Murphy’s Bye-Laws

For those on a reader not subscribed to comments or who don’t pay attention to the recent comments section in the sidebar, I was chosen by the writer of www.traumasurvivor.org as the worst rant of the week. Yea!

Apparently, the logic I used to say that without a victim there can be no crime was just too scary and…logical. Of course, by saying DUI law is an excuse for the trampling of freedom at the hands of police and courts, a.k.a. the State, I am condoning – even encouraging – drunk driving and any resultant injury or death therefrom.

http://www.traumasurvivor.org/weeks-worst-a-cocktail-of-thoughts-on-dui-law-with-a-splash-of-philosophy

Clearly this person is otherwise a very smart person, and puts forth what would actually be a persuasive argument if only the end result of that argument would cause the blood to flow far deeper on our highways.

His theory seems to hing on the fact that people on our highways shoud die for his right to drink and drive. He says “I agree that preventing harm is important” and yet thinks that if trauma injury or death in 50% of drunk drivers, he thinks thats ok.

I think it is clear that I had not said or even implied any such thing. It is also obvious that some of the statements pointed out as hyperbole in the original post (Cocktail of Thoughts of DUI Law…) were meant to be obvious hyperbole. At any rate,  the post was a thought exercise. Perhaps our presenter of awards would benefit from a jog of the ol’ gray matter. In this exercise, I cannot say whether B__ was playing Devil’s Advocate or not (it should be on his resume as job experience he does it so much).

Let’s delve into the Wilk’s comments and see if there are any arguments to rebut. Read the rest of this entry »

Several months ago, I wrote about the story of Plaxico Burress in light of the brouhaha he aroused with his 40-caliber Glock and some track pants (Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just trying to get to the VIP room?). All these months later, Plaxico has just taken a plea deal (an end-around of Justice?) that will place him in prison for 2 years. All over the NFL players are fumbling through the justice system for various incidents and drawing comparisons between their fates; from a drunk driving fatality to dog fighting, people are comparing how each fared in court and in the offices of the league that employs them. Let’s explore these various incidents and what we can learn from them.

In 2007 Micheal Vick pled guilty to dog fighting charges and has since served a little over 20 months in prison. Upon his release, he has been temporarily reinstated in the NFL (and possibly fully reinstated at a later date) and will don a Philadelphia Eagle’s uniform this season. His plea deal was a significant step down from the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) charges – the laws created for fighting the mafia (government doesn’t like competition) – that could have brought a much more substantial sentence for him. His role in the gambling and financing of the dog fighting is pretty clear. Did he torture and kill Read the rest of this entry »

Here in this country, which is supposed to be “free” and “of the people,” the police are allowed to set up checkpoints under the guise that they are keeping us safe from drunk drivers. What they are really protecting us from is more akin to outdated paperwork, uneventful evenings, and timely arrivals. As Jim Bovard points out in his article Drunk Driving Checkpoints: Every Driver Guilty, “These checkpoints, supposedly started to target drunk drivers, have expanded to give police more intrusive power over citizens in many areas.” A report of results from checkpoints in November of 2005 in Pittsburgh confirms that about 650% more citations were issued for vehicle inspections than for DUI. Confirming what Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said in a dissent of a checkpoint case brought on 4^th Amendment grounds (also from Bovard’s article), “The evidence in this case indicates that sobriety check points result in the arrest of a fraction of one percent of the drivers who are stopped, but there is absolutely no evidence that this figure represents an increase over the number of arrests that would have been made by using the same law enforcement resources in conventional patrols,” the Pittsburgh checkpoint made 13 arrests for DUI while 14 were made from normal patrols.

Pittsburgh is at it again with “[t]he region’s largest DUI checkpoint” to be set up on a “major highway” in the area sometime between now and November 5 (from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the midst of this article is a core justification for such police-state tactics in the course of “keeping the peace.*” Cathy Tress of the Pennsylvania Driving Under the Influence Association has this to share, “Driving in Pennsylvania is a privilege, not a right. Consequently, drivers have a responsibility to themselves, their passengers and other people who are sharing the road.” But free people have no privileges, I say.

Privilege is something that is granted by some superior or controlling entity. Kids are given privileges by their parents. Slaves are given privileges by their masters. Free people have no superiors to grant such privileges; a free person has only rights restricted by the equal rights of those around them. By implying that driving is a privilege, Ms. Tress is implying that there is some controlling entity granting that privilege, presumably the State. Of course, words mean nothing, especially when spoken by governments.

If this country was what we are told it is, then the only privilege-granting entities would be the mythical “People,” granting privilege to government officials. Through verbal jujitsu the government has turned this around. But words mean nothing, and if we purport to be free, we can’t be granted privileges. Instead, we exercise rights.

In a similar vein, like the one that popped out of my head when I saw , freedom is not a privilege. If someone has the power over you to grant you “freedom” then you are not free. The picture was taken at the Canfield Fair this year in the education building. Some school in Mahoning County, Ohio has the nerve to teach children this garbage. I…um…it is….um…what the….um…I have no words. I weep (and rage) for our futures and the lives we are feeding into a carnivorous system.

*Do we have any Peace Officers anymore or are they all Storm Troopers?