I was not aware of the history of Halsy on this board, though clearly his arguments did not support the accusation.

In response to Warhawk's comments:
You are misinterpreting what I posted, and/or 'putting words in my mouth,' as they say. I was attacking the proposition that DUI related deaths be charged as premedited murder. People who get into cars and drive after drinking, are not intending to go out and kill someone else. That is what premeditated murder is. They obviously are guilty of premeditated drunk driving, but there is no prior planning or intent to kill another human being. If you feel the sentences for unpremeditated murders (i.e., manslaughter) are too lenient, that is a different issue. But they are not guilty of 1st or 2nd degree murder, as the laws are written. There are many other ways to manslaughter people than driving a car into them, and I'm sure many of the victim's families in those cases also would seek harsher punishments.

I do not see why you are equating 4 years in state prison (that the woman received in your example) to 'tongue lashings and 20 Hail Marys.' Clearly in this example the woman had alcohol abuse problems that were not 'cured' by locking her up, whether it was 4 years or 15. I do not believe that locking people up is an effective way of changing behavioral patterns. But it is an easy way to address breaches of societal protocol, and the idea is that it will deter people from committing future crimes. Alternative punishments in DUI related deaths, for example, could be permanent loss of license for life. But not life in prison.

With regard to the helmet law, you misrepresented what I said. I did not say I 'feel it is important for everyone else to pay for someone's medical bills because they were too f*****g "cool" to wear a helmet on a motorcycle.' My point was that the monetary cost to society due to cranial or similar injuries is not worth the loss of freedom associated with instituting forced behavior on people by passing laws to protect themselves from hazardous behaviour. I do put my money where my mouth is, by gladly paying the extra in insurance and taxes (a very small percentage, btw) which helps keep such freedoms available to me. Surely you know this is how our society works. You pay for something I believe in and you don't, and I do the same. The difference is in who we both decide to vote into office to pass the budget and laws for us. Not to start separate funds for small cases.

A few years ago they took all the playground equipment out of my elementary school playground, not because someone was hurt, but because a child might someday get hurt. Now the kids enjoy nothing more than a flat field to run around in. I do not call this progress. Broken bones and chipped teeth are not excessive prices to pay in childhood for learning the limits of your body, and are in fact important so that when you are older and driving around a car, intoxicated, you realize that you can in fact get hurt.