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Forum Post: What happens when government has too much power?

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 14, 2011, 10:35 p.m. EST by REALamerican (241)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

There's a new law the federal government is trying to push through the states- complete ban of using cell phones for any reason at all. You cannot even use bluetooth or gps.

Let me explain the big problem with overly strict laws- they only hurt the law-abiding! This is in the same boat as the laws attempting to control drugs and guns. The only people who will follow the law, are the ones you do not have to worry about. How about INSTEAD, we install some hefty fines or consequences if you are found to have caused an accident due to a cell phone or similar device. Most people can text and drive just fine, but when you force people to hide the fact that they are texting and driving, you will only cause their focus to be strained even further. How does this make any sense?

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20 Comments


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[-] 2 points by infonomics (393) 12 years ago

"Most people can text and drive just fine..."

If the above is true, then why is the following true:

Currently, 35 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, while nine states and Washington, D.C., bar hand-held cellphone use. Thirty states ban all cellphone use for beginning drivers. But enforcement is generally not a high priority, and no states ban the use of hands-free devices for all drivers.

From Wikipedia (Texting while driving):

Cell phone task / Risk of crash or near event crash Light Vehicle Dialing 2.8 times as high as non‐distracted driving Light Vehicle Talking/Listening 1.3 times as high as non‐distracted driving Light Vehicle Reaching for object (i.e. electronic device...) 1.4 times as high as non‐distracted driving Heavy Vehicles/Trucks Dialing 5.9 times as high as non‐distracted driving Heavy Vehicles/Trucks Talking/Listening 1.0 times as high as non‐distracted driving Heavy Vehicles/Trucks Use/Reach for electronic device 6.7 times as high as non‐distracted driving Heavy Vehicles/Trucks Text messaging 23.2 times as high as non‐distracted driving

Back to me:

There is no proof that the brain operates like a dual processor. For example, when a person is engaged in a conversation with one person and another interrupts with another idea, what does the original person typically do? He shifts his attention to the interloper, addresses him, then he redirects his attention to the original person. The person cannot engage in two conversations adequately at the same time. When I write "at the same time", I mean literally.

Killing another for the purpose of texting a person you departed only moments before is not an accident, it is manslaughter at least. Worst still, to know in advance the limitation of your neural abilities yet to ignore this fact by texting while driving makes you, the offender, a murderer. Do you really want to deprive someone of their life so you can express "LOL"? How utterly selfish!

[-] -1 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

I text CONSTANTLY while driving, and I haven't even been close to an accident. That isn't the point. The point is, there are also stats that show that some of these laws actually make the situation worse, not better.

[-] 1 points by Doc4the99 (591) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

libertarian politics don't work. myth debunked.

[-] -1 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

How about you earnestly contribute to a conversation and not just sit there and drabble incoherently. Thanks.

[-] 1 points by Doc4the99 (591) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

In a derivative macro environment, liquidity can literally be created out of thin air (FED Reserve). So $18T is easy. That is really what happened yesterday, it was announced that the Euro will not die.

HOWEVER...Now we're pretty much milked out; much of the private equity is out of the market. It's getting too costly to food, clothe, and medicate all of the dependents.The latter requires real resources to be dug up and fashioned into things of REAL value. That's the rub, in the end. You can print all you want, but it doesn't produce any more yield of real necessities at some point. And competing interests produce many of those necessities.

The powers that be (i.e. the .001 percent hedge fund billionaires who own congress/ the US are totally) incompetent...

[-] 1 points by Doc4the99 (591) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

what happens when corporate money owns the government... Oh, we are living in it... things stink;

the 40,000 plus lobbyists do nothing for the betterment of human kind, but only work to increase profits, which do not help capitalism-- especially when the back bone of the American Economy has been stripped and shipped overseas...

all we have is celebrity gossip left and facebook IPOs...Idiotocracy... we are living in it

[-] -1 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

um... What does this have to do with the conversation...?

[-] 1 points by Doc4the99 (591) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

What does your post have to do with the occupy movement?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banking_system

The shadow banking system is the infrastructure and practices which support financial transactions that occur beyond the reach of existing state sanctioned monitoring and regulation. It includes entities such as hedge funds, money market funds and Structured investment vehicles. Investment banks may conduct much of their business in the shadow banking system (SBS), but they are not SBS institutions themselves. The core activities of investment banks are subject to regulation and monitoring by central banks and other government institutions - but it has been common practice for investment banks to conduct many of their transactions in ways that don't show up on their conventional balance sheet accounting and so are not visible to regulators.

[-] -1 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

I never said it did. Either report it or leave it alone. either way what you are saying isn't relevant to me or this post.

[-] 1 points by BlueRose (1437) 12 years ago

Slow down on the trolling of this issue, ok? We want more regulation, not less.

[-] -1 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

I'm not trolling. You people like to assume that anybody that disagrees with any little thing you say is trolling and wrong and stupid. Well OWS lover America doesn't work that way, nor should it.

[-] 0 points by Doc4the99 (591) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

How about get the 40,000 lobbyists out of D.C. and outsource those jobs overseas (I mean eliminate them).

Private banking, through their investment firms, hedge funds and various financial services, sold hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of debt, making billions and billions in profit, then when that fact became widely recognized and the LIBOR and EURIBOR froze (inter-bank lending --- not a 4% mortgage default rate as the propaganda specialists would have us believe), public monies are used to bail them out repeatedly, then they want global austerity programs to continue to fund their criminality.

First, we require freedom of the press today in America.

Next, immediately nationalize the Federal Reserve, along with the top ten banks in America, and re institute the financial transaction tax (which previously existed from 1914 to 1966).

End labor arbitrage and labor deflation. (The only jobs which should be off shored are those 40,000 lobbyist jobs.)...who spin these numbers to no end...

[-] 0 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

You think our money and top banks should be federalized and owned by the government? HELL NO.

[-] 0 points by Doc4the99 (591) from Washington, DC 12 years ago

END the fed; end the lobbyists. get corporate money out of politics. Track record for liberatarian polices is horrible. More regulations. End Shadow banking. End texting and driving or driving while in-text-icated, but allow for the freedom of speech. And protesting.

Since all our money is loaned onto existence, our economy has to grow exponentially. By continually increasing our debt relative to GDP we are making the assumption that our future will always be wealthier than our past.

well, peak oil hits the fans officially in 2013, the price of OIL goes to 200+, gold to 2000+, arable land to ...grow food becomes as expensive as 5th avenue.

Nixon had started this in 1971 by opening the fiat faucet after dismantling BW. Irony of history : Peanut Carter had it right and great Helmsman, RR, had it all wrong. And now we pay the piper... ~~ ""The financial elites of this country, notably the Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb interests, were responsible for putting through the Federal Reserve System as a governmentally created and sanctioned cartel device to enable the nation's banks to inflate the money supply in a coordinated fashion, without suffering quick retribution from depositors or noteholders demanding cash.

Recent researchers, however, have also highlighted the vital supporting role of the growing number of technocratic experts and academics, who were happy to lend the patina of their allegedly scientific expertise to the elite's drive for a central bank. To achieve a regime of big government and government control, power elites cannot achieve their goal of privilege through statism without the vital legitimizing support of the supposedly disinterested experts and the professoriate. To achieve the Leviathan State..." -Rothbard"

[-] 0 points by Tinhorn (285) 12 years ago

What is the proposed law? Please provide a link so that we can read it.

[-] 0 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

I don't know if there is even a written law yet. Its just the federal government pressuring state governments to ban ALL cell phone use of all kinds for any reason. Seems a little extreme, especially since I rely on my gps on my phone on a daily basis.

[-] 0 points by Tinhorn (285) 12 years ago

where did you hear it? I eat, sleep and work news and I have not heard this. Was it a reliable source or a mainstream left or right wing news agency?

[-] 0 points by REALamerican (241) 12 years ago

I heard it on Fox AND MSNBC and being they are two opposites I doubt it was made up. I don't think its big news, I think it was just some filler time for both stations. They didn't take much time on it. But i heard an interesting question. some guy asked why is it that the more our technology advances the more our government tries to control and regulate our lives. And you definitely can't argue that is true.

[-] 0 points by Tinhorn (285) 12 years ago

Yup, the better the technology, the easier it is to find out how full of shit they are...lol

[-] 0 points by voluntaryist (5) 12 years ago

I agree. Regulation won't fix the problem, and only punish those who act intelligently. The problem will take care of itself. I got into an accident while using my cell phone. I did no damage to the other car luckily, yet totaled my car. I learned my lesson by paying for it. I am careful now. I use a headset. I make driving my priority.

If you want to use a cell phone while driving, fine. Be prepared for the consequences. Liability is a great consequence. Also, entrepreneurs who make cars and cell phones more driving friendly help all of us have more of what we want. I don't mind a future where a car has more safety features.