Lew Rockwell and Mises both released articles today on drunk driving, both interesting. While I always believed the issue has been mostly dominated by the usual political BS and have seriously thought about doing a few controlled experiments, but isn’t it all a moot issue? They are government roads, i guess government can tell people how to behave on government property. Isn’t the real issue at hand privitization on roads, rather than worrying what laws are good or bad on government owned roads?
the article on mises.org was a pro-privatization article.
I realize that, the Lew Rockwell article though didn’t seem to mention it. My question though is it reasonable to have government try to reform to more “sane” government laws, or is it just too much hassel and maybe for some even a little hypocritical? If a law like drunk driving directly interferes with my business (and it does) and I find the law to be somewhat bogus, should I try to curb the law to a more reasonable but comromised (from my idealogical view), or go all out radical and preach about road privitization or bust?
Also can anyone really call a government law or regulation “unfair” if it is being done to government property or employees specifically? For example, a government drivers liscense.
preach reform and revolution.they are both superiour than supporting the status qou. it may be proper to often state your radical position, at the same time as your radical one, so the people that consider your reform dont mistake you for supporting state power.
yes, because of legitimacy, involuntary government is illegitimate.
In my opinion the real issue is the definition of a crime. A person commits a crime when that person harms or destroys the lives or property of another. A drunk driver by being drunk has done neither of these things. The drunk driver only has increased the probability of being in such an event. Moreover, the test for drunk driving is so absurdly low that it is hard to measure the effects of these low levels of alcohol on people.
Remember: If you make enough laws then eventually everyone is a criminal.
Wonderful article by Walter Block. Terrific! I do hope he did send it to MADD. It could also be sent to other activist organizations who yelp at the feet of big government encouraging them to get bigger and take on more tasks, thereby further invading our lives. I’d guess his original thoughts were satirical. If all activists would have the initiative to take independent action themselves they’d not only get better results but we’d have a much smaller government.
I remember when the first activist-generated government laws began with, I think, the motorcycle helmet law, followed by the seat belt law. I loath the seat belt law. Yes, it is probably safer, but it is also an invasion of my privacy and my freedom to make my own decisions. For me, this was the beginning of Congress taking over the job of deciding what is morally right or wrong, not even the Courts, but Congress. Congress decided that it must make these decisions for me by determining, I suppose, that I’m incapable or incompetant.
It must be criminal to cause danger to others! Or do you seriously mean that it should be legal to fire guns towards people, as long as none of the bullets actually hit anyone?
Driving a car drunk, is like pushing a piano out of a window down on the sidewalk below. There’s no control over the huge forces put in action, and great danger to others is caused.
Of course it should be possible to agree upon enetering such dangers. Stunt men do already today. The road owner who wants to brand his road as the drunk road, should be free to do so. Actually, it isn’t today a crime to drive around drunk in your own garden, as long as noone else is concretely put in danger, is it? However, for everyday purposes, most will surely choose the drunk-driving-is-absolutely-not-allowed road. And when one hasn’t explicitly allowed someone to cause danger, then that person commits a serious crime.
That might very well be true. The key issue should be danger. And every private road manager should be free to choose his specific road rules himself.
It has been my opinion that to break a law is the primary offense and that the motive for doing so is not salient to justice. If you steal to fuel a drug habit then you are guilty of stealing. Stealing is the crime for which you are responsible. Your drug use is of no consequence. If justice is to make judgements as to motive then the door is opened for the criminalization of nearly anything. Perhaps a drug user is capable of financing his habit without resorting to theft, or is otherwise capable of controlling his habit to some degree. So too, the operator of a vehicle may have an unusually high tolerance for alcohol or a tendency to compensate with added caution. He may also be involved in an emergency situation where driving under the influence is unavoidable. If he causes no injury but is subsequently arrested, why should he be subjected to the fullest prosecution of law that one who has caused injury receives? Is it not better to prosecute the driver that fails to maintain the control of his vehicle, for whatever reason? I know that one is tempted to mitigate for those who have a heart attack (or other acute health problem) while behind the wheel, but isn’t a driver responsible for his general health? He did, after all, make the choice to operate a potentially dangerous piece of machinery in a public venue. Turning the key in an automobile is an act of assuming the responsibility for the safety of others. Causing damage to the life, property or ability to acquire said property should carry penalties requiring the offender to make some sort of restitution. Fines and imprisonment have shown themselves to be little deterent, perhaps work or forfeiture to replace medical treatment and/or lost property/wages will at least ease some degree of victim suffering.
Table knives can be used as lethal weapons. I say ban them.
Another new article written today. Just about everything he said has happened to my customers. I had many get arrested for sleeping in thier car, because they couldn’t drive home. And dealing with the consequences of the lowering of the blood alchohol level a couple years ago actually netted AT LEAST two of my customers their first DUI. I personally served one of them, he was a big man who drank 3 beers in 2 hours, he was not intoxicated nor did this regular customer have the habit of over drinking. He has not been back to my bar since.
It took owning a bar for me to open my eyes and realize what a sham drunk driving laws were. For the past few years it has been almost a taboo to speak against them, every time I have tried it feels like a major taboo with most people.
Not “motive”, but “intent” (I’m not fluent in English so I might not find the right nuance of words here).
Accidents do happen, and are not considered crimes. If you rent a car the breakes of which have been sabotaged, you have no intent to kill the first person crossing the street in front of you. Because you had no intent or even no reason to believe that the car didn’t have good breaks (as the contract specifies). Instead it is the person who sabotaged the breaks who committed the crime. He had the intent to make the car unstoppable and he must’ve understood that this might very well kill someone. That’s manslaughter.
I’m not at all a conservative. But with respect to the evolution of basic criminal law through the last thousand years or so, I have great respect for the knowledge and experience put into it. Both into the basic principles of criminal law, as well as into the rituals of court proceedings. Without that heritage, I think that we’d be living in Hell today. There are no important improvements to be done there. Basic criminal law is actually very libertarian. They are based on everyones negative rights.
If one drinks any significant amount of alcohol and starts a car, there is intent to drive that car without necessary care. However, I do agree that the “individual alcohol tolerance” of the driver should be considered (ideally, although simplicity and equality too have their place in practical law), as well as the situation. Parking the car drunk on an empty street should be less of a crime than driving drunk on a highway. The latter could well be compared with pushing a piano out of a window above a busy sidewalk.
Of course.
No, motive (intent) in itself must not be criminalized. But it is instrumental for differentiating between crime and accident.
Because he caused DANGER. He intended to cause that danger to others. It was only with luck others escaped unharmed. Should a murderer-wanna-be go free if he misses the intended victim with the full magazine of his AK47?
There are countless things that could affect your driving negatively and lead to a crash…
should we ban the thousands of those?
Drinking is a vice not a crime. The law does not understand this as it is was developed by people for the expressed purpose of controlling other people (that is a different issue). If the drunk driver does not damage the property or body of another person then they are guilty of having a vice and not committing a crime. Your logic that simply endangering people could be criminal is absurd. People endanger themselves and others all the time. In a car they eat, read signs, daydream, listen to the radio, etc. They also drive in icy, wet or windy conditions that also endangers other folks and their property.
If the roads were privately owned then the drinking and driving is not a crime. But the road owner will have property rights to stop people from driving on his/her road for any reason or no reason at all.
Both extremes are absurd.
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Everything dangerous to others should be allowed.
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Nothing dangerous to others should be allowed.
That’s why courts have been invented, where certain trusted individuals, judges, use their judgment to draw the line in each specific case in open proceedings. History proves that it hasn’t been difficult to find such lines which is quite consistent over time and across cases. For example, pointing a gun or a knife towards someone is considered a threat, a crime. Do you want to legalize that?
With private roads it will of course be the rules of the road managers which define what is allowed, as long as they’ve been clearly communicated to all clients. There are even today tracks used for testing the performance of drunk drivers. Anyone entering such a track should be well aware of the conditions, and no crime is therefor committed. But if someone drives on a road, in conflict against the rules set for being allowed to drive there, in a state of drunkness, then that is exactly the same thing as entering your home at night and start shooting towards you with a shotgun. Do you want to legalize that?
Why is this debate so stoopid???
Well, shall we ban table knives NOW or what ?
You have an incredible amount of confidence in “Judges” and their minions, juries, to determine crimes vs non-crimes, vices, danger and the like. I hate to blow your opinion of judges and the like but they are simply government employees wearing robes with training in schools partially funded by government who have take jobs servicing this “System of Justice” (Self proclaimed “BEST” in the world.).
So robbery is all okey, unless the perpretator actually kills the victim?
Government kills only a minority of its subjects. Most of them avoid being tortured to death by instead obeying orders. The anti-liberty gangsters here who want to legalize all threats and everything dangerous which anyone can expose anyone else of, find that this Hell is their paradise:
“You survived Stalinism, so you have nothing to complain about! Stalin just exercised his liberatarian rights towards you. You obviously volountarily chose to obey his ‘recommendations’. Otherwise you’d be dead, that’s the solid proof of the case. BANG BANG BANG Oops, did I just miss your skull by a few inches??? It wasn’t meant to, but congrat’s to you, for this time being. I wanted to murder you, but I failed. Please wait for me to reload. I’ve comitted no crime so you can’t touch me…”
S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D S T O O P I D
The laws on drinking are nothing more than the specter of prohibition still lingering about. It’s all politics and special interests, rather than years of laws. It is a somewhat modern phenomenon.
YEAH!!!
And the laws against pushing pianos out of windows over busy sidewalks, and firing machine guns at people (but missing), are too just the result of lobbyist for special interest, 911 conspiracies and general sabotage against the basic libertarian right to randomly kill people through recklessness!!!
Thank you, I agree that intent would be a better word in this instance. My thoughts are not always well ordered, which is why I’m here to try to order them.
I would disagree on this point with respect to intent. The drunk driver drives with the intent to arrive at his destination intact. I know of noone who ever drank and drove with the intent to drive as carelessly as possible or the intent to harm others. The drunk doesn’t wish to be involved in an accident any more than the innocent motorist who is his potential victim. The typical drunk driver, in fact, has an overly inflated opinion of his ability behind the wheel. I don’t believe that the average motorist can claim any higher moral ground in this respect. Those who drive while distracted by other things do not do so with intent to be careless. Many of them consider themselves “good drivers”. As a biker I can tell you there are no good drivers. There are human drivers and there are complacent drivers. I fear the later far more than the former. Anyone who says he is a “good” driver is the later.