I find it frightening that it is now acceptable to most people that we can be punished for the mere potential to do harm, or to have done harm, in our society. Be it drunk driving or whatever; this is far too close to the movie Minority Report for me.

So a guy pulls into his driveway, gets out of his car to go into the house, and a cop pulls up and gives him the breathalyzer. He blows a .09. He has hurt no one; his driving was not erratic in the least. Does he deserve the ensuing punishment?

That is sooooooooooo pre-9/11 mindset, or are you forgetting we invaded an entire nation and set up Gitmo based on the logic you find so frightening.

You think there should be no drunk driving laws or punishment for driving drunk, except in cases where there's an accident or someone gets hurt??

You forgot to add where there's no erratic driving at all or sign of impairment. I don't think sobriety checkpoints are Constitutional and I don't think cops should be able to trump up reasons to pull people over. Lord knows there's plenty of absolutely deadly driving out there every day by sober people and the cops completely ignore it.

Well, it is clear that everyone seems to know the legal limit in their area. So what is the big deal. Why complain about getting caught? You know the limit....

Lets apply some of the logic put forth in this thread to another aspect of driving....

Kinda like speeding. You are driving down a nice straight road and the limit is 65, but you say "I am a good driver and I am driving a capable car" so you go 90. You get stopped and cited for exessive speed. Is your defence or complaint that the limit was too low or that lots of people are dangerous below the limit, but you are fine above it?? Should you only get a ticket if you crashed and hurt someone??

In either case one is aware of the limit (just or not) and chose to ignore it.

Ever think the limits are about prevention of harm, not punishment afterwards?

Now, I have no idea if the .08 limit in my Province is too high or too low. I don't care. I know what it is and act accordingly.

Cheers

Oh, and I am clearly not a civil rights activist, but I could care less if I get stopped to see if I have been drinking. Same for seat belt check etc. I also could care less about cameras in downtown areas watching what I am doing. If you aren't doing anything wrong, who cares??

Cheers

Why you low down...I oughta' punch you in the mouth! (best John Wayne immitation) Where do ya come across spoutin' reason like that an' thinkin' ya kin git away with it?!

:)

Me too!

While you're all complaining about civil liberties, I believe the penalty for drunk driving is more onerous in most European countries than in the US although I don't know what the limits are.

I've had my share of roadside conversations with "the man" and can't remember one where he was not correct in his assertions. Certainly, I was pissed but I had no one to blame but myself.:D

It used to be nobody would have even considered comparison with European countries a benchmark comparison for the state of U.S. civil liberties.

The mere fact that someone is making that comparison should set off alarm bells. That's really where we are today.

Leave it to a Canadian;)... "If you are not doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to worry about..." "Big Brother" is not nearly as entrenched or accepted by us recalitrant Yanks. If we are not doing anything wrong, why would Big Brother want to watch? We just don't even want to go there.

And no, we can never pass enough law to prevent harm. We simply cannot cover every possible circumstance under which one may harm another. The only thing we succeed in doing when we try is limiting the liberties of those who will never harm anyone. We hand control of our daily activities over to the gubmint, who, unfortunately, have demonstrated their interests are not as innocuous as just keeping us safe from ourselves. Our gubmint, in a free land, has no business interfering with our right to hurt ourselves, as bizzare as that sounds at first cut. They can certainly punish after one citizen brings harm to another. We expect that. But punishing a citizen because they might have hurt some one? Very, very slippery slope indeed. One that, unfortunately, we are already on. Maybe we can arrest our slide here in the U.S., with other countries providing ready examples of what happens when it has gone too far. Not to keep flogging the same dead horse, but here in the U.S. we, the people, prefer to run our gubmint. Not the other way around as in every other country on earth. Citizens vs. subjects again...

I think seat belt laws are an outrage! At least with DUI you have a chance of hurting others. Failure to wear a seat belt in no way endagers others. And if you are so quick to agree to whatever the cops ask of you, fine. See my other thread on consenting to a police search. They'd better have a very good reason to pull me over and they will not ever get my consent to search anything of mine.

BTW, I was watching Cops Sat. night. EVERY single person they stopped consented to a search and every one of them went to jail. One was even a pedestrian and agreed to show id and let the cop look in her purse. Boom. Jail. Almost all of them would have gone home that night if they had not consented to police searches.

Same with motorcycle helmet laws. If someone wants to splatter their brains all over the asphalt because "looking cool" is more important to them than retaining a pulse, I say let 'em.

Ditto on the seat belts. A stupid law designed to limit insurance company liability and skew dumbed-down highway mortality statistics that never tell the whole story anyway.

Even more insulting than seat belt laws is when the state puts up signs on the road saying they "care" about you. "Save a life" or "It's your life. It's our law." They should read "Save an insurance lobbyist's contributions."

At least NC is direct and to the point: "Click it or ticket" is our $afety $logan :)

What about children wearing seatbelts. You know, the ones not old enough to be able to vote or drink, the ones where the parent is suppossed to be responsible for them..... Should they have to buckle up, or should we just let them be killed or hurt cause the parents lack common sense??

Cheers

Having stupid parents sucks. I know - let's have the state try to make up for that by passing so many laws we can't keep track of them anymore, and everyone is in violation of at least one at any given time. It is, after all, "for the children". We must protect them from their stupid parents, and raise them all per standards set by the state. Any non-compliance will result in the removal of children from the home. They will be put into foster care and become wards of the state, where they are certain to thrive and grow up as outstanding citizens and future contributors to the greater good of society. Yeah; that should work... Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

I have no problem with laws that protect the safety of children. Government has no place restricting the activities of adults in order to protect their "safety".

How about a new racing series where participating adult's rights are not impinged upon by a dictatorial sanctioning body requiring vehicle "safety" inspection (what right do they think they have), roll bars and helmets?

Oh, and as per Noah's comment ("Drunk is when you're stumbling around."), have the entry fee include access to a bank of kegs for pre-race enthusiasm building and testicle enlargement - if a driver can get to his car without stumbling around, let him race - all the more fun!

I'd pay to see that (from a self imposed "safe" distance).

Why would you confuse voluntary participation in a recreational event with real life?