But not if they don't?

If you were the target of the russian rouletter, would you feel justified in shooting them first rather than risk getting killed?

And if you feel justified taking pre-emptive action, why shouldn't the state?

lololololololololol at classifying that as a victimless crime. This is what ACsts actually believe. Just take a gun and open fire at a crowd, if you dont hit anyone, no crime!

"Punished"? Rehabilitation is preferable. You (in)conveniently omitted that portion of my post.

Taking away someone's freedom is very significant, which is why I want to minimize the duration and extent as much as possible, especially when there is no victim.

I've already said I do not condone drunk driving, jjshabado. That doesn't mean I should automatically support punishment and hop on your bandwagon.

Yup, I sure would. They are an immediate threat. I have no idea if the revolver is fully loaded or completely empty, even if there is actually a 50/50 chance.

If nothing happens and the incident is already over, what good does punishment do? This is where your analogy become inadequate. It fails to encapsulate all of the events necessary for punishment afterwards. (From taxation, to the evergrowing Police State.)

The main difference between an individual -- remember: governments consist of individuals -- acting versus the State is the criteria used. Since they are members of the largest cult in the world, they supposedly have special rights that regular citizens do not have. Plus, if an actor of the State makes a mistake, usually their actions are shielded by their institution.

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Stress on rehab unless you take a blender. Than I shoot that ****er in the head. Also if someone shoots and misses nbd.

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

When you can be convicted of "crimes" without a victim and mere disobedience is your only infraction, the system essentially becomes a sham.

You can't find justice in a kangaroo court, regardless of whether the sentencing is delayed or immediate. Justice is already denied all-around.

Jury nullification circumvents this corrupt system, though. Not only is the defendent on trial, but the legislation itself is too. Unfortunately, many courts restrict the defendant from notifying jurors of this ability.

I see why several posters are giving you a hard time.

You don't think the legal system is a sham? (Obviously not, since you're suggesting more government is necessary to solve problems caused by government!)

It's essentially modern day slavery when people are imprisoned solely for disobedience.


Apparently you aren't very open to alternative ideas, after all.

You really think it is too much to ask of people to be sober while operating three thousand pounds of steel, glass and rubber?

Calling DUI a victim less crime is offensive to all those people who lost loved ones to drunk drivers.

The drunk driving debate exacerbates convolution, which is why the trolls chose that topic to lead with. I guess I should have just ignored them. (Heaven forbid I offend anyone!)

Punishing people for crimes they might commit exceeds offensiveness, traversing into the territory of actual abuse. Tragedies are horrible, but using them to further your agenda of bigger government borders on evil. Any legislation you suggest to fix these problems will ultimately be enforced down the barrel of a gun. ("But, we have to do SOMETHING!!")

My stance becomes clearer when discussing seatbelt or drug laws, which undoubtedly are victimless crimes.

Its almost like drug laws and DUI laws are different and having a philosophy built around herp derp all government is baaaaad is stupid and leads to stupid conclusions.

Government becomes bad when it no longer pursues protecting life, liberty, and property.

Unfortunately, protecting life, liberty, and property have taken a backseat to revenue generation and controlling the populace.

It's not the police's job to protect you. Their duty is to instill order. (At all costs!)

Proph, you're literally arguing that it's okay to execute someone for something for which they should receive no punishment.

You're a moron.

When you present an idea I'll respond. Lightening up on drunk driving somehow doesn't seem like it will bring about much social justice. I guess if people don't agree with you then they are closed minded in your view. Ok.

I speculate that voter referendum initiatives help quicken solving social justice problems, using the trends of cannabis legalization as an example.

The big drawbacks of voter initiatives, like they can be used to deny civil rights ( gay marriage bans as an example) , are covered by checks and balances.

The contention seems to be whether or not drunk driving is a victimless crime.


I didn't call you closed minded. Those are your words. It seems that either you are reading my posts selectively, or I am poorly conveying my ideas. Do you not think that ceasing the prosecution of victimless crimes will have much effect? (You must underestimate the extent of our current Nanny/Police State!)

Government does NOT function well already BECAUSE it is trying to do too much.

Without crammed dockets, perhaps prosecutors will quit railroading defendants and truly seek justice instead. (lol! Yeah, right! The institution itself is corrupt from top to bottom -- from the police officer to the politician.)

How many times have you been stopped randomly in your car in the last 5 years Mr. Barstoolprophet? Not including check stops.

If nobody was hurt then they didn't try hard enough when they raided his home.

The Fed... still the black sun around which all Proph's hate revolves. ... yet still mostly a private entity.

Apologies for returning to this I get the conversation's moved on.

You're right there are a number of considerations when determining punishment and there are a range of sentences available for offences. If you think it's appropriate to consider the likelihood of an offence causing harm as opposed to the actual harm caused then it seems you can't exclude relevant factors. I'll accept it being difficult to account for some factor that changes the likelihood, like distance travelled, doesn't mean we shouldn't focus attention there but when some information is known to us, and available to the driver, like road deaths in a particular area we have to account for that if sentencing is based on the chance some behaviour causes harm.

What could be argued in this instance is that the same penalty hurts one driver significantly more than another, the rural driver suffers more from a lifetime ban than someone who lives in the city with ready access to public transport.

I don't know I clearly have to give this some more thought because the premise that the moral culpability of the actor is based on intent rather than outcome is one I generally agree with. But I'm open to going beyond the culpability of the actor in determining sentencing if the outcome appears more just.

One final thought, there is a statutory offence in the UK of causing death by dangerous driving, if you're right such a statute would have to go?

If referenda become commonplace then they can and will be used to change constitutional issues. That's generally a good thing. There's always the risk it goes the wrong way but it's very hard to move in the direction of major injustice when everyone has a say. If we believe in democracy we have to be willing to take that risk anyway - we're not banning Trump or worse getting into power and staying there for ages.

At the other end from the justice system we can address peoples vulnerability to social injustice. Education, healthcare, wealth inequality, infrastructure all make social injustice less of an issue.

and I'd throw positive discrimination into the mix. Maybe nothing we do (apart from cameras) will have more impact than biasing the system against it's prevailing bias. Get more minorities/women into the powerful positions in society where they are unrepresented - there's no way they aren't able to do the jobs unless they are being held back further down so we need to do whatever we need to do to break through it.

In Sweden we have free education at all levels and free healthcare. That is great and limits the social problems. What we lack is the vision to see wealth inequality where it really hurts. Imo its not chasing the rich but enabling people from lower economic classes to make a class journey that should be the priority.

I think we need to separate the categories here. When it comes to minorities we need to value their actual skill and knowledge and not how they look and where they come from. Thats what we do if we say that every group needs to be represented.And where does it stop? Now we are entirely focused on the color of skin and sex when it comes to representation.

There is no difference between a man with a white, black, yellow etc complexion. If we however say that all of these complexions needs to be represented we are indeed saying that there is a difference. Hiring someone just because of that is just as racist as not hiring them.

When it comes to men and women there is however a difference. We act differently we think differently and therefor we are gonna make different choices. We have no problem with that fact that most nurses are women and most sewage workers are men but we somehow have a problem with that most big company CEO´s are men. All three are choices that the sexes differ greatly in so why are we trying to force a change in something in the name of equality when its actually the opposite?

I haven't finished, but I do enjoy the DD discussion - both the first time DS had it in SMP I think, and here with dereds and jj doing the most lifting. I'd like to add, as a guilty-minded chronic drunk driver myself, I instinctively will side with #dsiswrong. I have rationalized with myself that I'm actually a better driver while tipsy, because I pay more attention and drive slower to prevent being captured.

Number of accidents? What stat are you talking about? Where are you finding stats on all accidents like this?

Highway fatalities per mile driven have plummeted. They are half of what they were in 1990 and a fifth of what they were in 1960.

http://www.motorists.org/dui/study-o...es-comparisons

Study estimating lowering BAC limits (mostly a small amount or not at all - lowering to .08%) would save 500-600 lives annually.