Long, tedious tit-for-tat ideological battles are right out.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

No surprise these clowns hope to legalize lead in food too.

It also explains that in the case of drunk driving what's criminalized isn't harm to people, but an increased potential to harm people. If you have principles that say that racial profiling is wrong because you shouldn't punish people that haven't harmed anybody, then this principle should also apply to drunk driving.

Note that I am against drunk driving, but it does cause an inconsistency in my principles.

Also, isn't it silly to dismiss mises articles because a person posted an article in 2006? Would you think it's fair if somebody dismissed all of your opinions going forward because of one opinion you held in 2006?

Racial profiling is wrong because being of a particular race does not by itself represent any greater risk of harm to anyone else. Not analogous to driving while impaired, IMO, so your principles are likely more intact than you might think.

Surely no one is arguing that you can walk down main street firing your gun into the air and as long as no one is struck by a bullet and no property is damaged, we're cool.

With DUI, there's a clear causation. Alcohol in blood will make you lose coordination and slow your reflexes. More alcohol, the worse it gets. And reaction is individual. That will increase the probability the driver will harm someone.

So it's different.

Should government deal in probabilities? Depends whether you want it to do prevention or not. All prevention is basically dealing with probabilities.

> why not ticket the swerving or recklessness and leave the alcohol out of it? Why indeed.

Argument ad absudrum: Swerving may not lead to an accident either.

The values they use to punish you is completely arbitrary (probably varies from state to state) and we do not take any other factors related to the individual into account which is important if we are not so keen on ruining other people's lives. Look for behaviors that show there are issues with coordination regardless of substances. We can do that. We already do it. We do not need to punish based on arbitrary values. You could fail the test and yet have perfect coordination. See my issue? It gets even more problematic when you consider alcoholics who are actually better off drinking vs. not drinking when it comes to coordination and reflexes. Anyway, the emphasis, in my opinion, should be on behaviors that indicate loss of coordination, reflex issues, etc. not some arbitrary value. It works well with prevention, too, so there is no need to give up on that.

> Argument ad absudrum: Swerving may not lead to an accident either.

I agree, but depending on the situation, it could easily indicate that there is an issue regardless of the substance used.

Anyway, thank you for the calm-headed response.

Any such test is likely to be highly subjective and therefore open to bias and abuse. A breath alcohol content of 0.008% might be fairly arbitrary in terms of risk, but it's objectively measurable. A cop can claim that I was driving erratically just because he doesn't like the look of me, a jury can interpret dashcam footage unfavourably based on their prejudices, but a correctly calibrated breathalyzer doesn't lie. Drawing an a line in the sand between "sober" and "too drunk to drive safely" based on a biological marker of alcohol intake is almost certainly the fairest means of enforcement. There is of course the broader issue of who the police choose to stop and test, but there's no obvious technological solution to that risk of bias.

Typical roadside walk the line test might not be all that objective, as it's judged by the eye of the officer, and some people may be better walking the line, while still having reduced reflexes and being a increased danger on the road.

Though, I'm not an expert and despite this feeling arbitrary, there may have been studies comparing effectiveness of various forms of testing on predicting the harm of DUI, or comapring breathalizer with the walk the line test, or touch your nose test or whatever.

I'm not for locking people up, but I also prefer safer roads. And what helps and what does not may not be all that obvious on the larger more aggregate level.

If the officer wants you to do a field sobriety test you tell them blood test or GTFO.

Drunk driving should be legal because sometimes you make it home safe. Lead in food should be legal because some people will eat it and not get sick. Putting others at risk isn't a crime, the government should not deal in probabilities. That job falls to "insurance companies to assess on a competitive and voluntary basis."

Cripes, what a totally fucked up worldview.