Posted on 12/19/2005 8:30:57 PM PST by Pikamax
The road-rage lobby couldn't have been more wrong. Organisations such as the Association of British Drivers or Safe Speed - the boy racers' club masquerading as a road-safety campaign - have spent years claiming that speeding doesn't cause accidents. Safe Speed, with the help of some of the most convoluted arguments I've ever read, even seeks to prove that speed cameras "make our roads more dangerous". Other groups, such as Motorists Against Detection (officially known as Mad), have been toppling, burning and blowing up the hated cameras. These and about a thousand such campaigns maintain that speed limits, speed traps and the government's "war on the motorist" are shakedown operations whose sole purpose is to extract as much money as possible from the poor oppressed driver.
Well last week the Department for Transport published the results of the study it had commissioned into the efficacy of its speed cameras. It found that the number of drivers speeding down the roads where fixed cameras had been installed fell by 70%, and the number exceeding the speed limit by more than 15mph dropped by 91%. As a result, 42% fewer people were killed or seriously injured in those places than were killed or injured on the same stretches before the cameras were erected. The number of deaths fell by more than 100 a year. The people blowing up speed cameras have blood on their hands.
But this is not, or not really, an article about speed, or cameras, or even cars. It is about the rise of the antisocial bastards who believe they should be allowed to do what they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Monbiot is pretty much of an antisocial bastard himself.
Just thought you'd like to know who you've climbed into bed with....
Yeah, we should all just roll over and take it. Big government knows best. If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear. And by the way, your papers, please. Merry olde England, and, more recently, America.
Good old george moonbat.
Unfortunately, that sounds like a lot on FR lately.
It won't swing the other way unless the demorats retake a branch or two of government or until the pubs apply the "patriot" act to include some stupid firearms registration backdoor package. Then we'll see support for big government policies melt away.
"Libertarians" are to cowrdly to admit the TRUTH. They are really Socialists that lack the intellectual honesty (and/or nuts) to admit it.
"Libertarian" sounds so much more honorable and upright than "Socialist", thought that idea is just a myth.
"Maybe you'd like to quote the written statements of a respected libertarian, and share with us why you think it equates with socialism."
Socialists detest Libertarians worst of all, in my experience. They're 180º out of phase with one another.
Typical response.
Having many up close and personal discussions with so-called "libertarians", I can only conclude that these people are Socialist in their "feelings", just lacking in the intellectual honesty to admit that they are "Socialists", first.
If you have a problem with that, it's your problem. Surely, not mine.
They do a study to see whether their cash cow has any positive effect on safety. I wonder how that was going to turn out.
I know some Brits, and they were complaining how cameras were installed on open, wide roads with low accident rates and too-low speed limits.
"I can only conclude that these people are Socialist in their "feelings", just lacking in the intellectual honesty to admit that they are "Socialists", first."
Socialists love the use of government force. Libertarians are repelled by it.
Your calling libertarians socialists makes about as much sense as Michael Moore calling Republicans 'fascists'. All it does is show that you don't know any more about political philosophy than he does.
L
And people outside of these two whackjob extremes recognize that there is sometimes a place for it.
A socialist is someone who believes that the community at large should control the means of production. That is not what libertarianism is about.
Idiot.
I'm pretty much of a libertarian, and I do consider myself also to be pretty much of an antisocial bastard about half the time. OTOH, what else can you be when damn near everyone else is dying to be a socialist?
Marxists and libertarians share a similar conceit in that purists in both camps are convinced that government is evil and unnecessary.
The greatest difference is, marxists had almost a full century to test their foolishness to abject failure, and libertarians are still looking for the opportunity.
Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, have a wiser, more healthy and realistic understanding of the limited strengths and pervasive limitations of government.
It is liberals and progressives who believe government is the source of all rights and the healer of all ills. Not quite as foolish as unbridled libertarianism or pure marxism, but quite foolish enough.
"And people outside of these two whackjob extremes recognize that there is sometimes a place for it."
I suspect my "sometimes" are far less frequent than yours. I'm something of a "small l" libertarian. If they weren't such naive ideologues regarding immigration and defense, I'd consider becoming Libertarian. Also, abortion, to me, is disgusting and wrong. Defunding it and allowing it to devolve back to the states where it belongs is the good answer at present. Libertarians would disagree with me, on all three, immigration, defense and abortion.
So, I vote almost entirely Republican, but never Democrat, out of necessity. Most of the Libertarian candidates thus far are loons, sad to say. Now, if Ron Paul, another libertarian (R), were to agree to run for president again ...
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