dear_daffy_boy jane i would like to hear your copious thoughts on the recent law imposed on our personal property: the no-cell phone while driving law. GO! 080912 ... birdmad Having been bumped and near-hit many times in crosswalks by right-of-way-violating assclowns on cellphones who were more involved in their conversations than with what was going on in the roadway, i'd really love to hear this one too. of course the last guy that did that to me got a fist-sized dimple in the hood of his M-Class after the fucknut nearly roadkilled me and two other pedestrians because he was too busy talking to notice that we had the WALK signal and were already 3/4 of the way through the crosswalk before he hung his right turn and still had the nerve to yell at us when he jammed on his brakes yes, yes...do enlighten me on how my well-being is secondary to someone else's sense of entitlement 080912 ... bump . 080913 ... dafremen Here are my thoughts on the subject. In order to prosecute someone for breaking a cell phone law, you have to prove that they were on their cell phone in a reckless or negligent manner. Now that's easy to prove. Lot's of people are on their cell phones while driving. So the laws would affect ALL people, and therefore would cast a WIDE net that picked up even people who WOULDN'T have harmed anyone or damaged any property. This is a VERY good thing for the state. It means they can rake in the bucks by fining people without actually decreasing many injuries or reducing much damage. (And this is the same for Law after law after law..very few of which do any REAL PRACTICAL good to increase public safety. The War on Drugs being perhaps the most extreme example of where that is true.) Now let's take a world WITHOUT the State sponsored measure playing God and/or Daddy to supposedly Brave and Free Americans: A man is on his cell phone. He recklessly endangers your life or harms you. Perhaps he barrels through your petunias, knocking down your pristine white picket fence. There are already sensible laws on the books to cover his reckless actions. He is guilty of killing/injuring someone or he is guilty of damaging your property or both. If you would like to avoid risk...you can always go down and buy a Supersized aquarium, placing it in a spot that is well out of harm's way. That is what Laws are doing to EVERYONE else in the name of fear of WHAT IF something maybe possibly someday somewhere somehow happened to go wrong? It doesn't. Not nearly often enough to justify regulating the behavior. If there were some epidemic of people dying in the streets, I might agree with you. There isn't. The statistics just don't back up the fear mongering and emotional arguments. I'm sorry. By the way, I can't chronic cell phone user/drivers either. Nor can I stand watching women put on their makeup while driving or people shaving while driving...etc. That doesn't mean I should make a court case out of it. I can simply express my opinion, perhaps educate some people and get on with being as free as this over regulated society will allow me to be. Hopefully this was just a request for my opinion and not a request to enter some intellectual slap fight. I'm not interested if the latter is true. Your opinions are duly noted. My opinion has now been stated. These days are very busy. Too busy to be asked to repeat myself over and over ad nauseum. Maybe next year. Good luck to you with the aquarium. Just don't stick me in there with you. Thanks. 080914 ... dafremen "I can't chronic cell phone user/drivers either" should read "I can't STAND chronic cell phone user/drivers either." That goes for drunk drivers too. 080914 ... jane my reasoning behind asking you about this was not to get into a debate. not sure if that is why you started your drunk_driving_is_not_a_crime page (or was it? were you just wanting to start shit, darling?) ... in a way i was saying... there are other laws, other regulations, that you could be fighting against. i don't understand why drunk driving was the issue you chose to so adamantly stand up for. 080914 ... dafremen Because, by taking an extreme position..you can sometimes get people's attention. Drunk driving is stupid. It's risky...and if it causes harm, there are laws already in place to deter it. Most folks don't want to kill everyone. The better course of action is to educate and get the word out. To change societal norms and by so doing, apply pressure from WITHIN our ranks. Not to impose pressures externally that entitle government to more power. It worked brilliantly with smoking. 50% of American smokers stopped smoking after anti-smoking campaigns began to educate the public. And nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on the planets (and thus one of the hardest risky behaviors for Americans to stop.) Educate...don't regulate. The only real criminals are those who actually do harm to others. 080915 ... j i don't think you really addressed what i was inquiring about. why drunk driving instead of something else? something more logical? whose attention are you trying to get? the general populace DOES make their decisions based on emotional aspects, which you have time and time again counterpointed with logic. 080915 ... i want some of what youve been smoking so, by that logic, randomly discharging a firearm is not a crime until the bullet hits someone or breaks shit. niiiiiiice 080915 ...   actually, i DO want to kill everyone, because as a species we are both pretty fucked and pretty fucking stupid and it is about time we acknowledged the fait accompli and gave the roaches their turn 080915 ...   Seriously, d00d...I'm genuinely wishing that the Large Hadron Collider really would collapse the world in one great and appropriate sucking motion. the galactic antibodies scrubbing us out before we can spread like some nasty infection throughout the universe 080915 ... dafremen (To the anonymous someone with an opinion..more common on this planet, it seems, than concrete.)Well then..upon your killing someone..I'm afraid we'll have to lock you up. It's simple. There was a very beautiful mechanism at work. It was the random, contrived and perfectly free interaction of people, ideas and events. As this did it's thing, all sorts of wonderful things came about. (All sorts of horrible ones too...but we learned...and most avoided these later on.) We used to call it adventure. We used to call it discovery. We used to call it life experience. And although we've proven time and time again that FORCING beings to act a certain way only creates a populace of obedient slugs and an oppositely polarized population of rebellious thugs..still we continue to try to force people to act a certain way. And we do it because...let's be perfectly clear and truthful here..because someone else suggested that we do so. It wasn't YOUR random idea to get rid of firearms. It wasn't YOUR random idea to get rid of drunk driving. You were fed that. And now you're a speaker..a public address system for someone's opinion that you don't even know...remember or care to. It just SOUNDED like a good idea. Free will. Why are we in such a hurry to stomp it out? Do you REALLY think that it stops with these sensible regulations? Weren't you taught that law and precedence go hand in hand? Stop creating precedence that become more and more restrictive legislation. First they passed a law against terrorism. Now they're redefining what a terrorist is. Now they are locking up kids that organize protests for 7 years in prison...because folks that think like YOU do..were afraid. 17, 22 year olds sent to Federal prisons..the possibility of their lives snuffed out..because YOU are afraid. (Yes, this is happening...today...in our society.) The drug war was caused by the same notions. Keeping people safe. Prohibition was the SAME thing. "Reducing deaths." C'mon...knock it off. It won't be long before our precious music is censored...and our beloved site is shut down with this same mentality. I can see the arguments now: "Young people come onto sites like blather which foster radical ideas and go out and spread these notions. Soon there is no order and people end up dying." "Marilyn Manson is a heinous abuse of free expression which results in the deaths of young people. These are PREVENTABLE deaths...these sorts of irresponsible artists must be stopped." Sounds absurd does it? It's already been proposed several times...in the media. Stop it. It's all the same. Stomp on ONE behavior and you stomp on them all eventually. Let people live their lives as they see fit. If they harm others...then prosecute them. It's very simple and doesn't allow for this chain to be forged. K, I'm done now. You asked the question. That is your answer. (Dafremen_answers_five_questions was set aside for just such questions if you have more.) 080915 ... silentbob How's tricks? Glad to see you're still poking your head in sometimes. as_am_i 101015 what's it to you? who go blather from