TX Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for 9th DWI

[truelies]

......................... Both groups are impaired.

PROOF or just flinging more shit in the hope some will stick, eh.

 

[tod evans]

so then what is your problem with harshly punishing those who (by their own choice) endanger others by driving drunk, eh?

Gee whiz, 258 responses spelling it out and you still don't get it...

Punish the offender for the criminal act of endangering others, enhance the sentence for elevated BAC......BUT NEVER charge for "pre-crime"..
And yes DWI is pre-crime...

 

[truelies]

...................You can't engage in the idea that you can stop crime by making precursors illegal, ...........................

Keep denying the obvious fool- driving intoxicated is itself a crime with victims. Those being every single person and their Property endangered by the drunken fool behind the wheel but not really in charge of the vehicle.

But hey IF we do things your way- are you willing to calmly accept that IF YOU kill someone while driving drunk that you are in fact a first degree murderer and you will promptly die in a lethal chamber?

 

[truelies]

Gee whiz, 258 responses spelling it out and you still don't get it...

.......................yes DWI is pre-crime...

Not hardly- drunk driving is an aggressive attack on others.

BTW, why are you soooo insistent on engaging in behaviour which harms others when you are in no way forced to do so to get high? Mom won't let ya drink/smoke in the basement?..........or maybe she won't give ya the money for a cab home? Shit she is a fool to give you her car keys knowing what you are up to. Still you could always walk to the bar or package store. Ah sorry got it you too unfit for a long walk what with all that time sprewing BS from the computer she brought you.

 

[Origanalist]

Not hardly- drunk driving is an aggressive attack on others.

BTW, why are you soooo insistent on engaging in behaviour which harms others when you are in no way forced to do so to get high? Mom won't let ya drink/smoke in the basement?..........or maybe she won't give ya the money for a cab home? Shit she is a fool to give you her car keys knowing what you are up to. Still you could always walk to the bar or package store. Ah sorry got it you too unfit for a long walk what with all that time sprewing BS from the computer she brought you.

What a dumbass post. You don't make very convincing arguements, just juvenile attacks.

 

[osan]

Many of my rights could pose risk to your life and limb.

Many of yours could do the same to me.

Liberty is Risky.

Violently oppressive authoritarianism is "safe".

Where did you ever come up with the idea that YOU have a 'right' to put other people's lives at risk?

Either you are a Fed here trolling perhaps to lure some fools into acts against the State or you are a Fool too simple to understand that Rights carry Responsibility.

Sorry truelies, but here you fail. Allow me to elaborate superficially.

Your error lies in conflating the risk of potential harm with that of a clear and immediate threat. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING that we do, however innocently, however certain to cause no harm, might in fact bring others to harm. I have my car newly inspected, yet while driving down the road a tie rod breaks, sending the vehicle into the sidewalk where 10 playing children are killed. By your tacit reasoning, nobody should be allowed to drive because it does in fact put people at risk. By this reasoning, breathing could be argued against. After all, what harmful microorganism might you cause to be released into the ambient air that I might subsequently inhale and which might then cause me to become ill and perhaps even die? This what-if brand of logic, applied in this wholly irrational manner has been the vehicle of endless atrocity and continues to this day.

If a person is drunk behind the wheel, it does not immediately follow he is an IMMEDIATE threat, yet "law" treats him that way. I am not arguing in favor of drunk driving, but these laws are draconian in the extreme and have not, to my knowledge, yielded any positive benefit. People still drive drunk and kill or maim others and it happens all the time. Have any lives been saved by DUI laws? Almost certainly so. How many have been destroyed or severely impacted? Millions? The "if it saves even one life" argument has been utterly demolished more times than anyone could count, so that bit it right out. What is left? Nothing that justifies putting a man in a cage because of the contents of his blood stream. If a drunk injures or kills someone, that is a different story and his drunken state may in fact be an aggravating factor, but being drunk per se is not sufficient cause for criminal charges, which SHOULD be filed only under the gravest circumstances. Part of that specific problem stems from us having rendered casual the idea of what a felony really is. We have lowered the bar - diluted the definition - such that literally ANY action may be declared felonious. Going to prison for a joint?! Going to prison for paying a hooker for a blow job? Are we serious? This is all based in "what-if" thinking. What if the John gets disease and spreads it? What if I get a cold and sneeze and spread it? Not bad enough? How about a flu? Hepatitis? Ebola? All possibilities. Why not just throw everyone into isolation cells so that we will all be safe? That is where this thinking leads because there is no invariant that paints the bright line in the sand telling us, "here and no further" and every year legislators and enforcement agents take the world a step closer to those cells. This is bald-faced, suicidal insanity.

I am ALL FOR the ability for ANY CITIZEN to stop a fellow whose driving is clearly indicative of possible trouble, though this job would fall to police in the normal course of things. If a person appears to be seriously drunk, take their damned keys away from them and toss them in the drunk tank until they sober up. That is what we used to do and it worked out pretty well. There was the inconvenience of not getting where you were going, and the embarrassment of having been found out. That used to count for something with most people.... these days I am not so sure of the embarrassment part, but the inconvenience bit would drive lots of people crazy.

Anyhow, the lack of sound threat assessment skills is sore in most people who would not be able to differentiate between a real threat and otherwise literally if their lives depended on it. Shame on us. It is an important skill, as is the mindset that comes with acquiring it. People are not interested because it demands the responsibility of which you have written and people just do not want to go there anymore. They want to spend their lives as children rather than as adults. They want all the privileges and rights of adulthood with none of the costs and obligations. This is a very bad situation and rather than pulling away from it, we are hurtling ever faster toward the ugly conclusion to which this thinking inexorably leads.

This world is choking on the problems it faces, what with butchery running wild, nuclear wastes leaking from fractured Japanese reactors, and so forth. Yet we dick around with stupid shit like sentencing drunks to life in a cage for DUI? That is the mark of a culture that is well on its way to flying apart. We have, in fact, well penetrated the territory of a New Dark Age. Make you no mistake about this; it is serious as hell and will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. I am not confident we will see meaningful improvement in our general circumstance in our lifetimes. I do literally pray to be proven wrong on that point.

Egg on face is easy.

Plate of crow is easy.

Enduring status as village idiot is easy.

A lifetime of subjugation, misery, and fear is not easy.

No remotely sane individual wants to go there. We must, therefore, conclude that insanity has gone pandemic. Were there ever cause for widespread panic, this would be it.

 

[tod evans]

Not hardly- drunk driving is an aggressive attack on others. [With this statement this person exhibits every trait I despise in the brainwashed masses!]

BTW, why are you soooo insistent on engaging in behaviour which harms others when you are in no way forced to do so to get high? Mom won't let ya drink/smoke in the basement?..........or maybe she won't give ya the money for a cab home? Shit she is a fool to give you her car keys knowing what you are up to. Still you could always walk to the bar or package store. Ah sorry got it you too unfit for a long walk what with all that time sprewing BS from the computer she brought you.

How quickly you forget, I'm the guy of your generation who has offered to come visit..


Care to have a beer? Boy..


[edited for forum etiquette]

 

[Danan]

There would be no need for them even with public roads if we didn't have the police state. All we need to do is get rid of the police state.

So you don't want to have police on roads, but you also don't want private roads with another form of security personal, enforcing certain rules for drivers?

This means that in your ideal world it would be perfectly fine to drive on the left side of the street? Because who is to force you to drive on a certain side, if nobody owns the road?

It would also be ok to drive with 200mph on a twisting, icy road? To drink until you can't walk any longer and than drive home? To drive a car at high speed on a highway that is going to fall apart every second?

Yeah, this is indeed less likely going to happen than private roads, and that's a sign for peoples sanity. Not many who are not suicidal or intoxicated themselves would like to drive on such roads, because they would be completely unsafe and therefore useless to the general public.

The reason the current rules regarding traffic are bad is because government has no incentive to make them better and it's decision making process is completely flawed. However, there is no potential whatsoever for roads to exist, without any form of safety regulations enforcement (drunk driving and speeding, etc.). And that's neither a bad thing, nor has this anything to do liberty.

If something is publically owned, the government is always trying to emulate potential free market regulations for this property, but it's also always going to fail in doing so efficiently.

That's exactly why I critizied libertarians who believe that without the government you could drive on roads with a blood alcohol level of 5‰, or do basically whatever you want, everywhere, always and without repercussions or anyone able to stop you. That's not how it would work. You would be pulled over if you swerve around too, probably faster than today.

 

[RonPaulFanInGA]

Coming soon to a Texas town near you;

Preventative rape statutes........

Look at a cute girl with "lust in your eye"........Guilty!

So the rape equivalent of driving drunk is just looking? It wouldn't be sitting in a bar eyeing the beer, instead of already being on a public road, inebriated?

A better analogy would be a man on top of a woman, forcefully tearing her clothes off while she's screaming, and everyone standing around saying: "well, he hasn't raped her yet, let's wait and see if the bad thing happens first, and only then react to it."

 

[tod evans]

So the rape equivalent of driving drunk is just looking? It wouldn't be sitting in a bar eyeing the beer, instead of already being on a public road, inebriated?

A better analogy would be a man on top of a woman, forcefully tearing her clothes off while she's screaming, and everyone standing around saying: "well, he hasn't raped her yet, let's wait and see if the bad thing happens first, and only then react to it."

I disagree, having a drink or even several does not show the intent to cause harm to others or property damage, even driving after imbibing fails to provide intent....

Any more than eyeing a cute girl with lust in your eye.

Honestly it's propaganda that has demonized the social drinker and turned him into a potential felon, not his actions.

 

[phill4paul]

So the rape equivalent of driving drunk is just looking? It wouldn't be sitting in a bar eyeing the beer, instead of already being on a public road, inebriated?

A better analogy would be a man on top of a woman, forcefully tearing her clothes off while she's screaming, and everyone standing around saying: "well, he hasn't raped her yet, let's wait and see if the bad thing happens first, and only then react to it."

Negatory. He was talking about DWI habitual offender laws. One can get a DWI without ever having harmed another. Several in succession will lead to a felony charge. Without ever having harmed another. The habitual offender laws based on the rape charges are for someone that has been actually convicted of harming another.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

The Department of Transportation has a 71 Billion dollar budget for 2013, this is a drain on all of us and unnecessary and part of the large Federal government that is all around us. It's the same principle problem - wasteful centralized government planning - as the police state. However, I agree the police state is a major priority.



Sure motorists could boycott a road. They could carpool, take a bus, or strike a highway - use a competing one. There are already organizations that look out for Motorists and their interests.

See: http://www.motorists.org/

The only reason this seems like chaos is because the government already occupies that space. If the government never got in to the road business it would already be a part of our everyday life and our general economy would be much better off for it.

A "competing highway"? Good lord, how many roads are there to one place in this society of yours? People aren't going to go miles out of their way or give up driving in the comfort of their own car just to make a point about the person who owns the road. Nobody cares about that. In many cases, one road is responsible for a lot of traffic, and people aren't going to just give that up to make a point. It's not like a regular business where people can easily avoid it if they don't like it. Roads are a necessity, and many of them are virtually unavoidable. When you expand authority like that over such a large area that would be needed to build a road, the owner has a lot more power than any store-owner would.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Yes, that is what I meant.

Maybe I was drunk.

It happens.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

so then what is your problem with harshly punishing those who (by their own choice) endanger others by driving drunk, eh?

Because people who drive drunk don't necessarily drive to endanger or commit vehicular homicide. Driving to endanger, to my interpretation, means actively assaulting someone with your car.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

PROOF or just flinging more shit in the hope some will stick, eh.

Be reasonable. You know there are other things that impair your driving besides alcohol.

 

[tod evans]

Because people who drive drunk don't necessarily drive to endanger or commit vehicular homicide. Driving to endanger, to my interpretation, means actively assaulting someone with your car.

Well by golly I'll bet you get set straight really soon..

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Keep denying the obvious fool- driving intoxicated is itself a crime with victims. Those being every single person and their Property endangered by the drunken fool behind the wheel but not really in charge of the vehicle.

But hey IF we do things your way- are you willing to calmly accept that IF YOU kill someone while driving drunk that you are in fact a first degree murderer and you will promptly die in a lethal chamber?

I don't think the death penalty is necessary, but yes, I would accept my prison sentence for that if it ever happened. The fact that you can't name any specific victims in your supposed list of victims of drunk driving can only mean one thing, there are no victims. If nobody was hurt, then there are no victims. This stuff is common sense, really. I don't understand how someone can be so stupid as to say that nobody was hurt, and yet they were victims just by the fact that someone was driving drunk. If somebody drives while eating a cheeseburger and receiving oral sex, is everyone on the road suddenly a victim?

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Not hardly- drunk driving is an aggressive attack on others.

PROOF?????

 

[Origanalist]

Because people who drive drunk don't necessarily drive to endanger or commit vehicular homicide. Driving to endanger, to my interpretation, means actively assaulting someone with your car.

Like this?

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/11/19/did-drexel-police-use-excessive-force-pinning-a-suspect-with-the/

 

[NCGOPer_for_Paul]

One question for the proponents of harsher drunk driving laws...why is the life of a victim of a "drunk driver" worth more than the life of a victim of a traffic accident?

Because it can be prevented?

Logic fail. ALL accidents are preventable. Regardless of "no-fault" and other insurance claims and police not actually investigating what happened, if there is a wreck, SOMEBODY did something that CAUSED the wreck. The wreck didn't happen by itself (although gun control activists actually do believe that a gun can in fact, fire itself, and many of the same types of boot licking state worshippers think vehicles drive themselves into wrecks).

I'm actually in favor of harsher penalties for causing wrecks REGARDLESS of sobriety. I think reckless and careless driving statutes should be strenghtened and used in lieu of draconian DUI laws. That doesn't mean that I think doing 75 in a 70 should be enforced more harshly, but I do think a "no fault, no impairment" accident should be. Find out the improper move that caused it, and go after the bad driver that caused it. If that driver happened to be impaired, use that as an aggravating factor at sentencing.

If the goal is truly SAFETY ON THE ROADS, over half the motor vehichle statutes should be tossed out. Careless and reckless driving cover most of the improper behavior behind the wheel.