I totally agree and have said it again. More public transportation, one drunk driving violation and you loose your license for life. People should be more outraged, I wonder why they are not
I totally agree about columbine also, no guns and bullets at stores where people can easily by them (including gun shows). Make more hoops for people to jump through. I went to a gun show, and I have to say, it was kind of cool and I almost bought an AK because it looked bad a$$. Until I ask the vendor where I would be using this (like gun range or something) and he reply you hunt with it. So I start to play the scenarios of me hunting with an AK, and as some one that has done a lot of klutsy things, realise that might not be the wisest thing to do.
Dude, I'm not complaining about anything. I'm just wondering why people get so upset when some people die for some reasons and not get so upset when people die for other reasons. Instead of giving me insight you've chosen to mis-read my post and start arguing. I bet EVERYONE here has either been in a car wreck and I bet EVERYONE here knows someone who has died in a car accident. But I bet just a few know anyone who died in Iraq (or in Columbine, etc...). For something that affects so many people so personally I'm just really curious why people aren't willing to do more to reduce the number of deaths via cars. Actually I have a suspicion...
Don't be disingenuous. You asked why anti-war folks didn't seem to get as upset about auto accident deaths as military deaths. It doesn't take much effort to discern substantial differences between the 2 and also the underlying errors in the question itself (based on your faulty assumptions), so don't try to claim that you are devoid of an opinion on the matter. If you had no political motive, you would have just simply asked why don't people get as upset over 40,000 traffic deaths as they do 1800 military deaths. After all, even pro-war folks are upset over the military deaths. As for an additional response to your original, biased question... First, don't use 'or so' when discussing the number deaths of our military. It's demeaning, disrespectful ... at best. Just because our military is volunteer only does not give politicians carte blanche to throw their lives away. Next time a police officer is killed in your city, why not go down to the police station and mention how he 'volunteered' for the job. Your underlying assumtpion ... that was wrong ... is that people don't care about the 40,000 killed a year on our roads. They do. But let's visit Death 101: people die in different ways and we all have different responses to those ways to proceed to the hereafter. A main factor is whether someone died in an 'accident' or whether some other person was partly or wholly responsible, and whether this outcome was a result of negligence, stupidity, greed, intentional, etc. So let's get back to this comparison. People must travel in the course of their daily duties. Most work away from their homes and must drive to acquire food. That's a fact of life, and travel is inherently dangerous. We pass laws to make it safer each year because people DO care about the risks, and some laws are intentionally harsh (e.g. when drivers use poor decisions and place other at risk) again because people DO care and many are quite impassioned, e.g., MADD What's harder to accept under any circumstances are deaths that directly result from decisions made by other people. In the instance of our politicians it's an extremely sensitive issue. Their decisions can put hundreds of thousands of young Amercians and the entire civilian populations of other nations at risk. Yet, with this awesome responsibility, many believe that they can, and do, ignore or manufacture information at will to support the action that they want to take. So why did we go to war? With all of the questions surrounding evidence of or lack of WMDs, was that the real reason or was it expedient to get public support? Laws help protect us from bad drivers. Politicians can make dumb or greedy, self-serving decisions, kill thousands and not even get a ticket.
There is actually a clear relationship between speed limits and crash rates. The faster the speed limit, at least above 55 mph or so, the more crashes that occur. The roads would be much safer if everyone drove 55, but that is not popular because people want to drive faster. They don't say it, but through their actions, people have proven that they are willing to sacrifices tens of thousands of lives every year to be able to get places about 25% faster.
I just found out that millions of people die every year from OLD AGE! Why aren't you people outraged over about that when you are so outraged over just 1,800 dead in Iraq! Why! D@mn Hypocrites!
'desperate times call for desperate measures', or so I have heard... This sets the new standard as far as I am concerned. Car accidents and war...yes, I can see the parallel! That's an 'overreach' if there is ever been one. A wise man once told me, "when you overreach, you acknolwedge defeat."
I know you're partially kidding, but you do make an excellent point. If more people died in traffic accidents than in terrorist attacks, why are we spending billions in Iraq when we should be using that money to improve highway safety?
if that's the case why did you single out the reaction of people towards the deaths in the Iraq war.. even thought they volunteered it does not mean their deaths are less important.. if you are really concerned about traffic deaths, why didn't you open a thread exclusively about it?..
Completely off topic. It isn't really intended to decrease motorists (much to the dismay of opponents). It is designed to give people an option to get places without a car. From that perspective, it is wildly successful considering it's only 8 miles long. The next phase of expansion will really start to make it usable. You'll be able to get from UH/TSU to downtown to the Med Cntr to Greenway Plaza to the Galleria. If you work in any of these areas, people will be willing to move closer to town to avoid traffic. But traffic will always exists cause Houston is growing faster than we can build freeways (not to mention there is only so much room for wider freeways). So lightrail gives people an alternative...if they want to move in. So in that way, it WILL reduce cars for those willing to adjust there lifestyle. It won't ever really serve commuters. For that, they need to build commuter rail, which they will also do.
Thank you for re-enforcing my point. I said from the beginning that travel was necessary and that cars were necessary (did you read that?). My point is that BAD DRIVING is NOT necessary. Nor is drunk driving nor is speeding. We could reduce the deaths on our highways significantly by putting people in jail who speed or drive reckless. A $150 ticket will do nothing to prevent most people from speeding. A weekend in jail would. Regardless of the motovations for the war something good could come of it: A free and democratic Iraq and a more stable Middle East (I'll believe it when I see it, however). Nothing good comes from bad driving. With regard to "what's harder to accept under any circumstances are deaths that directly result from decisions made by other people" what about all the innocent passangers that get killed because of decisions made by bad drivers? If you drive reckless and kill yourself, fine. But what about the people in the other car that you hit? Or the pedestrian or cyclist? As far as the "or so" comment. That was not intended as an insult to our troops. If you construed that way (or if I phrased it improperly) then I apologize.
Your argument is at best, very weak, and at worst, r****ded. I feel it's the latter. Anyways, bad drivers individually make bad choices and are punished for it individually. The war was started by the leader of the nation and he doesn't pay the price, the 1800 soldiers who died paid the price and their families. Definitely not justice.
Because I'm trying to figure out why people get worked up about people dying from or for certain reasons but don't seem to get worked up about them dying for others. I'm not trying to say that the Iraqi deaths are less important; I'm trying to figure out why people consider traffic deaths less important. Clearly people have put MUCH MORE ENERGY into protesting the deaths of people in this war when thousands more die every year from other causes. Not only that, the people dying in car accidents are people we know. As I mentioned earlier, how many here know someone who's died in a car accident? I would bet EVERYONE here knows someone. How many people here know someone who's died in Iraq? Maybe a few. I'm not trying to lessen the sacrifices of our soldiers. I'm aksing why the deaths of traffic accident victims who die totally needless deaths for no purpose whatsoever don't rank higher with folks. The only two responses that I seem to see are that 1) travel is necessary and 2) traffic deaths are "normal" like dying of old age or disease. Come on, guys! Travel is necessary but reckless and bad driving are not. How come we don't do anything about that? Dying in a car accident is not in the same league as dying of old age (Sishir, I know you were just kidding but I was hoping you would see what I'm trying to get at).
Bad drivers are not punished very much for their choices and, as I've mentioned, what about their victims that have to pay the ultimate price? It's not justice when someone causes an accident and someone else gets killed and it's written off as an "accident".
Not even some of the pro-war people seem to buy your argument. Lawmakers do try to cut down on reckless and bad driving. Traffic school, jail time, tickets, and radars. People who drive recklessly and poorly will drive that way regardless of the speed limit. Why do you think DUIs have such a stiff penalty even if you weren't in an accident?
if your main concern is traffic deaths, why make a comparison to Iraq war deaths specifically? you could simply posted a thread titled "Road Deaths in the US" but you had to go with "Road Deaths in the US vs. War in Iraq" are you for the war? do you support the troops? why do you even question the importance or the reaction of people to troop death?
One more time.... I'm comparing people dying in one fashion (traffic deaths) to people dying in another (Iraq war). It's not just about traffic accidents either; I just picked that as a counter example where LOTS of people have died. Why do some of you get so outraged when people die one way but not the other, especially since so many more people die from accidents. That's my question. This has nothing to do with my support (or not) for the war nor any disrespect to troops or anyone who's lost a loved one in a traffic accident. I'm really curious as to why people choose to be outraged over some things vs. others. I do think that the war is so political that if anyone posts anything that even seems counter to one's position the instictive reaction is to argue. But my post has nothing to do with arguing for or agains the war.
