Regarding being drunk and rape vs. being drunk and driving, some good points were made, but I'm not sure I can agree. It's the stigma of rape. If you are drunk and have sex with a chick who is too wasted to know what's going on I think personal responsibility should come into play, you should know you are taking a risk by having sex with said chick. Much in the same way you should know not to get in a car and drive if you are too drunk. The problem of course is when you are that drunk decision making is severely impaired. The solution is not to get to that point, there's no real reason to get so drunk to the point where you don't know what's going on and "can't be held accountable" for your actions. I'm not saying don't drink, or even don't get drunk, but why get so drunk you lose the ability to reason? It's not even fun at that point, it's just alcohol abuse and it's mostly people who are alcoholic who get to that point of intoxication.
The drunk chick who was raped can claim to be not in control of her actions thus had an altered mental state, but what if someone was drunk, had an altered mental state, claimed to not be in control of their actions, and murdered someone? (I don't mean with a car I mean physically killed them) Like say they were drunk got into a fight which led to murder. Wouldn't they still be charged with manslaughter? I'm pretty sure they would. So in that situation even though they were drunk, they are still held accountable.
Ok, a couple of really good conversation points here. I agree with you in a lot of ways (but probably mostly philosophically)
When I said "drunk" I didn't mean that she was "blacked-out intoxicated" to the point that she didn't know what was going on. By law (seriously) if a girl (or a man to be 100% accurate) consumes ANY alcohol, they may fall under this date-rape law. Meaning that even after 2 or 3 beers, when she's just feeling good and makes a bad decision, she is still unable to consent to sex.
Being in the military, we get briefed on this WAY too often. Because it always re-appears. Some wife of a Marine who is deployed to Afghanistan gets lonely and goes off to a local bar to find some "company." She finds another local Marine, lies about her marital status, and fucks him. Now, all is well, until her husbands buddy hears this other marine bragging about fucking her at work. He tells her husband, all hell breaks lose, and in a panic, she claims rape. AND SHE GETS AWAY WITH IT. The poor bastard looking for strange pussy gets demoted and possibly worse, while the poor "victim" wife, gets a great sob story to tell her husband in Afghanistan, all so that she doesn't have to tell him the TRUTH.
This scenario seriously happens more often than a decent person would hope to think. I'm not saying that real rapes don't happen too, just saying that this particular scenario happens all the time.
The point is that the law doesn't just protect victims, it sometimes creates them out of innocent people. And sometimes guilty people (at least in a moral sense) get away with shit, by hiding behind these insane laws.
But my real original point was simply that there is a duality in our legal system. There are many other examples (Cory pointed out one with contract laws) but drunk driving was already being talked about, so I pointed that out.
You can't say, that after only a couple beers, a woman can't concent to sex, therefore any man who sleeps with her ( even when she says yes!) is raping her; While at the same time saying that any wasted bastard who gets behind the wheel of a car, is a criminal. It doesn't make any sense.
You also highlighted another point, our society seems to be fixated on what they perceive to be victims. We make laws based on emotion and passion, not on logic. The law will bend to one side of the ridiculous spectrum and then to the other, based on which side is perceived to be victimized. The girl was penetrated, so shes the victim. The drunk driver COULD HAVE killed someone, therefore society is the victim and he is the criminal. This is silly.
you brought up the point about violence at the hands of a drunk. Ok, but what is the crime? is it being drunk, or is it assault? Assault is the crime, not drinking, so they are arrested for THAT reason.
See, I don't believe that a drunk driver should be acquitted of running into a mini-van and killing a family, just because he was drunk; just the same as I don't believe a female who has had a couple drinks can claim to be rapped (if she in fact consented at the time)
I ALSO don't believe that someone who is "legally drunk" should be arrested or fined for driving, if they caused no harm or damage. A guy who drank 3 beers then drove home, in perfect control of his vehicle, but hit a DUI checkpoint and blew .01 over the limit, shouldn't be fined thousands of dollars and have a black mark on his record. No crime was committed.
I think the first point was simply that a crime has to take place. Sober drivers kill people just as much as drunk drivers. But you get a 100 dollar fine for texting and driving, while a DUI charge can ruin you life. this is un-proportionate and unfair. It really all boils down to money and public perception.What "they" can get away with by stealing and harassing us, without anyone making a big deal about it.
I seriously think people are fools if they honestly believe that things like DUI Laws, the War on Drugs, or even seat belt laws, make us any safer as a society. It's just harassment from big brother, in the ruse of "public safety" so that people accept it, instead of use their logic and resist it. The end result is money after all, that should usually be your first sign that something is wrong; when government profits from making new "criminal laws"
There has to be a victim for there to be a crime. " Habius-Corpus" literally translates to "show me the body" meaning that WAY back in the day, the judges would demand evidence of a crime, before trying somebody. They needed to see the murdered body (proving there was a victim) before they would even consider trying somebody.
Try using that defense in traffic court "your honor, ill pay my speeding ticket if you can show me one victim, one citizen that I hurt" Yeah, that went over well for me.
But it just goes to show how far-removed our society is from any kind of logical or reasonable thinking.....................I think I ranted enough