[dr42]

This is ridiculous. You're seriously suggesting that you're going to shoot your way to mobility :) I'm assuming that's just some macho bullshit because it's insane.

What you're not realizing is that it's often not the person causing the accident that gets hurt, the idea of making something as tedious as driving automated is that it's safer for everyone.

Drugs already are banned. The ones you're most likely talking about are anyway. And the reason is because they fuck people up.

How about people do something productive with their lives instead of taking drugs, developing diabetes from sugar, overweight from fat, and kill people with large heavy steel motorized machines?

You can try to belittle 30,000 people but if you stop cleaning your guns to think about it long enough you might actually appreciate that all those people probably didn't want to die from theirs and other people's driving mistakes.

[pinaceae]

i said i'd buy one, not that i have one.

and yes, i believe in every adults right to fuck him or herself up. if i want to exercise, let me. if i enjoy fatty food, let me. if i enjoy driving my car, let me.

and why do i need to be productive? who says that? life is short, why be "productive" all the time? how about some fun, self-indulgence and mindless games?

we already have rules to protect the general population, way too many in certain areas, far too less in others. speeding is forbidden, pot as well - but areas like finance are wide open.

how about focusing the efforts of banning things on stuff that impact millions, at the same time rather than stuff that will hurt me and maybe a few folks around me? is that line of thinking too European? does everything in the US that might lead to unproductive, un-puritan fun be banned? nudity, foul language,...how dare people do that?

[dr42]

Well first off, you're talking to a European, and while I'm sympathetic to the fear of the encroaching 'nanny state', I just don't share your solution (guns)

If you want to get yourself fucked up then you're most likely quite happy to have the rest of society bear the burden of your subsequent health care, ditto for your diabetes care etc. I'm sure you get what I'm trying to say.

None of us live on an island, our actions impact others and when it does so (as Spock said) the needs of the many outweigh the needs if the few.

This country (America) is already being financially crippled by health care costs so reducing sugar and fat and car accidents seems to make perfect sense, even at the cost of a few's peoples' adrenaline fixes.

I don't disagree with you on Spanish flu (50m people died), or on the corrupt financial system, but that's a fragile house of cards. Economics is a complex system and it's all based on a mutual agreement in the value of little pieces of paper. It's a social contract that is holding together the fabric of capitalism. While that night not be the perfect system, it's so far the least bad that we've found.

"why do you need to be productive" - maybe I came across as being a little self righteous (which is far from the truth), I was just trying to say that one persons fun is very often a ton is work for the rest of society, those that scrape up the parts after a motorcycle accident, those that provide health care and those of us (all of us) that pay for it in our insurance premiums. Why should I, someone who is fit and healthy pay for everyone else's indulgence in fat and sugars that bought about heart disease and diabetes. The answer of course is that same one that is the reason why fixing cars safety is important, because the individual sometimes has to sacrifice something for the success of the rest of society.