Quote:
Originally Posted by Devious21
To address this, I'm going to use a metaphor, so please stick with it. Imagine that there is a surge of deaths from illegal street racing. Actually, let's stick with deaths we currently have and just imagine that the media focused on them more and created public outrage. Here's some examples from the last couple of months.
May 2013 - Street racing responsible for local mother's death
June 2013 - Street racer kills two teens in Woodstock
July 2013 - Street racing death of Antoich teen
Imagine - Every month, there is a new horror story of senseless death from street racing. It's on all the papers, websites, and tv. Media would draw parallels to The Fast and the Furious. Outraged, people start asking seemingly sensible questions.
Moderates - "Why do we have cars with 300+ horsepower that can go in excess of 140mph? Why do you NEED a car like that? I don't think you should have that car taken away, but all cars should have electronic speed limiters set at 75mph. Why would you legally need to ever drive faster than that?"
Car enthusiasts would say that they go to the track and practice their hobbies responsibly and that the number of people who street race illegally, although they seem numerous because because of the media attention, are truly the minority. Some people don't track but just want to be able to own the cars they want without being modified or changed. Plus, people intent on breaking the law would simply remove the limiters anyway, thus only penalizing law abiding citizens.
The media might paint these people who go to the track as car nuts who are wannabe race car drivers and "if you want to do that, just become a race car driver and leave driving at the track to professionals".
Conservatives - "These dangerous high horsepower race cars shouldn't be allowed on the road. Why do you need so much power to just get from point A to point B? Plus, some of these cars ( like my BMW Z4M) can get as low as 17MPG. Any car on the road should be required to get at LEAST 25MPG city AND have less than 300hp."
Then there would also be those with just enough knowledge of cars to be dangerous: "Street racers love the use of rear wheel drive cars, which allows them to "drift" and are inherently hard to control. If someone wants a "fast car", they could just drive something like a Mini Cooper. It's front wheel drive and 200 hp is MORE than enough to do anything legal. No RWD cars."
Extremists - "Why do we even have cars? Other countries don't have nearly as many cars as we do. Places like Hong Kong have very little private car ownership and most people use public transportation, ride bikes or walk. There is actually a long wait and a lottery to have the privilege of owning a car there and I don't see why we couldn't be like them. Outlaw cars or at least and make them VERY hard and expensive to obtain. There is no reason anyone NEEDS a car, let alone these dangerous RACE CARS."
Bottom line
Think of any activity you love or any thing you like or want to own and imagine if I said "Tell me why you NEED to have that. Justify it or it's illegal". We should always need to justify why we CAN'T have freedoms not why we CAN.
We don't need a lot of things. The nice thing about living in a free country is the right to do what you want. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When we give up our freedoms because irresponsible people are irresponsible, that's very sad. |
At some point we created restrictions on who can drive a car (license) , the process of getting this license, and many restrictions on how you use the car. What I find is odd is that as poor as our license process is for the car, it still seems to be far more involved than what is required for the gun. Most states you still have to take a written and driving test and then are restricted when you use the car as a beginner. For the gun, most places you just need money and a gun show and nothing else?
I don't want to ban the car or guns but I also don't think removing all restrictions on how cars are operated would be a good one.
We don't live in a free country and I can't think of any part of my life where I am not restricted on the things I do. From noise, speed limits, taxes, permits, laws, insurance, nudity, driving, etc. Our society has created many laws based on making the overall system work. If you really want to live in a free country you are probably going to have to move to a 3rd world country that is in some type of lawless condition. Good luck in the "free country", there you will need the gun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Devious21
Imagine you work for Corona and in order to increase profits, someone makes a comparison to the distribution model of Pepsi. Depending on the circumstances, it may or may not be relevant. But just because they are both "companies that sell drinks" doesn't mean you can ignore the fact that they operate differently and market a different product towards different consumers. For example, selling Corona at Burger King may or may not make sense. But you can't assume it does because it works for Pepsi.
Everything may not be applicable when you take the differences into account and oversimplification is something you have to be aware of when making a comparison.
|
If I worked for Corona and every other beer maker in the world had some better outcome to a process they performed I would want more information on why it was impossible for us to do the same. If I wasn't happy with the current state of this operation I wouldn't be ok with having everyone just say "they're not the same" without hard facts on why we couldn't do the same. After I took in all the information, I would make a decision on what I thought should be done, possibly without knowing what the final outcome would be, if I thought moving forward was the best plan.