[UberRoo]

Originally posted by mohrds
No, that doesn't sound like fun, but what you are advocating is the other extreme: near anarchy. You seriously think it would be a good idea to leave things up to discretion? Soooooo much potential for abuse. Not everyone is a lawyer and some are very naive, ready to believe anything the officer says. Even if the fine is, say, sexual favours. You don't think that wouldn't happen?

I don't think there's any getting around an arbitrator. Someone will have discretion. Currently, the laws relating to headlights allows an officer to decide if the lights produce too much glare. (RCW 46.37.230) Regarding people being naive, tough luck. That's the cost of being stupid. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. (Any judge will tell you that.) Anarchy doesn't work and I know it, but we already have plenty of government so I don't think there's any risk of that.

Yes. I do. Have you no regard for environmental concerns whatsoever? These mandates are necessary to keep the millions of older vehicles on our roads from becoming mass polluters. The drivers of said vehicles otherwise don't care as long as they have their cheap wheels, but environmental responsibility is far more important in the long run than somebody's selfish desires for cheap transportation. Can't afford to drive clean? Then you shouldn't be driving.
When was the last time you enjoyed driving behind someone in a car so badly in need of a tuneup that you had to inhale a black and blue plume of smog?

Those people are so few and far between that legislating them is really quite pointless. Moreover, I've no doubt we already have a law prohibiting such an ill-maintained vehicle. Some further research into environmental controls is still in order. If you're worried about the environment, sell your car and get a bike. I'm not worried about it. We could start a whole new debate regarding the environment, which I don't mind, but it's off topic so let's not.

No you didn't, but leaving all laws to discretion is a bad, bad, bad idea, and will actually lead to more problems than well-worded new laws that actually protect the interests of the citizens while more carefully targeting offenders.

I haven't seen a revision of a law that actually achieves this. Instead of favoring the interests of citizens, it would be easier to simply make the laws more restrictive and easier to enforce - which is how things work now and is of course what will actually happen if things come to pass.

Well, congratulations, you are more sensible than a lot of people then, but others are not. The laws are there, at least partially, to protect those not smart enough to figure out that helmets and seatbelts are life-saving devices. The other reason, of course, is to generate revenue from the foolish.

Protecting stupid people from themselves is not how I want my tax dollars spent. The revenue collected from law violations is never enough to compensate for the expense of enforcing them. What I might favor is a law that encouraged (but does not require) people to jaywalk, ride without helmets and go swimming after a big meal. Hopefully they'll remove themselves from the gene pool before they have a chance to contaminate it. You can thank me later.

How about the not-so-lousy ones? Like against murder? assault? embezzlement? conflict of interest? collusion (corporate price-fixing)? child abuse? toxic waste dumping? My friend, there are many, many things, horrible things, that people would do were there not laws to prohibit them from committing these acts. Do not forget: not everyone has the good sense that you or I do about these things.

I am willing to accept some new laws on a case by case basis, but all the laws you mentioned are old laws. While I don't think we should just repeal all laws, a good portion of them could be trimmed down, particularly the ones that address personal freedoms. All the laws you cite, by their very nature, have no relevance to personal freedoms.

Me either. Laws can be done in a way such that they are not bloated and without relying on the dangerous and corruption prone "officer's discretion" clause. How many kids do you think get pulled over just because they are kids living within the letter of the law, if not within its spirit, as the officer sees it at the time? Now THAT's Big Brother for you.

Hahahaha! Laws can be written in an efficient and fair manner when hell freezes over. ...but seriously, very few laws are well-written and I don't think it's realistic that we can write perfect laws that require no discretion on anyone's part.

You'd better believe there are some. Of course that depends on what you mean by recent. At least in Canada, and some of the less backward states, there are. Like laws protecting gay and lesbians from human rights abuses while allowing them the same status as all the other homosapiens on the planet.

Regardless of my opinion on the subject, this is more of a moral issue than an ethical issue, largely because religion plays a significant role in this debate and there are a great many people who feel very differently about this subject. I cannot speak for everyone. I think another example would be better suited. We do have a handful of really good laws, (the first ten constitutional amendments come to mind; ) but as we run out of good laws, we start coming up with bad ones. Recently there seems to be an increasing frenzy to micromanage society using the legal system. At this accelerating rate, we're going to paralyze ourselves with laws unless, (or when,) the system gets a major overhaul.

"The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble ... there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness." --- Mark Twain

Yes, you really are. You are soooo concerned for your precious rights that you have no concern for the rights of others not to have their freedoms infringed upon by people being stupid. I'll explain shortly.

Damn right I'm concerned for my rights, and they are very precious. Someday we'll all be wearing helmets in our cars and remembering the time when nobody ever even considered such a thing. Someday we'll all be wearing seatbelts in our cars and remembering the time when nobody ever even considered such a thing. Oh wait! That's already happened. If you want to have any rights left, you'd better start getting concerned now.

"The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship." --- The Supreme Court of the United States of America, from the decision on the Communications Decency Act. (I think this applies to all freedoms.)

To try and improve things, naturally. Even if it doesn't always work out that way. If we never did that, we'd still live in a world where slavery is commonplace, jews would likely be extinct, and many would be uneducated because you wouldn't be forced to send your kids to school, instead you'd be allowed to keep them on the farm, have as many as you like, and use them for virtual slave labour. All the kids would know is whatever their parents had them to do... where's the freedom in that? Sounds suspiciously like communist USSR...

No, regulating the bejezus out of everything, prohibiting as much as possible, and forcing everyone to conform to a strict set of laws sounds like communist USSR. If you don't want a separation of classes, you're just SOL. There's just no getting around that.

I'm going to assume that you know that jay walking is an old law and that this is not connected to your previous statement about new laws...
Many dogs have worse judgement than your dog apparently. Many people have worse judgement than your dog has.

Gee, that really sucks for them. I hope that when they learn how not to cross the street, they don't learn with my car. (But you can bet pedestrians would wisen-up considerably if they knew they didn't own the road.)

That may be true but in that case, the law helps to protect the liability, at least somewhat, for the person that hits the jay walker with their car. The person was driving the speed limit, obeying all the rules of the road, when some jackass decides to excercise their freedom to use their bad judgement whenever they want, and jumps out in front of the car. Who is at fault here? Were it not for the jaywalking law, the fault would point to the driver of the car, when in fact (s)he has done nothing wrong.

You are absolutely right, but this reinforces my point. Because we have a stupid law that gives pedestrians right-of-way, we have another stupid law to Band-Aid the problem by forbidding jaywalking. Streets are for cars! We don't pave them for foot-traffic, or bicycles, or little old ladies who left their boy scout at home. If somebody gets hit by a car, and the collision occurred between fog lines, the driver should not be at fault. If the public as a whole really cared about bicyclists, we would have wider shoulders - but we don't, and we don't. Roads are for cars. If you're not driving one, STAY OFF OF IT!

As I have said, not everyone has judgement and perception as keen as yours. Laws must be made for the lowest-common-denominator or they become inherently unfair, tokens of an elitist society. Is that what you are? An elitist?

By your definition, (and maybe by my own,) yes, I am. Should we require that everyone wear safety goggles because a mentally retarded person might poke themselves in the eye? Where do you draw the line? Who is mentally retarded and who is just stupid? Again, where do we draw the line? If we considered people who can't cross the street on their own as being mentally retarded, would we still have a jay-walking law? Probably not. Stupidity is painful. If you do something stupid, you could get hurt, or *gasp* even die. Stupid people be warned! Maybe the law should require that we all stay home because it's too dangerous for some of us. ...dang, someone might get hurt at home. Maybe we should all stay in bed. No, that's dangerous too. Shoot, just being alive is too dangerous. Being alive should be illegal! No? What, you don't care that someone might leave their house and get strangled by their passive seatbelt? Should everyone be allowed to strangle themselves with their seatbelts?

Besides, can you imagine how chaotic urban thoroghfares would be if you had a hundred crackerjacks crossing the road indiscriminately, not at every intersection, but through them? Or all along the road? Roads and sidewalks are an infrastructure. Emphasis on structure which means that they are designed to do something, that being, conduct both pedestrian and vehicular traffic in an efficient and safe manner. There is nothing efficient or safe about chaos. Just ask my friend who visited Jakarta recently.

I think I'd get a big roo-bar and drive much faster. People would quickly learn how to cross the street safely - or else…

Bicyclists wear helmets because they are technically driving a vehicle and are therefore subject to the same laws as a motorcycle. Cars have room to build in safety equipment, whereas bicycles and motorcycles do not.

Not in my state. Bicycle helmet laws are city ordinances, and they apply specifically to bikes - but that isn't the point. I should be allowed to drive a car that has no seatbelts, no airbags, no bumpers, no roll bar, no brakes, and a big spike sticking out of the steering wheel. (Just imagine how carefully I'd drive.) Manufacturers would provide these parts as options, and would probably include them as standard equipment, but I shouldn't be forced to have them.

Likewise, pedestrians will never be required to use a helmet. Cars will simply be made safer for pedestrian impacts. This is occurring in europe already. While I tend to disagree with this as an extreme, other such measures have already come to pass, in the form of softer front and rear bumpers, which while they hurt freedom of styling at first, are a good thing in the long run. Designers will always find a way to meet the standard while improving the way things look.

The idea is not to make people in cars wear helmets, but rather to make the cars safer from the inside. You will probably never see a law requiring passengers in a car to wear a helmet. That would be like admitting defeat on the airbags, etc. front. You have to look at the way things are going. To make an extrapolation like you just did is absurd. If 50% of fatalities were caused by head trauma, why do you think then that so much is going into side-curtain airbags for your head?

You might never see that law because the majority of people would complain that is messes up their hair (and makes it hard to talk on a cell-phone.) You don't see the majority of people complain about motorcycle helmets because the majority of people don't ride motorcycles. If you ask most motorcyclists, they're against helmet laws. Head trauma is a huge factor in automobile injuries and that's precisely why every auto racing sport requires the use of a helmet. So far, no other technology compares to a helmet, and by a great margin. Gaining acceptance of an automobile helmet law would take some time. If we whittle away our freedoms slowly, nobody notices. If we move in huge steps, people complain.

"When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent. When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun. Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet." --- Lyle Myhr

Just because the law doesn't affect you, doesn't mean it isn't important. Just because it only takes away a very small amount of freedom doesn't mean it won't set a dangerous precedent to removing much more. Playing with matches is still playing with fire.

If everyone was like you, content to simply stay where we are in terms of safety, we would never make any advances. How many fatalities are 'acceptable'? People do imagine a better world, where fatalities ARE cut in half, so they mandate (there's that word again) automakers to implement safety features like airbags and seatbelts. Don't forget, many people are not as sensible as you. How many do you think would volunteer to pay extra for seatbelts and airbags? More importantly, how many wouldn't. That's why these things start off as optional, 'luxury' equipment, then become mandatory on all vehicles.

We would make advances, but mandating them is not necessary, and certainly not appropriate. (At least at an individual level. Regulating manufacturers is not an issue of personal freedoms, but I do think it draws an uncomfortably close parallel to personal freedom that overzealous regulation would be very unwise.) I would like to encourage people to not purchase safety devices. If anyone values their safety, they have the option to ensure it, but there is no good reason to require it. Rather than halving fatalities, I'd like to double them. The beauty of accidents is that stupid people are usually the ones who bear the brunt of them. There is some tragedy in the fact that occasionally other people suffer, but I think our safety policies tend to upset this balance. I would think a more natural equilibrium would show a huge bias of injury towards the deserving party.

So you see, that laws are not a blatant attempt to rob you of your precious 'freedoms' but an attempt to protect everyone else's freedoms from the lowest common denominator. Or would you prefer wild-west justice? That is what 'officer's discretion' amounts to in the end, and THAT would be a scary world. Would you like Freedom Fries with that? *shudder*

So we should completely remove all personal accountability, especially for stupid people? I don't advocate wild west justice, but I think making idiocy illegal is the most asinine idea ever conceived. Natural selection should be given free reign. I'm fed up with the dumbing down of America. Encouraging stupidity is one thing, but some of these laws border on mandating it.

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I appreciate this debate.
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"Cyberspace, in its present condition, has a lot in common with the 19th century west. It is vast, unmapped, culturally and legally ambiguous, verbally terse (unless you happen to be a court stenographer), hard to get around in, and up for grabs. Large institutions already claim to own the place, but most of the actual natives are solitary and independent, sometimes to the point of sociopathy. It is, of course, a perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and new ideas about liberty." --- John Perry Barlow