... who expressly says that she was not home at the time and that she was relaying a story told to her by her husband. That means that it is not a first-hand account.
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Google something totally innocent, house gets raided by the cops
- Thread starter Balog
- Start date
... who expressly says that she was not home at the time and that she was relaying a story told to her by her husband. That means that it is not a first-hand account.
Right. It's kind of hard to follow, but you'll see that I was clearly referencing the wire article in the post to which Phil responded to which I responded, to which you responded.
The other "piece" is just that. Opinion and fiction written by a related party and based on hearsay.
To say that laws regarding traffic, smoking, calories, or anti-terrorist surveillance don't work, or that they haven't saved lives, is not only unproveable, it is counter-intuitive.
OK, but I am going to have to say that most people would disagree with you as to whether these are reasonable restrictions. Most people, whether they follow them or not, would tend to agree that speed limits are necessary and the courts agree. Sure, Reckless Driving can be arbitrary, but you can challenge that in court and most people would agree that some form of restriction is necessary. Even free speech isn't absolute, especially if your speech endangers others (the old shouting FIRE! in a crowded theater example)
Health laws are more tricky, but they seem to be getting passed. We don't judge people on their maturity, we judge them on their age. How would we measure maturity? Whether it's fair or not really isn't the point. The law states that you must be 21 years or older to enter this establishment. Not, you must exhibit the maturity of a 21 year old in order to enter this establishment.
We live in a society where we elect people to make laws for us. They do that and we aren't allowed to pick or choose which laws we follow. We either follow the laws, challenge them in court, or vote out those that wrote the laws and get new people and new laws.
Laws don't need to make sense (and often don't), they simply have to be passed by our representatives in government and signed by the executive in charge of that government.
I didn't see any laws that were broken on either side here. That's why the police didn't take anyone away. They obviously saw that no laws were being broken. This is the way it is supposed to work. That's my concern here. People are questioning whether or not the police should have even checked up on the tip. I don't understand that at all. I would also add that, in my opinion, the police would be negligent if they DIDN'T follow up on those tips when they came up.
slobake
resident ... something
Also, to the post above this one, speed limits really don't do much other than provide a revenue stream for the local municipality that gets to collect tickets. People drive at the speed they're comfortable driving at, which rarely exactly coincides with the posted speed limit.
Small black hole opens next to your keyboard and you aren't heard from again.
That's a rather cynical view of the reasons for speed limits. I disagree with your thesis. You are, of course, free to disagree with mine.
I would agree that traffic laws saved lives if people actually followed them, the problem is that people don't follow them. People drive whatever speed they want until they see a cop.
I don't think smoking laws have discouraged people from smoking or saved any lives at all, people still choose to poison themselves by smoking.
As far as anti-terrorist surveillance I don't have an opinion on that yet. Im not aware of what the calorie laws are.
But I'm not sure my statement was counter-intuitive, it seems to me that we have a bunch of ineffective laws that people dont follow. Everybody is a criminal! Anybody can be put in jail at any time bassed on the whim of a cop.
I think if you put some statistics along with some of these so-called "ineffective" laws, you will see that they do save life and limb.
Not all laws. But many laws do. And that is the process, because we are flawed and it takes several tries to get the laws refined.
But to say none of these laws save life and limb is pretty obtuse.
BTW, according to the AP, the State Department just issued a travel warning based on credible Al Qieda threats and a higher-than-normal threat of terrorist activity. Now, you can say that didn't save any lives. And I will say that it did.
I think in this case the cops did the right thing. My point was that just because something is a law doesnt make it a good law.
Which Speed limits don't really do much and do more to generate ticket revenue than they do to save people, or that people drive at speeds they're comfortable driving at?
Nationwide, when the speed limits were raised on interstate highways from 55, the rate of accident fatalities didn't go up by some astronomical amount, in fact they continued a downward trend, the same trend that continues today. Improved car safety, improved road upkeep, more national awareness about the dangers of drunk driving and things like that keep roads safer, speed limits that no one follows play a much smaller role in that than many people think.
On the other hand, there are entire towns that AAA warns people to avoid because they're notorious speed traps. A few of them are here in Florida, in Starke, Haines City, and Waldo. These towns, and a lot of other ones, have arbitrary reductions in speed on roads that are perfectly safe to travel at the previous speeds mentioned that are hard to notice, and result in a huge amount of money for their town in the form of fines. And we're not talking about a 5 mph reduction so they can nab people who were already speeding, I'm talking about 20+mph reductions, from 55 to 30, and 65 to 40, with police stationed at these points essentially 24/7 with a radar gun to catch people moving through.
I've seen it happen with my own eyes, and have had friends nailed by it. Speed traps are so bad, and so notorious that there are entire websites dedicated to informing people about it.
I think if you put some statistics along with some of these so-called "ineffective" laws, you will see that they do save life and limb.
Not all laws. But many laws do. And that is the process, because we are flawed and it takes several tries to get the laws refined.
But to say none of these laws save life and limb is pretty obtuse.
BTW, according to the AP, the State Department just issued a travel warning based on credible Al Qieda threats and a higher-than-normal threat of terrorist activity. Now, you can say that didn't save any lives. And I will say that it did.
I have looked up statistics in the past and was not satisfied that speed limits or aggressive driving laws are in correlation to a decreased death rate. I was not commenting on laws regarding driving on the right side of the road or stopping at traffic lights.
I have not looked into smoking law statistics but I imagine that any decrease in deaths due to smoking could be more easily attributed to the increase in education on the dangers of smoking than any laws passed.
Also, as noted earlier I have not decided whether or not I think Counter terrorism surveillance is worth it, my comment was related to the laws mentioned.
I never felt like the smoking laws were in place to decrease smoking deaths, just to stop people from smoking around people who do not.
-Mike
-Mike
+1
My opinion is that the business should be able to decide that for themselves based on what will bring most customers in.
Curiosity is now a punishable offense? Cool.
The number of bomb recipes and crazy stuff I checked on the web, especially when I was studying chemistry is pretty crazy. Following your logic I must be some kind of terrorist
Same.
I did two different book/science reports about Robert Oppenheimer and the nuclear bomb back in middle school and early high school. I looked up information on how to build such weapons because it was directly related to my subject (and because at that age (12-14) I was interested in war, weapon, and other 'cool' things that went boom). I never had to worry about my search queries being filed away so that I might later be connected to some terror plot just because I looked up that information. I should be able to search ANYTHING I want without having some red flags potentially brought up.
Well, there are a lot of other laws, like airbags, seatbelts, infant seats and their use, etc. the list of laws that do prevent harm to life and limb is vast and the stats do support them. Again, I concede that some laws are a bit over-reaching and their efficacy harder to determine.
Good point about smoking. I think we are inadvertently throwing "education and awareness" in the mix, which is another great tool the government uses to prevent loss of life and limb. That's not to discount the fact that certain individuals do become ill from second-hand smoke.
I like things that go boom.
I remember looking up how to extract nitroglycerin from TNT sticks. That was wild, one guy was explaining how to do so in a bathtub. Fun stuff.
Of course they "work" depending on how one wants to define work.
That isn't really at question - what is at question is "Do the benefits exceed the costs"?
