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Comment by pyrotechnick | Hacker News Reader

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pyrotechnick

Of course this depends on your definition of "nanny state".

Here my definition is: laws that cover specific behaviour otherwise already covered by law.

I'm no lawyer but can I imagine it has all kinds of fancy things written about it in Latin.

Maybe

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_specialis_derogat_legi_general...

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejusdem_generis

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Sometimes the law covers something, but only thinly. The law in most states in the USA(1) surely states that any damage you cause should be paid in recompense. So technically "distracted driving" is "covered by existing law". In practice this does not work out. Its easy to be in an accident that causes more damage than an individual's net worth and insurance coverage combined. If the only people allowed to drive cars were the ones able to afford enough insurance to guarantee recompense(2) in any situation, there would be very few cars on the road indeed. So sometimes existing laws need "helping", as imperfect as that may be. Society subsidizes the risk in exchange for a little cooperation to reduce that risk.

(1) Excepting all of that "no fault" nonsense that a few try to monkey-patch into working.

(2) It gets even more complicated when people die.

So sometimes existing laws need "helping", as imperfect as that may be.

Sounds like you've been indoctrinated good and proper. I'll write this one off as job creation.

If the only people who were allowed to drive cars were the ones able to afford enough insurance to guarantee recompense(2) in any situation, there would be very few cars on the road indeed.

I fear you've severely underestimated the nanny-ness of the state I'm referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance#Australia

Nevertheless, the "helping" you refer to isn't helping in reality. The first layer making it illegal doesn't work. Neither do the others layered over that.

I'm not entirely closed to your point of view. I admit to playing a bit of devil's advocate in the above but, dude:

Sounds like you've been indoctrinated good and proper.

That kind of thing just shuts debate off cold.

Only if you let it.

Sometimes God needs an advocate too :)

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