Legalize drunk driving, driver profiling vs race profiling...wow

[HumanACtor]

Its been quite some time since Ive read the Mises Institute blog and gone "wow, my beliefs just got challenged up in this biatch I call my brain" But this one takes the cake.

I...agree? When one supports government criminalizing drunk driving, one should also have no hesitations whatsoever to support thought policing, whereby if they catch you thinking the "wrong" thing, you are rendered dangerous and hauled off to jail.

Now I think that in a free market that would naturally be filled with private roads, private road owners would still likely keep drunk drivers off of their roads, but really this all essentially comes down to the evil of government stealing money and then providing free roads for everyone. While not "outlawing" private roads, they absolutely squeeze out any chance for them by giving them away for free, any time any where, and so then they have the ultimate authority to declare such laws.

Anyways, here it is: Legalize Drunk Driving (copied below...Im pretty sure theyre cool with floating their works around without permission)

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In November 2000, Clinton signed a bill passed by Congress that ordered the states to adopt new, more onerous drunk-driving standards or face a loss of highway funds. That's right: the old highway extortion trick. Sure enough, states passed new, tighter laws against Driving Under the Influence, responding as expected to the feds' ransom note.

The feds have declared that a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent and above is criminal and must be severely punished. The National Restaurant Association is exactly right that this is absurdly low. The overwhelming majority of accidents related to drunk driving involve repeat offenders with blood-alcohol levels twice that high. If a standard of 0.1 doesn't deter them, then a lower one won't either.

But there's a more fundamental point. What precisely is being criminalized? Not bad driving. Not destruction of property. Not the taking of human life or reckless endangerment. The crime is having the wrong substance in your blood. Yet it is possible, in fact, to have this substance in your blood, even while driving, and not commit anything like what has been traditionally called a crime.

What have we done by permitting government to criminalize the content of our blood instead of actions themselves? We have given it power to make the application of the law arbitrary, capricious, and contingent on the judgment of cops and cop technicians. Indeed, without the government's "Breathalyzer," there is no way to tell for sure if we are breaking the law.

Sure, we can do informal calculations in our head, based on our weight and the amount of alcohol we have had over some period of time. But at best these will be estimates. We have to wait for the government to administer a test to tell us whether or not we are criminals. That's not the way law is supposed to work. Indeed, this is a form of tyranny.

Now, the immediate response goes this way: drunk driving has to be illegal because the probability of causing an accident rises dramatically when you drink. The answer is just as simple: government in a free society should not deal in probabilities. The law should deal in actions and actions alone, and only insofar as they damage person or property. Probabilities are something for insurance companies to assess on a competitive and voluntary basis.

This is why the campaign against "racial profiling" has intuitive plausibility to many people: surely a person shouldn't be hounded solely because some demographic groups have higher crime rates than others. Government should be preventing and punishing crimes themselves, not probabilities and propensities. Neither, then, should we have driver profiling, which assumes that just because a person has quaffed a few he is automatically a danger.

In fact, driver profiling is worse than racial profiling, because the latter only implies that the police are more watchful, not that they criminalize race itself. Despite the propaganda, what's being criminalized in the case of drunk driving is not the probability that a person driving will get into an accident but the fact of the blood-alcohol content itself. A drunk driver is humiliated and destroyed even when he hasn't done any harm.

Of course, enforcement is a serious problem. A sizeable number of people leaving a bar or a restaurant would probably qualify as DUI. But there is no way for the police to know unless they are tipped off by a swerving car or reckless driving in general. But the question becomes: why not ticket the swerving or recklessness and leave the alcohol out of it? Why indeed.

To underscore the fact that it is some level of drinking that is being criminalized, government sets up these outrageous, civil-liberties-violating barricades that stop people to check their blood – even when they have done nothing at all. This is a gross attack on liberty that implies that the government has and should have total control over us, extending even to the testing of intimate biological facts. But somehow we put up with it because we have conceded the first assumption that government ought to punish us for the content of our blood and not just our actions.

There are many factors that cause a person to drive poorly. You may have sore muscles after a weight-lifting session and have slow reactions. You could be sleepy. You could be in a bad mood, or angry after a fight with your spouse. Should the government be allowed to administer anger tests, tiredness tests, or soreness tests? That is the very next step, and don't be surprised when Congress starts to examine this question.

Already, there's a move on to prohibit cell phone use while driving. Such an absurdity follows from the idea that government should make judgments about what we are allegedly likely to do.

What's more, some people drive more safely after a few drinks, precisely because they know their reaction time has been slowed and they must pay more attention to safety. We all know drunks who have an amazing ability to drive perfectly after being liquored up. They should be liberated from the force of the law, and only punished if they actually do something wrong.

We need to put a stop to this whole trend now. Drunk driving should be legalized. And please don't write me to say: "I am offended by your insensitivity because my mother was killed by a drunk driver." Any person responsible for killing someone else is guilty of manslaughter or murder and should be punished accordingly. But it is perverse to punish a murderer not because of his crime but because of some biological consideration, e.g. he has red hair.

Bank robbers may tend to wear masks, but the crime they commit has nothing to do with the mask. In the same way, drunk drivers cause accidents but so do sober drivers, and many drunk drivers cause no accidents at all. The law should focus on violations of person and property, not scientific oddities like blood content.

There's a final point against Clinton's drunk-driving bill. It is a violation of states rights. Not only is there is no warrant in the Constitution for the federal government to legislate blood-alcohol content – the 10th amendment should prevent it from doing so. The question of drunk driving should first be returned to the states, and then each state should liberate drunk drivers from the force of the law.

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Lew Rockwell is president of the Mises Institute, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty. Send email to Rockwell@mises.org. See Lew's columns on Mises.org. Comment on the blog. This article was published November 3, 2000.

[tehox]

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Bank robbers may tend to wear masks, but the crime they commit has nothing to do with the mask. In the same way, drunk drivers cause accidents but so do sober drivers, and many drunk drivers cause no accidents at all. The law should focus on violations of person and property, not scientific oddities like blood content

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LOL can't argue with such AIR TIGHT LOGIC!!!!

[Koss]

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But there's a more fundamental point. What precisely is being criminalized? Not bad driving. Not destruction of property. Not the taking of human life or reckless endangerment. The crime is having the wrong substance in your blood. Yet it is possible, in fact, to have this substance in your blood, even while driving, and not commit anything like what has been traditionally called a crime.


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I suppose you could shoot a gun into a crowd of people and not hit anyone. Maybe not the best analogy, but get serious. Drunk driving laws protect the lives of innocent people, by denying someone else the right to drive after they've been pounding beers. Bottom line, if there were no laws against drunk driving, only wreckless driving, then you would have a lot more drunk drivers on the road, and alot more dead people. The only reasonable solution is to draw a line in the sand and say "If you have more than X amount of alcohol in your blood, you can't drive." If you have a better way to keep dangerous drunk drivers off the road that doesn't involve increasing the size of the police force by a ridiculous amount, I'd love to hear it.

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There's a final point against Clinton's drunk-driving bill. It is a violation of states rights. Not only is there is no warrant in the Constitution for the federal government to legislate blood-alcohol content – the 10th amendment should prevent it from doing so. The question of drunk driving should first be returned to the states, and then each state should liberate drunk drivers from the force of the law.[/quote

They completely ignored the first paragraph. I assumed the idea was since Clinton couldn't step right out and force the State's compliance with this law, he basically dangled federal money over their heads and waited for them to comply willingly. Maybe not ethical, but certainly not unconstitutional.

[Brainwalter]

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I assumed the idea was since Clinton couldn't step right out and force the State's compliance with this law, he basically dangled federal money over their heads and waited for them to comply willingly. Maybe not ethical, but certainly not unconstitutional.

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It certainly is. The constitution doesn't give Congress the ability to give the states money to build roads with to begin with.

But I disagree with the article's conclusion because the State (unfortunately) owns the roads.

[xwillience]

excuse me for being blunt, but this is [censored] retarded.

Making drunken driving illegal is proactive, while punishing poor driving is reactive. Thats why its the law. Would you rather institute a law that said murder is bad, but only after its been committed? Or perhaps construction workers should only get in trouble for not wearing safety equipment once they've had a beam fall on their head? Oh, heres a fun one.... maybe we shouldnt force truckers to take manditory rests in between shifts simply until AFTER they have been in an accident. Thats a good one... Id like to see it enacted right away.

[Coffee]

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Would you rather institute a law that said murder is bad, but only after its been committed?

[/ QUOTE ] Uh...that's what the laws against murder today are. Otherwise, you get this:

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Or perhaps construction workers should only get in trouble for not wearing safety equipment once they've had a beam fall on their head?

[/ QUOTE ] Well...how about this: if they are too stupid to wear the recommended safety equipment, their health insurance is null and void? What if acting in contradiction to the established safety regulations could be construed as gross negligence? Then you have what we call "personal responsibility." The same could be applied to your trucker analogy...if there is an accident involving a trucker, and the trucker is found to have not taken the recommended sleep, then they are up [censored] creek.

Proactive laws are among the most odious pieces of legislation. They spawn out of fear, condescension, and blatant paternalism from government. They criminalize thought and de-emphasize personal responsibility in the citizenry. If you(the general you) truly support proactive lawmaking, I would suggest that your view of humanity is exceptionally jaded, because either consciously or consciously, you have determined that adults cannot be trusted to behave like adults, and must be protected from themselves.

With that said, I'm going to go play on Pokerstars...oh wait. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[xwillience]

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Would you rather institute a law that said murder is bad, but only after its been committed?

[/ QUOTE ] Uh...that's what the laws against murder today are. Otherwise, you get this:

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Or perhaps construction workers should only get in trouble for not wearing safety equipment once they've had a beam fall on their head?

[/ QUOTE ] Well...how about this: if they are too stupid to wear the recommended safety equipment, their health insurance is null and void? What if acting in contradiction to the established safety regulations could be construed as gross negligence? Then you have what we call "personal responsibility." The same could be applied to your trucker analogy...if there is an accident involving a trucker, and the trucker is found to have not taken the recommended sleep, then they are up [censored] creek.

Proactive laws are among the most odious pieces of legislation. They spawn out of fear, condescension, and blatant paternalism from government. They criminalize thought and de-emphasize personal responsibility in the citizenry. If you(the general you) truly support proactive lawmaking, I would suggest that your view of humanity is exceptionally jaded, because either consciously or consciously, you have determined that adults cannot be trusted to behave like adults, and must be protected from themselves.

With that said, I'm going to go play on Pokerstars...oh wait. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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wow, i really disagree with almost everything you just said. If this was a singlular world where your actions and consequences only affected you, then sure. But saying a trucker is up [censored] creek simply doesnt cut it. Proactive laws are definitely made out of fear though.

Adults CANNOT be trusted to "act like adults." I dont want to get into a debate over natural selection etc but I do believe that its the governments job to protect innocent people. By your thinking, it should be legal to drive without insurance? If you get into an accident and someone goes to the hospital, your just up [censored] creek? right? I mean, [censored] the person who you ran over or the kids he has to feed. Personal responsibility only works when everyone is responsible, and when you find that world let me know, but in the mean time, dont present an idealist world as an argument.

[tolbiny]

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By your thinking, it should be legal to drive without insurance? If you get into an accident and someone goes to the hospital, your just up [censored] creek? right? I mean, [censored] the person who you ran over or the kids he has to feed. Personal responsibility only works when everyone is responsible, and when you find that world let me know, but in the mean time, dont present an idealist world as an argument.

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Well, if that guy was thinking about his kidsd when he got in the car he would have had his own insurance.

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But saying a trucker is up [censored] creek simply doesnt cut it

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Why? This is all that laws do, they punish after the fact.

[xwillience]

but if you can prevent or even greatly reduce the probabiltiy of an accident by removing the variable isnt that better? isnt it better to be proactive than reactive? to solve the problem before its a problem? to prevent someones unjust death?

[tolbiny]

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but if you can prevent or even greatly reduce the probabiltiy of an accident by removing the variable isnt that better?

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This is far to simplistic a view. We could eliminate child abuse by sterilizing all adults. Obviously at some point preventing a crime isn't worth the "cure". This is just an example of how something could go to far if one only looks at half of the equation. Individual rights are very important to me, and i am willing to have a slightly increased risk of injury or death when i get in a car to prevent the logical extension of continually granted government power to legislate our behavior. If safety is so important why do we stop at seat belt laws. Certain cars are rated much higher than others in safety- why not mandate that only the safest cars are allowed on the market?
Of course an individual often feels like he can make the best decisions for himself, and therefore his opinion should be translated into some kind of law since he is so correct. Sadly once you get going on this you essentially have to admit that others should have this same power over you (or do some incredible mental gymnastics) when you are outvoted. In the end there are aton fewer choices allowed and individual freedoms are reduced.