So, as long as this man doesn't harm you or infringe on your liberty, he's doing nothing wrong in the eyes of a Libertarian. Conversely, your position to ensure your safety without being made a victim is preemptive and tyrannical.

Unfortunately for this fellow in the video, the majority of society does not believe that drivers licenses are tyrannical. More people in America are killed by car accidents than practically anything else. A drivers license is a very simply and unobtrusive method of keeping people from harming others. If the Libertarian view truly cares about preventing other people from harm, then very basic traffic safety seems in order and drivers licensing is an important part of that. If licensing drivers is too tyrannical, surely traffic lights, speed limits and stop signs should all be done away with as well.

If this were really about the repressing people's right to travel then passengers would be required to carry id with them as well. Call me when that starts happening and I'll come protest with you, armed if need be.

>> ^blankfist:
The State is representative of the people, therefore the land belongs to the people, and by restricting their movement in any way, then the State is consequentially becoming an authority of the people. Does that make sense? In classic liberalism, which is what I'm arguing in favor of here, the individual has authority over the State (people own the roads). In your example, the State has authority over the individual (State owns the roads).
It's antithetical to the principles of liberty and freedom, and therefore immoral and wrong.


Why would this be any different than if John's Toll Road Network owned the road leading to my house?

Does John have the right, as the exclusive provider of roads in my development, to enforce a 25 mph speed limit on those roads?

Does he have the right to deny me the right to use his roads if I don't pay his service fees, or refuse to obey the limits he puts on my use of his roads, when his roads are the only ones that connect to my driveway?

If the people own the roads, even when they're built with tax money by the state, shouldn't I get to put speed bumps and toll booths on it wherever I please? Better yet, if I don't want them putting stop signs or lights at certain intersections, surely I should be allowed to individually choose to remove them or ignore them, right?

>> ^Shepppard: You know why shit like this is happening? Lack of respect for the officers in question.

As much as you seem to claiming that you don't intend to, that is blaming the victim.

Arguing with any form of authority figure is a stupid idea.

Unless you live in a constitutional republic/democracy and have rights, which is really the question that the video poses.

The bottom line is, if you got pulled over, you were doing something wrong in the first place. Look at some of the videos here about "Police Brutality" 90% of these situations could be avoided by not doing something wrong in the first place.

When was the last time you drove for more that 15min without breaking any laws? Did your tires hit the line when you stopped at the stop sign? Did you drive 1mph over the limit? Did you "swerve too much"? Did you change lanes "too quickly" or without signaling? Where you black in the wrong neighborhood? <= (this has been ruled to be legal probable cause believe it or not) Were you "acting suspicious"?

The fact that the police can come up with an excuse to pull just about anybody over at any time if they want to, does nothing to excuse abuses of power, nor does it provide any method by which to avoid this abuse, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

If you said a rape victim "should not have worn that dress" you would be just as full of shit for exactly the same reason.

>> ^frijoles:
Horrible title. High speed? The fastest it looks like they were going is 50, and that's only at the end on an empty road. Average speed was 20mph - 35mph. Fascist? How so? Oh right, just for a catchy title. The cop at the end isn't even chasing the kid (since he appears to run in to his home). I like the video, but I hate the submission.
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=7341904
"Investigators say the boy is too young to charge with a crime. They just hope his parents keep a closer eye on him. "
Damn those cops for chasing a car that's running stop signs and driving erratically!
Edit (again): Not sure if your title/comment was just tongue-in-cheek. In which case, I overreacted.


It was/is very tongue in cheek.

Horrible title. High speed? The fastest it looks like they were going is 50, and that's only at the end on an empty road. Average speed was 20mph - 35mph. Fascist? How so? Oh right, just for a catchy title. The cop at the end isn't even chasing the kid (since he appears to run in to his home). I like the video, but I hate the submission.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=7341904
"Investigators say the boy is too young to charge with a crime. They just hope his parents keep a closer eye on him. "

Damn those cops for chasing a car that's running stop signs and driving erratically!

Edit (again): Not sure if your title/comment was just tongue-in-cheek. In which case, I overreacted.

I don't buy that this whole stop sign thing was an accident.
What other octagon was he going to find walking around on the street?

^I wasn't driving it through a city intersection, I was driving it on a straight through road, and a motorcycle cop was sitting on a side street at a stop sign. Either way whats the difference? You can't excuse the fact that the punishment is far in excess of the crime.

The whole point is that it is tyranny because the punishment is harsh, severe, and unwarranted. You think five days in jail (minimum - the maximum is 1 year) is appropriate for driving a vehicle with no hands? The only reason the officer was able to pull me over is because my hands were in plan view -- unlike a car. My bike did not change its course in any where versus having my hands on the handlebars, so how is that possibly worth 5-365 days in jail?

I'm pretty sure the law states that you have to have both hands on the wheel of a car at all times, or you are guilty of reckless driving. Maybe its not regularly enforced, or maybe its not been enforced on you, but its a perfect example of real-world, everyday tyranny.

Maybe you agree with it, like you might agree with punishing shoplifting by cutting peoples hands off, but its tyranny all the same.

I'd argue there are stupid things that people do that always constitute reckless endangerment, like driving drunk, that should be illegal outright because people have lousy judgment (especially when drunk).

If someone runs a red light or a stop sign, or speeds in the middle of nowhere, chances are the penalties are going to be minor, if the law gets enforced at all.

Connecting with an actual victim, while doing something clearly proscribed by law, has harsh penalties. Connecting with a victim, when you were obeying all the right laws, and did your best to avoid the accident, but failed, carries a small penalty, or possibly no penalty at all depending on circumstances.

Part of having law exist in cases like this are to help decide who's the victim when things occur (was it the guy who ran the red light while drunk at fault, or the person obeying the signal?), and some of it to avoid the damage done when people misjudge their abilities (initially lowering the speed limits from 65 to 55 made a large reduction in highway fatalities). I also think limiting the amount of toxins you can legally put into foodstuffs is also fair game for the same reasons.

I don't think laws prohibiting recreational drugs, or gay marriage are tyrannical; ineffective and prejudicial perhaps, but not tyrannical.

As for whether a law is tyrannical or not, I don't think there's a simple set of criteria. To me, I usually define tyranny more along the lines of how the laws are made than on what the law itself is.

Dictators are tyrannical because they alone create the law, and are free to modify it at whim, and cannot have their proclamations challenged. The United States' government isn't tyrannical, because when it's working properly, the law is created by elected representatives, approved by an executive, and if necessary clarified or overturned by the courts.

I've often pondered whether it's appropriate to call George W. Bush a tyrant or not. He had a congress that followed his every whim (the slim Democratic majority from 2006-2008 approved most of his whims, but not every), a supreme court that first installed him to the Presidency, then upheld almost every single one of his extra-constitutional actions, and he listened to no one, and felt himself unconstrained by law or constitution when he thought he was right (and he often felt quite sure of himself).

As of right now, I think it's inconclusive as to whether he fully acted as a tyrant, or merely set up a legal precedent for ignoring the conventions that are supposed to prevent tyranny from breaking out.

I think we need investigations, and ultimately a post-administrative judgment made decrying what he did and reaffirming that law and the Constitution trumps a President's powers, even in extremes, and even if he hires lawyers who write him a note saying he has the authority to do whatever he damn well likes in the name of "national security".

My tops are:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Gates-cant-make-a-million-this-fast

http://www.videosift.com/video/Hrmph (what would we do without the internet?)

http://www.videosift.com/video/How-Mercury-Causes-Neurodegeneration-Brain-Damage

http://www.videosift.com/video/What-if-there-were-no-stop-signs

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Seas-of-Plastic

Jesus, I've ignored this thread for weeks, and now y'all are meeting close enough for me to walk! Then again, I'd have to cross the on-ramp to the 2 freeway at glendale blvd. No stop sign or light, I've never actually seen, let alone yielded to, a pedestrian there, but to be fair everyone drives that stretch pretty fast (35 zone). Its too close to drive too... Catch you next year!

Seriously, I hope everyone enjoys my neighborhood and Bavarian costumed waitresses at the Red Lion Tavern. And yield to pedestrians, you never know when it'll be a fellow sifter!

Oh, and in case anyone wants to confirm their directions: From the Interstate 5, take the 2 freeway south (Echo Park), freeway ends in about a mile (it was supposed to extend to west LA, buts that's a whole other story), exit on the RIGHT (don't actually know what that exits called since I always go the other way, but if you stay left you get dumped onto glendale blvd going the wrong way.) Turn right unto glendale blvd (heading north), the Tavern is about half a mile away (you'll go up and over a hill, the bar is near the bottom, so you won't see it until you're pretty close) and will be on your right.

The worst PSA I have ever seen.

Firstly the female in the car shouldn't have been in it in the first place.

Never get into a car with a drunk driver.

At any given moment you can get broadsided by a vehicle. You don't have to be inebriated to disregard a stop sign.

Up vote for Dramatic Irony!

She keeps her eyes closed an awful lot while explaining things, dangerous levels of smug?

I was actually looking at these earlier today. Check out as Mr.Uptake completely runs that stop sign in a residential area: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKRPuza1RKU in his Volkswagen Jetta, as he was sure to remind people in another video. I have a hard time taking them seriously and I actually agree with most of their base level positions. What about the rest of America, is that effectual protest?

As far as the actual raids, it sounds horrible. I think they were looking for WMDs Molotov cocktails and other implements of destruction, and of course didn't find any (as far as I'm aware). Which makes me think the cops had a whole heap of BS for evidence to get the warrants.

Once that one get changed or deadpooled, I'll discard mine and switch it over.

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
It is, if you check just near the middle of yours it's the same thumbnail they have, all it takes is for a vid to be a sec or two longer or shorter for it to have a different thumbnail.

In reply to this comment by Aemaeth:
You sure it's the same vid? It seem similar, just strange to have such a different thumbnail.

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
*dupe of http://www.videosift.com/video/What-if-there-were-no-stop-signs , but their embed is gone, I'd say give this embed to them and discard this...

It is, if you check just near the middle of yours it's the same thumbnail they have, all it takes is for a vid to be a sec or two longer or shorter for it to have a different thumbnail.

In reply to this comment by Aemaeth:
You sure it's the same vid? It seem similar, just strange to have such a different thumbnail.

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
*dupe of http://www.videosift.com/video/What-if-there-were-no-stop-signs , but their embed is gone, I'd say give this embed to them and discard this...

You sure it's the same vid? It seem similar, just strange to have such a different thumbnail.

In reply to this comment by spoco2:
*dupe of http://www.videosift.com/video/What-if-there-were-no-stop-signs , but their embed is gone, I'd say give this embed to them and discard this...