “vehicular homicide” is more acceptable if it is committed by a person who is sober–I guess because this person has only done one thing you disapprove of. To me, this sounds like the attitude of someone who doesn’t want to take responsibility for the things that they do. If you kill someone because you fall asleep at the wheel or are looking down at the radio, you don’t want to be punished (it was an “accident”), but you want someone who does this drunk to be punished (it was not an accident). I want everyone to be responsible for the decisions that they make, and I don’t find one excuse particularly more acceptable than another. I must be some sort of anarchist.
If you don’t know what the word means, I suspect that “semantics” must not matter to you in ANY case. What about sophistry?
If that’s what is important, why are you foocused on alcolhol? Based on any “logical” interpretation of my posts in this thread, this is exactly what I am saying we should be trying to do–I just don’t conflate “incompetent” with “drunk”. I think there are many ways to be incompetent, and that they are not the same for every person, and that, therefore, we should focus on driving that demonstrates incompetence instead of on decisions that you disapprove of. Care to explain at what point you are being more logical than I am?
-VM