Contrary to popular libertarian thought, I'm happy with new laws as long as they are consistent. If we want to do things to reduce risk of death while driving I don't especially like having government rules, but I'll take them as long as they are self-consistent.
The thing with drinking and driving is that, contrary to popular belief, you don't drink four beers and go run over a school bus full of orphans. Most drunk people drive fine for hundreds of trips.
What the actual situation is that drinking increases your odds of having an accident. It does not make it a certainty. Not by any means.
So as long as we equally prosecute all of those things that increases the odds of having an accident by the same percentage by the same punishment, I'm happy with a compromise. That means cell phone usage, arguing while speeding, etc. If it's as dangerous as X and society needs to intervene, it's as dangerous as X.
Of course, framing the issue this way brings up the great problem with DUI -- it's an emotional, moral issue that somebody wants the law to fix. We are "offended" by the drunk driver running over the orphan in a way that we are not by the cell phone user doing the same thing.
When people talk about "legislating morality", they are not talking about pulling words from some holy book and trying to make a constitutional amendment out of it. I wish that it were so simple. Instead, it happens when people of all faiths, including atheists, become morally outraged at some sort of behavior and seek to punish it in a way different from other behavior with similar effects on society.
I'll probably get downvoted into oblivion for this comment, but all I'm pleading for is a little dispassionate logic here. I fully understand this is a very emotional issue for lots of people. (And I sympathize with those people) In no way at all do I condone drinking and driving.
> Most drunk people drive fine for hundreds of trips.
I don't know that this is true, but even if it was I don't know that it's useful information in terms of minimizing harm, just as pointing out that some people smoke their whole lives, live to be 90 and die in their sleep.
The devil is in the averages. The data shows that drunk drivers kill more people than sober drivers.
About the rest of your post, no downvote from me, you make a great point. You're right that society treats drunk driving as worse, but don't forget that texting while driving is a (relatively) new problem. Drunk driving used to be fine by society, and then values changed. Texting while driving is now undergoing a similar change, we're just much earlier in the process.
In principle you're right though, if texting while driving kills people (and it does) then we should treat that as aggressively as drunk driving.
Perhaps the difference here is that you can camp a bar, whereas it's harder to camp texters. ;)
Contrary to popular libertarian thought, I'm happy with new laws as long as they are consistent. If we want to do things to reduce risk of death while driving I don't especially like having government rules, but I'll take them as long as they are self-consistent.
The thing with drinking and driving is that, contrary to popular belief, you don't drink four beers and go run over a school bus full of orphans. Most drunk people drive fine for hundreds of trips.
What the actual situation is that drinking increases your odds of having an accident. It does not make it a certainty. Not by any means.
So as long as we equally prosecute all of those things that increases the odds of having an accident by the same percentage by the same punishment, I'm happy with a compromise. That means cell phone usage, arguing while speeding, etc. If it's as dangerous as X and society needs to intervene, it's as dangerous as X.
Of course, framing the issue this way brings up the great problem with DUI -- it's an emotional, moral issue that somebody wants the law to fix. We are "offended" by the drunk driver running over the orphan in a way that we are not by the cell phone user doing the same thing.
When people talk about "legislating morality", they are not talking about pulling words from some holy book and trying to make a constitutional amendment out of it. I wish that it were so simple. Instead, it happens when people of all faiths, including atheists, become morally outraged at some sort of behavior and seek to punish it in a way different from other behavior with similar effects on society.
I'll probably get downvoted into oblivion for this comment, but all I'm pleading for is a little dispassionate logic here. I fully understand this is a very emotional issue for lots of people. (And I sympathize with those people) In no way at all do I condone drinking and driving.