Simon Mason <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:
> chrisonatrike replied to Left_is_for_Losers | 20 hours ago
> 5 likes
>
> ... and for those not using drugs we should be even quicker to convict
> and impose stronger sentences - because they don't even have the excuse of impairement!
>
> Of course, we rightly criticise those who choose to drive while
> intoxicated. That is after all a choice which makes crashes more likely.
> It's also a handy shorthand for the "other" (only - statistically - a
> substantial proportion of people in the UK use drugs including alcohol).
> However, so does speeding, not driving to the conditions, phone use,
> driving while tired, driving while distracted (perhaps the kids are
> playing up?)... And - for understandable legal reasons - we grant each
> driver before the court the benefit of the doubt that this is a single
> isolated incident and they have never driven this badly before.
>
> "Throwing the book at drink-drivers (and now drug-drivers)" (if we did!)
> is I think a symptom of our feeling that "driving is normal, bad driving
> is understandable, dangerously bad driving is excusable (and actually
> 'careless' legally)". There has to be *something* beyond the pale,
> surely? Ah - drink driving! They are the "other" which puts the rest of
> us on the right side of the fence.
>
> Driving in the first place (as opposed to cycling, walking, getting the
> bus / tram / train / taking a taxi, just not making that journey at all)
> makes us more likely to be the cause of someone else's injury. Naturally
> in our driveogenic environment we don't often see driving as making a
> choice. We also don't think about the additional risk to others we
> create when we do so. That's because that risk is normally small - for
> over decades people have learned (the hard way) that the roads are only
> "for" motor vehicles. And - slowly - authorities have patched some safety back in.

> So we should amend the phrase "if you want to murder without penalty use
> a vehicle" with the caveat "just make sure you're sober when you do it".

A perfect example of the employment of the ‘useful idiots’ as per post-war
Communism.

--
Spike