TheAgitator.com
Neoprohibition
Thursday, July 15th, 2004The state of New Mexico — already considering mandatory alcohol breath-test devices on every vehicle sold in the state — now wants to ban anyone convicted of DWI from purchasing alcoholic beverages for five years.
Not terribly outrageous, until you consider just how easy it is to get a DWI these days.
Speaking of drunken driving fallacies, have a look at this table. Look at how many innocents are killed by drivers with BAC levels at .10 and lower, and compare it to the far-right column of drivers at .15 or higher. Note that the numbers are probably even more lopsided than this, as fatal accidents invovling drivers with BACs below .10 are far more likely attributable to factors unrelated to alcohol.
Now ask yourself, which is the better use of law enforcement resources, going after people at .09, or going after people at .15 and up?
Radley,
Hey, when you let the hungry tiger in the door, you can’t sit back and expect him to restrain his hunting to the living room. When you let the State (read: majority rule) set arbitrary limits like this, you open the door for limit reductions and other laws…because, in principle, if they can arrest a driver at a checkpoint who is driving perfectly but has a .15, what’s the difference if they arrest a driver at a checkpoint who’s driving perfectly but has a .08? None. They’re both arrested for what they **might** do.
It seems like your argument is for relativism and subjective laws based not on principle, but on numbers. IOW, it’s ok to arrest a driver who is driving perfectly but has a .15, but not ok to arrest a driver who is driving perfectly but has a .08. But isn’t that all relative? Surely, someone who has a .08 is more of a threat than a driver with a .05, who in turn is more of a threat than someone with a .02. So, extrapolate that to .15. The only way you can rationally resolve this conflict is on principle, not on statistics.
The same argument was had over at Catallarchy over the past few days, regarding minimum wage, and Landsburg’s article on how it supposedly doesn’t affect unemployment numbers. The argument went on and on, delving deep into moralism vs. numbers. Basically, do we base our decision on whether or not to squash civil liberties on reactionary logic; IOW, is the minimum wage OK as long as it is statistically positive? Or do we base it on morality, principles, on whether it is right or wrong to rob people for welath redistribution? I am in the latter camp.
But going back to the DWI issue, it pertains to this as well. The person who says “minimum wage laws are OK so long as they don’t make unemployment rates go up” is the same person who will say “it’s OK to arrest the guy who’s driving perfect, but gets to a checkpoint with a .15, but it’s not ok to arrest the guy who’s driving perfect but gets to a checkpoint with a .08″. It’s a questions of morality, PRINCIPLES, versus statistical justification.
Oddly enough, Radley seems to be in different camps on this one. I gather that Radley feels that minimum wage laws are unjust no matter what they do to the unemployment rate, simply because it is wrong to steal. That’s principle. But on the other hand, Radley talks an awful lot about “going after” people with a .15 BAC, while ignoring people with a .08. That’s not principle, that’s statistical reactionism. I dunno, just a curious conflict. Maybe Radley can clear it up?
I would like to see that chart with another column: Number of non-drivers killed by drivers with a BAC of .00.