Here, Rockwell already starts a bit far. I place Clinton amongst our nation's very worst presidents, but that doesn't mean that every single twitch of his finger was amongst history's most terrible moments. Even very bad presidents — and bad CEO's — can occasionally do something that's a "good thing" for the Company:
"Clinton has signed a bill passed by Congress that orders the states to adopt new, more onerous drunk-driving standards or face a loss of highway funds. That’s right: the old highway extortion trick. Sure enough, states are already working to pass new, tighter laws against Driving Under the Influence, responding as expected to the feds’ ransom note."
Rockwell is going farther off the deep end here:
"What precisely is being criminalized? Not bad driving. Not destruction of property. Not the taking of human life or reckless endangerment. The crime is having the wrong substance in your blood… The law should deal in actions and actions alone, and only insofar as they damage person or property."
If drunk drivers were only killing themselves and wrecking a few cars, then the Libertarian principle of personal responsibility seems right. But, drunk drivers kill many other unrelated pedestrians, other (sober) drivers, and their own passengers (inebriated or otherwise). The public got sick of it and pressured legislators to do something about the killing of their own kids. As of 2000, alcohol is a factor in 8% of overall accidents, but accounts for 40% of *fatal* accidents. The People are speaking up and the legislators are responding. I don't have a problem with helping to prevent someone's death. Rockwell is worried about the impact on his "liberty" to endanger people when he goes out for a few pints. Rockwell gives the implications of alcohol upon drivers short shrift in suggesting that it's better to only prosecute a dead pedestrian's killer rather than to enact some larger effort that the pedestrian might actually get across the street alive.
-MrB |
