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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   29570 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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ridiculous excuse

How is this a 'ridiculous' excuse? The road network as it is today only exists thanks to the government, why should it then not be able to regulate who can drive, and how they can do it, on the roads they are largely responsible for? I for one am glad to be free (or freer than I otherwise would be) from a drunkard killing me in his car, all so that a few cranks can delude themselves about how much liberty they have.

Because freedom of travel is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and basic humanity, and that the government has used its monopoly over violence to force private roads out of business doesn't change that.

I think it's close to a ridiculous excuse because the ability to drive has such a major impact on people's lives, and so so much infrastructure for the past century has been based on the assumption that you have a car. It's really hard to live without a car if you're not in New York City or certain other urban areas on that scale. I think it could easily destroy someone's life if they rely on their car for getting to work (and for some jobs for work directly), for groceries, for dropping off and picking up kids, for seeing relatives, for going to doctor appointments, for taking care of friends and family, for getting to hobbies, etc, and suddenly tomorrow they're told that they can no longer do this for any reason other than them posing a legitimately imminent threat in some way.

Interesting euro/American contrast here - fewer Euros would tolerate living in a place where you can only "exist" (ie do normal stuff like go to work, go to school, see friends, buy groceries, etc) with the help on a car, so this dilemma doesn't arise as much over here.

That is, I fully accept that freedom of travel should be a fundamental right, but also agree that driving a car is not - it's something you do on the state's sufferance.

These two principles don't often conflict in Europe, but it's a damn hard dilemma. Probably it's easier to solve with AI driving than by rebuilding most of your cities

These two principles don't often conflict in Europe, but it's a damn hard dilemma. Probably it's easier to solve with AI driving than by rebuilding most of your cities

Easiest way to solve it would be to make America greater than ever before, with population size and density that would make car heavy suburban lifestyle impossible.

edit: link

The road network as it is today only exists thanks to the government, why should it then not be able to regulate who can drive

Probably because this is not one of the limited powers allotted to them, and therefore none of their business.

I for one am glad to be free (or freer than I otherwise would be) from a drunkard killing me in his car

Yeah, and you're free to only buy cars that spy on you and can shut themselves down if they don't like what you're doing.

I don't care about freedom from drunkards, I care about freedom from the most powerful organization in the history of the world. The two are not the same and conflating them is deliberately missing the point.

Probably because this is not one of the limited powers allotted to them, and therefore none of their business.

We are talking about a state government, not the federal government.

The road network exists because the government collected taxes to build it. In the absence of taxes you could have (collectively) gotten roads built on your own without the excuse for government meddling.

By your reasoning if the government shut down all grocery stores and instead taxed us more to buy food, which it then distributed, it would be okay for the government to put arbitrary restrictions on what food people are allowed to eat since after all you're getting the food thanks to them. It's thanks to taxpayers, not thanks to the government.

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