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Why wouldn't you direct this same sense of vigilante justice toward people who speed excessively and hurt other people?

Speeding does happen and it does kill people - https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

Just to be clear, I don't like red light cameras either, but if you are gonna put on a mask and fuck some shit up, why don't you wait outside of a bar and wait for drunk drivers?



I take a different attitude about speeding.

I don't think it's speeding itself that causes crashes, but aggressive driving, and speed merely exacerbates aggressive driving. It is possible to speed without being aggressive, and in those scenarios, I don't consider speed to be a significant risk.

The German Autobahn have HALF the driver fatality rate as USA highways despite have wide sections with no speed limits.

Speed is fine. Keep right except when passing and you won't force faster drivers to constantly change lanes to get around you.


> but if you are gonna put on a mask and fuck some shit up, why don't you wait outside of a bar and wait for drunk drivers?

because one is damaging equipment that shouldn't exist, and the other involves ambushing a person on baseless suspicion. Presumably by force, given we're trying to fuck some shit up...

I'm going to pretend to ignore the whataboutism distraction


Try this on as a thought experiment: stopping drunk driving (including via physical force) is community self defense. Someone choosing to drive while intoxicated is an assault against everyone else in the area, and it is morally acceptable to use various means, including violence, to prevent that behavior.


> Try this on as a thought experiment:

this isn't a thought experiment, it's a simple rhetorical argument. But does calling it a thought experiment as if it was something wearable normally work?

But to answer your argument, I already agree that it's ethical to use force, even if it rises to the level that causes harm. But only if you're correct that you're preventing impaired driving. Humans are famously bad at making solo judgments like this to the standard I'd require to consider it acceptable. I wont advocate for someone to do something when I believe a negative outcome is more likely than a positive result.

But given violence means physical force with the intent to cause harm, I strongly disagree that the ethical way to behave involves intentionally causing injury. unintentional injury as an unfortunate byproduct is permissible in the is permissible in the "thought experiment" you propose, but only when it is actively avoided never when it's intentional.

I.e. I think you meant to say physical force not violence.




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