You should read up about the "tragedy of the commons" sometime.
So my smoking pot in the privacy of my own home leads to a tragedy of the commons? My being overweight leads to a tragedy of the commons? My ownership of a firearm leads to a tragedy of the commons?
Harm to your neighbour is sometimes difficult to pin down
IMHO, if you can't pin it down you have no right to tell me that I can't engage in the behavior you are seeking to regulate and/or prohibit.
Just because it's cheaper to violate people's privacy rights doesn't make it the right decision.
Please explain to me how your privacy is violated by a picture being taken of you when you run a red light. Are you trying to tell me that if I'm standing on the side of the intersection taking your picture I'm not violating your privacy but if a computer doing the same thing is?
The structure of the society we have built is there to protect us from sociopaths. Vigilante action is not.
Let me know how well the structure of society works out for you when someone breaks into your house at 3:00 and starts stabbing you. Sure the police will be there in a few minutes -- by which time you will be dead or dying. And I'd really like to know how self-defense qualifies as 'vigilante action'. Vigilantism was already illegal before the advent of gun control you know.
So carrying a lethal weapon is now an 'inalienable right'?
Yes, actually it is. The right to keep and bear arms originated in the Common Law, alongside the right to self-defense.
and it looks like the stats on violent death in the UK and US per capita agree with me.
Correlation != causation. And what other kind of death besides 'violent' death is there? Is there a nice way to die that I'm not aware of?
Ask yourself when you would ever use your gun against your government, and you realise pretty quickly that if you don't want to end up like those at Waco, you wouldn't. Further, if you feel gun ownership is a fundamental guarantor of other rights, why has the US seen the biggest erosion of civil rights in its history in the last decade?
Nice way to repeat all the gun control talking points but if you had bothered to read any of my other posts you would have found that wasn't the point I was attempting to make.
Either you're exaggating the problem, or you never actually timed the lights
Yes, that must be it. It couldn't be that people are selfish self-centered asshats -- I must be "exaggerating" the problem.
You also don't know if 30MPH is actually the appropriate speed limit for the road
Did you miss the part where I said in-town?
Here's the interesting thing; engineers say the speed limits should be set according to what almost everyone will do anyway on that road. That's the safest speed limit
I don't have a problem with that concept out on the freeway or in the country. I do have a problem when people run perfectly adjusted traffic lights because they know it isn't enforced and they think getting to their destination is more important than not t-boning the guy who has a green light on the other side.
Why is that we have a four or five second yellow right, followed by a two second delay before the other side turns green and I still see at least one asshole plow through the intersection when I have a green light almost every day I venture out onto the roadway? If you don't think this is a problem in certain areas you are sticking your head in the sand.
You can wait all day at a red light for a car to come trip the sensor for you, or you can wait a couple of minutes, wait for a clearing, and run the light.
I should hope that you realized the difference between the issue that I'm complaining about (people running the light even though it was red before they even hit the stop line, let alone the interaction) and the issue of malfunctioning traffic signals.
For a long, long time before that licenses for firearm ownership were only available at the discretion of the police.
Then that's where you went wrong. I'm sure that you realize that the police (indeed, all organs of Government) work for you and shouldn't have the right to dole out permission to exercise your inalienable rights, correct?
Just please, please, please, would Americans stop crowing about nineteen ninety bloody seven when FUCK ALL happened to impact anyone's rights.
Would it make you happier if I just said that you set the stage for it when you willingly surrendered a right sometime in the 20th century that you had previously held for hundreds of years? I honestly didn't set out here to debate the merits of gun control, just to point out that the UK populace set a precedent for surrendering their rights long before the surveillance society came onto the scene.
Too fucking bad. If you are on a tight deadline you should have left sooner. You don't have the right to place my life or property in harms way because you didn't plan your day well.
I know the traffic patterns of my hometown and can generally guess how long it will take to reach my destination to within 5 minutes, barring unforeseen (accident closes the roadway) events. I suggest you learn a similiar skill and stop thinking that whatever appointment you need to reach is more important than the lives and property of the other drivers who share the roadway with you.
Sounds like something wrong with the yellow light timing. Perhaps you should petition to increase yellow light time.
There's nothing wrong with the yellow light timing around here. The ones I've bothered to time in town are all 4 seconds or longer. Are you telling me that a four second yellow in a 30 mph zone isn't sufficient warning to stop? Is it so hard to accept the fact that people are selfish asshats who will run the light if they know they can get away with it?
This can be by violating expectations/law or by suddenly stopping cold to avoid some stupid redlight camera.
If the yellow light timing hasn't been tampered with why do you need to 'suddenly stop cold' to avoid the camera? If you treat the yellow light as you are supposed to treat it (i.e: stop if you can safely do so) there is zero excuse for running a red light.
Automation in police enforcement is a very scary idea for those of us concerned with the decay of our rights to privacy.
Hey, your preaching to the choir here. I consider myself at least a libertarian and occasionally a Libertarian. Despite that, I don't relish the thought of being t-boned by some asshat that thinks 30 seconds of his time are more valuable than my life and property. So what's the solution? Hire more cops at $40,000/yr to do nothing but enforce red-light laws? Transfer cops away from fighting violent crime to enforce red-light laws?
It doesn't matter what your "appetite" is. You've missed the point. The point is that you voluntarily surrendered a right that you held for hundreds of years. Now you act surprised that your Government seeks to curtail other rights? Can you not see how you set the precedent?
but your NRA talking point about 1997 is just plain wrong
I'm not parroting NRA talking points. I'm talking about the voluntary surrender of a right that the populace held for hundreds of years and the precedent that such surrender set. I could make the same point about the right to a trial by jury, which I understand is also being slowly eroded away. Think you'll still have that right in a generation or so?
Yeah, I'm not surprised. I should have protected myself with a shield of "go ahead, mod me down, I've got karma to burn!" in the original comment;)
To clarify, the right is not the right to own a gun. The right is the right to protect your person, your family, or your home from criminal attack, whether it's using a gun, or sword, a stunner, or a very large bat. It's an inalienable right. An instinctive right. A government may suppress the right through force, but it cannot take it away because it is an innate quality of all living things - the right to self-ownership of your body, and the right to self-defense of same.
What kills me is that the right to keep and bear arms has it's origins in the English common law. They literally had that right for hundreds of years until they surrendered it in the 20th century. Then they act surprised that the Government (having seen that the populace willingly surrenders such a right) seeks to curtail other rights. WTF? You set the precedent. Are you really surprised?
If you live in the middle of nowhere and feel the traffic levels are low enough that a red light can be ignored, then you should campaign for those lights to be removed, not ignore them.
Here in the States a situation like that would usually have a flashing light. It flashes yellow on one roadway (the busier one) to serve as a warning and flashes red on the other to require people to stop. The flashing red is treated in the same manner as a stop sign -- you stop, look and if it is safe to proceed you do so. Is there an equivalent to that in the UK?
Also, I have a hard time understanding how privacy comes into play. When you are driving, you are doing it in a public place; why should there be any expectation of privacy?
What I don't understand is why a red-light camera that only fires when you run the red-light is an invasion of your privacy but a police officer pulling you over for the exact same thing isn't.
Either way, people are asshats. They'd rather run the light and place the other drivers at risk than wait 30 fucking seconds to get to where they are going. I don't like seeing traffic tickets used as a revenue source -- I think they should be set at the smallest amount possible to fund aggressive traffic safety classes. Make everybody who violates the traffic law twice sit in one of those classes or lose their license. Most people value 8 hours of their time more than they value a lousy $100. Let that and the subsequent increase in your insurance premiums serve as the deterrent.
you know it was 1903 when they outlawed firearms in the UK right?
Actually no, it wasn't until 1997 that they outlawed whole classes of firearms. My understanding is that the previous bits of legislation regulated them but did not outlaw them. In either case, how does that change my original point? When the populace meekly surrenders one right why should they then act surprised when the government seeks to curtail other rights? You set the precedent -- don't be surprised by the results.
I also can't help but notice how my original comment has been modded into oblivion. Gotta love people using the moderation system to downrate comments they don't agree with.
2/ unfairly ticketed ? if there's a picture as proof I'd say it's fair you get a ticket..
The unfair ticketing comes in when cities start tweaking the yellow light timing to generate more revenue. I think it would be more productive to outlaw this practice than to outlaw red light cameras. I would personally also outlaw the practice of sharing the revenue with the vendor -- buy it outright like any other system. Traffic laws shouldn't be written/enforced with an eye towards making money -- they should be enforced with an eye towards deterring behavior that places everybody at risk.
Personally I'd use the revenue to fund traffic safety courses and make everybody who violates the traffic law sit in them. I think the prospect of spending eight hours of your time being lectured would be a bigger deterrent than a sub $100 fine.
.... we don't have them around here and people run lights all the time. And I don't mean they squeak in under a yellow that turns red when they are in the middle of the intersection -- the light is red for a full second or two before they even hit the stop line.
I hate the concept of red light cameras but I'm hating the concept of being t-boned even more. If we can't have red light cameras can we at least have some fucking human enforcement of the traffic laws? There's a difference between hitting the gas to beat a yellow light and just plain ignoring the red because your selfish attitude thinks waiting 30 seconds is a worse outcome than placing other drivers at risk.
Well, one version of freedom won. The freedom that says you need the Government to "protect" you from every conceivable source of harm, ranging from fatty foods to cigarettes to automobile accidents to firearms. The sheep can't possibly be trusted to assume responsibility for their own actions/choices so we need to curtail those choices for the public good.
When will people realize that real freedom is the freedom to do whatever the hell you want, provided that it isn't harming your neighbor?
This isn't popular to point out but you set the stage for this when you let your Government disarm the population "for your protection". And no, I'm not implying that guns keep the Government in line. I'm implying that by acquiescing to the surrender of a right you held for hundreds of years you set the stage for the Government to curtail your other rights. If the populace didn't squeal when we took away the guns why should we assume they'll squeal when we take away the privacy? It's for their protection after all.
If you don't see the connection between the two then shame on you.
Or I could try and buy one on the black market, but I don't associate with the right kind of people, so that wouldn't be easy.
It's easier than you'd think. If you can find illegal drugs you can find illegal weapons.
Most guns are banned here in the UK. Some can be owned with a license
I'm a gun-toting American, so I doubt you and I would see eye to eye. I'm a believer in having the ability to defend oneself from the criminal element and do not think that taking away tools is a good way to reduce crime. A better solution in my mind would be to address the socio-economic factors that push most people into committing crimes while locking up the true psychopaths who can't be redeemed.
Did you know that 80% to 90% of people who commit murder already have violent criminal records? Instead of trying to disarm the people who aren't violent criminals perhaps we should be asking ourselves why the violent criminals are being released back into society so quickly?
Slashdot Mirror
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently stole their ideas this time.
Fixed that for you.
You should read up about the "tragedy of the commons" sometime.
So my smoking pot in the privacy of my own home leads to a tragedy of the commons? My being overweight leads to a tragedy of the commons? My ownership of a firearm leads to a tragedy of the commons?
Harm to your neighbour is sometimes difficult to pin down
IMHO, if you can't pin it down you have no right to tell me that I can't engage in the behavior you are seeking to regulate and/or prohibit.
Binghamton is Downstate???
a police officer generally has some level of intelligence and reasoning behind things.
Citation needed.
Just because it's cheaper to violate people's privacy rights doesn't make it the right decision.
Please explain to me how your privacy is violated by a picture being taken of you when you run a red light. Are you trying to tell me that if I'm standing on the side of the intersection taking your picture I'm not violating your privacy but if a computer doing the same thing is?
The structure of the society we have built is there to protect us from sociopaths. Vigilante action is not.
Let me know how well the structure of society works out for you when someone breaks into your house at 3:00 and starts stabbing you. Sure the police will be there in a few minutes -- by which time you will be dead or dying. And I'd really like to know how self-defense qualifies as 'vigilante action'. Vigilantism was already illegal before the advent of gun control you know.
So carrying a lethal weapon is now an 'inalienable right'?
Yes, actually it is. The right to keep and bear arms originated in the Common Law, alongside the right to self-defense.
and it looks like the stats on violent death in the UK and US per capita agree with me.
Correlation != causation. And what other kind of death besides 'violent' death is there? Is there a nice way to die that I'm not aware of?
Ask yourself when you would ever use your gun against your government, and you realise pretty quickly that if you don't want to end up like those at Waco, you wouldn't. Further, if you feel gun ownership is a fundamental guarantor of other rights, why has the US seen the biggest erosion of civil rights in its history in the last decade?
Nice way to repeat all the gun control talking points but if you had bothered to read any of my other posts you would have found that wasn't the point I was attempting to make.
Either you're exaggating the problem, or you never actually timed the lights
Yes, that must be it. It couldn't be that people are selfish self-centered asshats -- I must be "exaggerating" the problem.
You also don't know if 30MPH is actually the appropriate speed limit for the road
Did you miss the part where I said in-town?
Here's the interesting thing; engineers say the speed limits should be set according to what almost everyone will do anyway on that road. That's the safest speed limit
I don't have a problem with that concept out on the freeway or in the country. I do have a problem when people run perfectly adjusted traffic lights because they know it isn't enforced and they think getting to their destination is more important than not t-boning the guy who has a green light on the other side.
Why is that we have a four or five second yellow right, followed by a two second delay before the other side turns green and I still see at least one asshole plow through the intersection when I have a green light almost every day I venture out onto the roadway? If you don't think this is a problem in certain areas you are sticking your head in the sand.
You can wait all day at a red light for a car to come trip the sensor for you, or you can wait a couple of minutes, wait for a clearing, and run the light.
I should hope that you realized the difference between the issue that I'm complaining about (people running the light even though it was red before they even hit the stop line, let alone the interaction) and the issue of malfunctioning traffic signals.
For a long, long time before that licenses for firearm ownership were only available at the discretion of the police.
Then that's where you went wrong. I'm sure that you realize that the police (indeed, all organs of Government) work for you and shouldn't have the right to dole out permission to exercise your inalienable rights, correct?
Just please, please, please, would Americans stop crowing about nineteen ninety bloody seven when FUCK ALL happened to impact anyone's rights.
Would it make you happier if I just said that you set the stage for it when you willingly surrendered a right sometime in the 20th century that you had previously held for hundreds of years? I honestly didn't set out here to debate the merits of gun control, just to point out that the UK populace set a precedent for surrendering their rights long before the surveillance society came onto the scene.
This can be a lot if you are on a tight deadline.
Too fucking bad. If you are on a tight deadline you should have left sooner. You don't have the right to place my life or property in harms way because you didn't plan your day well.
I know the traffic patterns of my hometown and can generally guess how long it will take to reach my destination to within 5 minutes, barring unforeseen (accident closes the roadway) events. I suggest you learn a similiar skill and stop thinking that whatever appointment you need to reach is more important than the lives and property of the other drivers who share the roadway with you.
Sounds like something wrong with the yellow light timing. Perhaps you should petition to increase yellow light time.
There's nothing wrong with the yellow light timing around here. The ones I've bothered to time in town are all 4 seconds or longer. Are you telling me that a four second yellow in a 30 mph zone isn't sufficient warning to stop? Is it so hard to accept the fact that people are selfish asshats who will run the light if they know they can get away with it?
This can be by violating expectations/law or by suddenly stopping cold to avoid some stupid redlight camera.
If the yellow light timing hasn't been tampered with why do you need to 'suddenly stop cold' to avoid the camera? If you treat the yellow light as you are supposed to treat it (i.e: stop if you can safely do so) there is zero excuse for running a red light.
Automation in police enforcement is a very scary idea for those of us concerned with the decay of our rights to privacy.
Hey, your preaching to the choir here. I consider myself at least a libertarian and occasionally a Libertarian. Despite that, I don't relish the thought of being t-boned by some asshat that thinks 30 seconds of his time are more valuable than my life and property. So what's the solution? Hire more cops at $40,000/yr to do nothing but enforce red-light laws? Transfer cops away from fighting violent crime to enforce red-light laws?
It doesn't matter what your "appetite" is. You've missed the point. The point is that you voluntarily surrendered a right that you held for hundreds of years. Now you act surprised that your Government seeks to curtail other rights? Can you not see how you set the precedent?
but your NRA talking point about 1997 is just plain wrong
I'm not parroting NRA talking points. I'm talking about the voluntary surrender of a right that the populace held for hundreds of years and the precedent that such surrender set. I could make the same point about the right to a trial by jury, which I understand is also being slowly eroded away. Think you'll still have that right in a generation or so?
I see you've been modded (0)
Yeah, I'm not surprised. I should have protected myself with a shield of "go ahead, mod me down, I've got karma to burn!" in the original comment ;)
To clarify, the right is not the right to own a gun. The right is the right to protect your person, your family, or your home from criminal attack, whether it's using a gun, or sword, a stunner, or a very large bat. It's an inalienable right. An instinctive right. A government may suppress the right through force, but it cannot take it away because it is an innate quality of all living things - the right to self-ownership of your body, and the right to self-defense of same.
What kills me is that the right to keep and bear arms has it's origins in the English common law. They literally had that right for hundreds of years until they surrendered it in the 20th century. Then they act surprised that the Government (having seen that the populace willingly surrenders such a right) seeks to curtail other rights. WTF? You set the precedent. Are you really surprised?
If you live in the middle of nowhere and feel the traffic levels are low enough that a red light can be ignored, then you should campaign for those lights to be removed, not ignore them.
Here in the States a situation like that would usually have a flashing light. It flashes yellow on one roadway (the busier one) to serve as a warning and flashes red on the other to require people to stop. The flashing red is treated in the same manner as a stop sign -- you stop, look and if it is safe to proceed you do so. Is there an equivalent to that in the UK?
Also, I have a hard time understanding how privacy comes into play. When you are driving, you are doing it in a public place; why should there be any expectation of privacy?
What I don't understand is why a red-light camera that only fires when you run the red-light is an invasion of your privacy but a police officer pulling you over for the exact same thing isn't.
Either way, people are asshats. They'd rather run the light and place the other drivers at risk than wait 30 fucking seconds to get to where they are going. I don't like seeing traffic tickets used as a revenue source -- I think they should be set at the smallest amount possible to fund aggressive traffic safety classes. Make everybody who violates the traffic law twice sit in one of those classes or lose their license. Most people value 8 hours of their time more than they value a lousy $100. Let that and the subsequent increase in your insurance premiums serve as the deterrent.
you know it was 1903 when they outlawed firearms in the UK right?
Actually no, it wasn't until 1997 that they outlawed whole classes of firearms. My understanding is that the previous bits of legislation regulated them but did not outlaw them. In either case, how does that change my original point? When the populace meekly surrenders one right why should they then act surprised when the government seeks to curtail other rights? You set the precedent -- don't be surprised by the results.
I also can't help but notice how my original comment has been modded into oblivion. Gotta love people using the moderation system to downrate comments they don't agree with.
2/ unfairly ticketed ? if there's a picture as proof I'd say it's fair you get a ticket..
The unfair ticketing comes in when cities start tweaking the yellow light timing to generate more revenue. I think it would be more productive to outlaw this practice than to outlaw red light cameras. I would personally also outlaw the practice of sharing the revenue with the vendor -- buy it outright like any other system. Traffic laws shouldn't be written/enforced with an eye towards making money -- they should be enforced with an eye towards deterring behavior that places everybody at risk.
Personally I'd use the revenue to fund traffic safety courses and make everybody who violates the traffic law sit in them. I think the prospect of spending eight hours of your time being lectured would be a bigger deterrent than a sub $100 fine.
.... we don't have them around here and people run lights all the time. And I don't mean they squeak in under a yellow that turns red when they are in the middle of the intersection -- the light is red for a full second or two before they even hit the stop line.
I hate the concept of red light cameras but I'm hating the concept of being t-boned even more. If we can't have red light cameras can we at least have some fucking human enforcement of the traffic laws? There's a difference between hitting the gas to beat a yellow light and just plain ignoring the red because your selfish attitude thinks waiting 30 seconds is a worse outcome than placing other drivers at risk.
Freedom won.
Well, one version of freedom won. The freedom that says you need the Government to "protect" you from every conceivable source of harm, ranging from fatty foods to cigarettes to automobile accidents to firearms. The sheep can't possibly be trusted to assume responsibility for their own actions/choices so we need to curtail those choices for the public good.
When will people realize that real freedom is the freedom to do whatever the hell you want, provided that it isn't harming your neighbor?
This isn't popular to point out but you set the stage for this when you let your Government disarm the population "for your protection". And no, I'm not implying that guns keep the Government in line. I'm implying that by acquiescing to the surrender of a right you held for hundreds of years you set the stage for the Government to curtail your other rights. If the populace didn't squeal when we took away the guns why should we assume they'll squeal when we take away the privacy? It's for their protection after all.
If you don't see the connection between the two then shame on you.
Or I could try and buy one on the black market, but I don't associate with the right kind of people, so that wouldn't be easy.
It's easier than you'd think. If you can find illegal drugs you can find illegal weapons.
Most guns are banned here in the UK. Some can be owned with a license
I'm a gun-toting American, so I doubt you and I would see eye to eye. I'm a believer in having the ability to defend oneself from the criminal element and do not think that taking away tools is a good way to reduce crime. A better solution in my mind would be to address the socio-economic factors that push most people into committing crimes while locking up the true psychopaths who can't be redeemed.
Did you know that 80% to 90% of people who commit murder already have violent criminal records? Instead of trying to disarm the people who aren't violent criminals perhaps we should be asking ourselves why the violent criminals are being released back into society so quickly?
I need to get out of NY. Where should I go? The states that come to mind are NH, VT and AK. PA is a possibility too.