Posted on 12/14/2013 2:06:35 PM PST by DariusBane
So you are going to let people drive drunk until they kill someone? Are we going to let pilots fly drunk? Subway drivers?
Spend a few mintues on this FR practice thread and you’ll have it down. It will
hyperlink in the orginial if there are no other HTML code used within the posting.
I forget to post the link to the HTML Sandbox practice thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2973937/posts
Have you read any of my posts? You seem determined to make your point while making no attemtp to understand mine.
Right now the entire population is being punished because of a few miscreants that drink and drive. Currently, a victim-less crime exists. Currently a person can be jailed for driving impaired without creating an accident. Currently a person can drink and drive repeatedly causing accidents and not face a life changing consequence.
I propose ending the practice of the BAC threshold for arrest UNTIL an accident occurs. At that point the BAC threshold is raised to 1 from the current .08.
So what we have done is raise the threshold for BAC and eliminated the victim-less crime.
Once a person has created an accident or a fatality the punishment must be incredibly sever.
What part of this proposal makes you think I am advocating “letting people drink and drive”?
Is the current system working? NO it clearly does not.
But the current system does restrict the liberties of the innocent. The current system funds a tangled web of law offices, bail bond companies, jail construction companies, probation officers, correctional officers, assistant D.A.’s, extra LEO. So with this vast expense are we solving the problem? NO. We are clearly not. But we are creating big gubment. Big expensive gubment that exists to perpetrate more big gubment.
So to attenuate your fear, you create big gubment and solve nothing. Sound good to you?
Thanks deport
” being punished because of a few miscreants that drink and drive.”
A few???
“In the United States the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 17,941 people died in 2006 in alcohol-related collisions, representing 40% of total traffic deaths in the US. NHTSA states 275,000 were injured in alcohol-related accidents in 2003.[1] The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that in 1996 local law enforcement agencies made 1,467,300 arrests nationwide for driving under the influence of alcohol, 1 out of every 10 arrests for all crimes in the U.S., compared to 1.9 million such arrests during the peak year in 1983, accounting for 1 out of every 80 licensed drivers in the U.S.[2][3]”
That’s more than a few.
If you are innocent, what is the problem? Being stopped at a DUI checkpoint is a true victimless incident.
DUI checkpoints are a slippery slope. Checkpoints are used throughout the world for all manner of mischief by the government. They are used to control the population, extort bribes, arrest political opposition, harrass ethnic groups.
Once accepted by the people as “necessary” for DUI, then they will become necessary for other purposes. Very useful for a government that wants o intimidate and control its population.
When I stop seeing articles about someone being arrested for their 5th DUI and learning that they were previously given probation, parole, diversion, etc., then I might consider that the government is really serious about DUI offenses. Checkpoints are nothing more than political drama, putting on a show to fool people into thinking that they are taking action.
“Being stopped at a DUI checkpoint is a true victimless incident.”
Riiiiight.
You got to be kidding me. I have proposed real tougher standards than exist today. All you can propose is keeping the ever encroaching power of big gubment. Shame on you. I want small government. I want limited powers of that same gubment. I want freedom of travel. I want Liberty and all of it’s associated risks.
You? You demand a Nanny State to provide you an illusion of safety. You are happy with a slow erosion in your spirit, in your soul of what it means to free. A slow generational cancer which will turn us all into subjects, just so you can FEEL safe, when in all reality safety eludes us all.
DB, right there you’ve shone some light on the debate between the socons and the Libertarians. I truely wish that this was the central disagreement of our times: but it’s not, and sadly, I’ve come to despair that we’ll be able to make common cause. I’m coming from the socon side, and while i’m skeptical of DUI checkpoints (mainly because I doubt their utility and effectiveness — i think that saturation patrols are far more effective) the inconvenience of being delayed a few moments pales in comparison to other ways that our Government is out of control
An example? Try applying for a building permit sometime. Or starging a business. Or even buying a gun. Those are meaningful, substantive, intrusive and pervasive, and cost far more in liberty and time and money than a few moments at a DUI checkpoint.
But you do illustrate another point, as well. As SCOTUS noted in their decision on these checkpoints, there’s a balance between the public’s right and need to protect itself from drunk drivers, and the right of those same people to go about their business. The rules that have been crafted are an imperfect, but sincere effort to strike that balance.
You, for your part have argued a different approach, consistent with the long-established Libertarian suggestion to eliminate BAC as a presumptive measure of impairment, absent some other evidence — be it a moving violation or crash. Libertarians have made that argument for a couple of decades now, and it’s gained no more traction than it had then, for the obvious reason: people want DUI crashes prevented, not just dealt with after they occur. And the truth is, people who have been drinking, and then drive, do get in more, and worse, crashes than those who have not.
I have started businesses. I recall a $30,000 fee to pay for street and gutter improvements needed as a result of my business. But funny thing is, no street and gutter changes were ever made.
So I view government and my voting neighbors with a bit of a jaundiced eye.
The fact is nobody is really serious about winning the War on Drugs, or the drunk driving problem. The real interest of society is to build institutions and fund them.
I oppose these multi headed hydras with every fiber in my being. The corruption surrounding court houses, law offices, bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, tow truck operators, politicians, etc etc are legendary.
Politicians, who are largely attorneys have no interest in solving problems. Attorneys need fees. So politicians have set up the system for perpetual litigation. Nothing ever gets solved and won’t be. Judges are attorneys in robes. The whole system is set up for perpetual funding of courthouses, DA’s (more attorneys), and law firms. The public buys it because all a politician has to bleat is “safety” “children”.
I want to solve problems and de-fund government. That is my aim. My proposal will work. The current way of doing business has never worked. Why not try something new? Or we can keep building bigger and bigger and more invasive government. We can keep growing the non productive class. This class includes all government employees, cops, firefighters, all manner of public workers. All of them leeches swilling at the public trough.
Your premise is we should ignore bad behavior until something really bad happens. That’s the logic of 13 year-olds.
Years ago a close friend was busted for his 2nd DUI in 3 years and the female judge, a supporter of the nazi MADD, screwed him over royally. After all was said and done, it cost him over $30k for court costs, attorneys feys, loss of license for over a year, had to sell condo and move into an apartment across the street from his employer...........It was a F'n nightmare for him.
A truly drunk and impaired driver should be nailed. Someone in full control that had wine with dinner should not be subject to the full weight of an overbearing government because of a fashionable political agenda.
Intoxicated driving is not the same as driving after having a few drinks, but you will never see that distinction anymore. To many totalitarians (more than a few on FR) driving after just one beer is a heinous crime deserving of massive punishment.
No he wasn't driving drunk.
The bar he was in was only a couple blocks from his house and the cop that nailed him was parked in the bar parking lot. When my friend left the bar, the cop followed him and simply pulled him over.........
You raise a broader point: the scope and control of the government itself. The founders strove to construct an apparatus that provided sufficient order to allow liberty to flourish. James Madison’s famous observation in Federalist No. 51 addresses this point:
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. “
The Libertarian focus on these personal responsibility issues seems to be to wrong-headed, and it’s hard to imagine anyone, including supporters of limited government (like most SoCons) being sold on the “just legalize it ...it can’t be worse than what we have now” approach. As i’ve mentioned previously, that’s bee on offer for decades now, and it’s no more convincing now than it was in the 80’s.
But one thing HAS changed over the past couple of decades: the rate of traffic-related deaths has decreased, and sharply. So saying making the blanket statement that “the current way of doing business has never worked”, when applied to DUI laws is contradicted by facts: something is working to reduce these deaths, and it seems reasonable that tougher DUI laws have been at least a part of the reason.
But when we get to checkpoints, I’ll agree with you that they should be largely or completely ended. Not because i think that they are an unreasonable intrusion into our liberties (intrusion yes, unreasonable no), but because they’re not an effective use of resources. Far better to deploy the officers used on a checkpoint on a ‘saturation’ type patrol to scoop up drivers whose actual driving suggests that they’re impaired.
The issue (at least the one I’m talking about) isn’t sobriety checkpoints, whether explicit or sneaky. Mine was me, knowing I was too drunk to drive, sleeping in the car instead of trying to drive home. (Small Mustang, so of course I just leaned back in the driver’s seat.) The cops took that as a PI (and Texas law requires a PI charge to include cops believing you to be a danger to yourself or others), when I was obviously doing the opposite (not driving). If the police truly were there to “protect and serve”, they should have thanked me for not driving, instead of trying to hit me with a PI (since a DUI would obviously not stick) to generate $$.
But to your point, I fully disagree with checkpoints, whether for sobriety or other. The only place you could legitimately host them is on private property with owner consent (sports stuff, private universities, etc). On open public roads, nope. (Obviously secured military bases or such is a different thing.)
your premise is that people are born to be controlled and are unable to regulate themselves.
My premise is that once a CRIME happens then life is over as the perpetrator knows it. That is called deterrence instead of intervention.
Now I have a 13 year old. He has no logic as you describe.
If your way is so great then why isn’t it working??? HMMMMMM????
I believe the reasons that traffic deaths have decreased is complicated.
Cars are safer, and highways are faster. People are far more educated on the effects of alcohol and driving. That’s huge. But I don’t think the courts are tough enough on drunk drivers that cause accidents. If they were doing their jobs no drunk driver would ever cause more than one accident. But repeat offenders are the ones causing accidents.
Remember that reckless driving is already against the law. So an officer CAN stop an erratic driver and hand out hefty sanctions.
So what we are doing is not working and another way exists. A way that a small government conservative can be proud of. Smaller government, less intrusive government. A government that does not feel entitled to interfere with lawful travel.
But as with all things. It all boils down to how much risk an individual is willing to to take on or to transfer to others. A coward will imagine that his safety can and SHOULD be guaranteed, and imagines that risk can and should be attenuated at most any price.
A braver act is to recognize that in this world safety can never be guaranteed, but safety can be managed. It is only a question of how much liberty one is willing to give up to achieve the desired level of risk transfer.
I choose managing my own risk and I won’t ask the State to transfer risk onto others at the price of my own liberty.
And you think allowing people to drive drunk is going to work better?
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