The Morality of Speeding

Sure, but I don't think that why is usually "morality", except maybe in the really obvious things like "no murdering people" and "theft is bad." The justification for most laws is some perceived social need, or else a politician making his contributors happy.Maybe we have differing ideas about what constitutes "morality" but laws in America are justified by their secular purpose, not by their similarity to the morality of one or another religion.Or, at least, according to the Constitution it's supposed to work like that. The simple truth of the matter is that most laws are "justified" simply because politicians thought it would be good for their careers if they were passed. Why is there a law against dominoes on Sunday? Because the law makers passed that law.That's fairly arbitrary in my view. So, in your view, it's immoral for three single women to live together? That's a moral infraction - as long as its happening in Miami, but in Manhattan it would be ok?I don't get what "morality" means to you. Why would it be moral in Manhattan and immoral in Miami? That doesn't make any sense. It seems like you're just saying "whatever politicians say is immoral, is immoral." What? Haven't politicians - particularly right-wing ones - been exposed as probably the worst people to trust to make determinations of what's moral and what's not?

Yes, but isn't that their moral obligation? Isn't that the whole point of a government-- a system of keeping safety, protection, and order? Morals seem to be the driving principles in that. Yes, I suppose this where RAZD and I are seeing things differently. I think when we hear the words "morals" and "immorality," we tend to immediately associate them with some religion. Which, to some extent, is for an implicit reason. Obviously, religions are strung together by a system of moral principles, but I think society in general is too.And of course one need not be religious in any capacity to not only believe in morals, but also to be moral. A religion, (pick your poison), only solidifies those morals in a more absolute sense. That's about the only real difference I see. Religious moral principles tend to be more rigid, whereas secular morals tend to be more flexible. Beyond that they are one and the same in my opinion. That would be a relative moral. In my view, I see no problem with 3 ore more non-related, single women living in the same domicile. In the context of the timeframe, three or more women living together was pretty much unheard of, except in cases of brothels, which is why the law was passed. Without the history of the law being laid out, it certainly sounds arbitrary. But it wasn't.Today it would seem superfluous to us, and even silly. In that time it was a different world, for better or worse. Its not. The way I view it is like this: Three or more women can be innocently living their lives together under the same roof. Or, some of them can be clandestinely running brothels. I really don't want to invoke God in to this thread, but in order for it to make sense, I might be compelled to in this instance.God will be judging the women. God has the luxury of omnipotence, if you'll momentarily pardon the religious connotations. Man does not. Man may have to make blanket laws because he cannot see all things at once. Man is attempting to do the right thing. It may inadvertently hurt those women in some respects, because they may all be unmarried or widowed. Perhaps they need to live together so they can pay the bills-- strength in numbers, type deal.The greater point though, is that the law passed was not arbitrary. There was a moral behind it. We pass laws that we think will benefit mankind best. And although we struggle to do the right thing, we try for some intrinsic reason. I'll give you the Christian outlook on it. LinerAg posted it on message 21.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

yes it is and further , its is immoral to drive ...
{qs} at whatever speed one chooses along some surface where there are no speed limits{/}
simple because ownership of a modern car is immoral .item :the cars we use polute to a unnesessary degree.. directly harmful to othersmost of the features on modern cars are there to pamper our glutony and greed , and do not make the car a better A to B transporter ie cd/mp player , electric mirrors , heated seats ,
PLUS these add to the fuel cost and waste natural resorces.The world oil price is driven by our gas drinking pimp mobiles , this make it hard for poor countries to obtain enough fuel for basic need .Cars are designed to make people jealous and greed to own them , they corrupt us to waste our wealth on unneed machines . If we invested 1/3 of the price we pay for a car they world finacial situation would change so that there would be funds to provide low cost loans to the needy to help bring them out of poverty .speeding , in any form is just compounding the immorality by being even more wastefull.OR maybe cars are not the work of the evil one ...and im just ranting ,
PS sorry to all pertolheads who cant live without there cars ..you sad sad bunnies

A law may or may not have something to do with morality. Depends on the law. When I say there is no intrinsic morality I mean that universally. There is no intrinsic immorality to theft either. Correct. As I said, the speed limits are conservative values, and there is no real reason to go about exceeding them based on your own experience, which is subjective and limited. The margin of safety is there because people do occasionally creep over the speed limit, and sometimes the safest option is to speed for a short period of time (such as overtaking a cyclist). No - the police do not hold the absolute keys to morality. In this country we use a 10% +2mph rule in most cases. Yes, of course. The authorities set the speeds based on the information they have on the road in question. They are not automatons and some inconsistency is to be expected. A driver does not generally have all the requisite information available about a given road, so I see no reason to accept that they are in a better position to decide a maximum safe speed for the road. Not by the magnitude of a speeding offence, but by the magnitude of the speed. The faster you go, the greater the chances of losing control. I've not argued any differently. It is possible that the speed limit is above the safe speed for the road in the best of conditions. I know many roads where this is the case. This road is a 30mph zone, but I have driven down it many times and it is never safe to reach 30mph along most of it. Likewise, this road has a speed limit of 60mph and it is clearly insane to do 60mph down most of there - I know because as a teenager I did it. I'm not ignoring it at all. It is perfectly possible that one can be breaking the speed limit but still be driving at a non-reckless and dangerous level. What you asked was 'is it immoral to behave in a reckless and dangerous manner?'. My answer is: a strong argument could be made to suggest that yes, behaving in a reckless manner is immoral.Further: there is a possible argument that exceeding the speed limit deliberately and continuously is immoral purely on the grounds of incomplete information. Unless you have happened to look into all the relevant data for that road, you simply aren't in a position to know what the safe speed actually might be. That seems fairly irrelevant. You said

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It is certainly not immoral to drive at whatever speed one chooses along some surface where there are no speed limits

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Are you suggesting that travelling at 280mph on that same stretch of road, by your choice, is certainly not immoral?

Isn't that like saying the moral obligation of a screwdriver is to turn screws?We elect politicians to enact justifiable laws. Is it their moral obligation to do so? I think that's a bit of a stretch, personally. I mean, does that mean that the members of the minority party in Congress are failing some moral obligation? Should we have a law against lawmakers not making any laws? It seems like construing this as a "moral" question heads us to someplace ridiculous pretty quickly. Sure, and the whole point of a screwdriver is to turn screws. I don't think that has anything to do with morality. Nothing implicit about it; every major religion claims, as loudly as it can, that it has the sole monopoly on arbitrating human morality. So why tar them with the same brush? I agree that prostitution, being a disease issue as well as an issue of human exploitation, is something society has an interest in regulating. Women living together? I don't see society's interest, there.And I don't see it as a moral issue in either case. I see it as society creating the tools that it needs to survive and prosper. Society needs to turn screws? Society creates screwdrivers. Society needs to regulate a social phenomenon? Society creates laws.I don't see that morality has anything at all to do with it. Indeed I'm scared to death of the idea of equivocating law with morality, because that torpedoes the basis to oppose an unjust law. How can we morally oppose an unjust law when laws are the same as morals?I understand that authoritarians like you don't even understand the question, of course.

Then why include it? Your arguments are always going off on tangents because of you inclusion of irrelevant material. Look at a typical corvette association:Kansas City Corvette Association -

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The Kansas City Corvette Association is a family-oriented 300+ member Corvette club sponsored by Rick Hendrick's Superior Chevrolet of Shawnee Mission, Kansas. We meet at 7:30 p.m. on the second Friday of each month at the North Kansas City Civic Center, Armour Road at Iron Street - just west of Armour Road exit from I-29/35. (see MAP). We sponsor cruises, rallies, and shows throughout the year.

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But is 5 to 15 mph over the speed limit really reckless endangerment? As noted above the police don't even ticket up to 10 mph over, so if they are not concerned how can it be reckless endangerment? Except that you are wrong in your (one item?) listing. There you go begging the question by first assuming that there is a moral reason for any law. If there is no way you could help them, and if trying to help them you caused more people to drown then it would be immoral eh? False. Morals and laws have an entirely different basis: morals are individual behavior models, laws are community behavior restrictions. Of course. Feelings are transient and can change. Whether I love or hate person A the morality of my behavior towards person A is based on the behavior not the feelings. It does when there is no alternative. With speeding from 5 to 15 mph (what I listed before) being universal it is just not possible to keep anyone from being on a street without speeding at some time. That makes it moot. Which can and does happen regardless of speed or speeding. Which can happen regardless of speed or speeding. But your example IS an arbitrary law. What is immoral about 3 single women living together? What is NOT immoral about 3 single men living together? What does the connection to brothels have to do with the morality of 3 single women living together? It's still arbitrary, because what they really wanted to do was outlaw brothels, not women living together. The fact of 3 women living together has nothing to do with the (presumably undesirable) behavior of brothels, and you could still have a legal brothel with the women living elsewhere. No, not at all, because morals serve a different purpose than laws. If behavior A is moral you don't need a law to make it so, nor if behavior B is immoral do you need a law to make it so. Gambling is legal in several states, illegal in others, the morality of gambling is unaffected by the legal status. You think of religion, don't lump everyone else in with your false premises. Those of us that have also seen the immorality of religion know the difference.But this also contradicts your claim of moral basis for laws, for laws don't enforce religions except in the case of theocracies. Can you put down your religion for a minute and talk about speeding? Your whole argument about involving religion is both false and irrelevant -- there is nothing in any religious text I know of to do with traveling 50moh in a 40mph zone.One of the purposes of this thread is to talk about a moral issue that does not involve religion.Enjoy.

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What are they taking oaths for? What's the purpose of an oath stipulating that you will defend the Constitution, etc, etc?When asked about the purpose and the role of government, an author of made this declaration:"Are there not, in reality, underlying, universal principles with reference to which all issues must be resolved whether the society be simple or complex in its mechanical organization? It seems to me we could relieve ourselves of most of the bewilderment which so unsettles and distracts us by subjecting each situation to the simple test of right and wrong. Right and wrong as moral principles do not change. They are applicable and reliable determinants whether the situations with which we deal are simple or complicated. There is always a right and wrong to every question which requires our solution." -Albert BowenI happen to agree. Yes, but people will do this no matter what. It doesn't negate the fact that laws derive from moral principles. There wasn't. It was because of the societal difference. When the law was passed, non-married women living together was simply an extreme rarity-- for better or worse. The only one's doing it were probably prostitutes. That being said, society had evolved to the point where making blanket statements could no longer bear any credibility. It became an antiquated and forgotten law, but remains on the books the last time I heard. (But that was in the 90's. It could have been excised from the books at this point). Any society is only as good as it is in its own heart. The viability of any society is predicated upon the staple of whether or not moral cohesion can be reached. Societies replete with corruption, selfishness, enmity, and strife are destined for failure. I'd say that places morality in the practical factor. You are using a moral to usurp a moral. So you do understand what I'm saying. If a law is unjust, you are making a moral pronouncement. If that's the case, then you are in agreement with me. The problem for you, as I see it, is not your aversion to laws and morality, but rather, which morals win out. You don't want a law that they say is "moral," when in your eyes, its actually immoral. I'm not an authoritarian. I'm just not an anarchist either. I would rather that I be characterized as a libertarian, if I had to be categorized, than either of those. Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : typo

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

I don't see what oaths have to do with it. So ban prostitution. I still don't see the justification for the law then or now. It's not like prostitution is a legally-ambiguous situation. Somehow in the year 2007 we're able to crack down on brothels without having to inconvenience sorority girls or whatever. That's a lot of your assertions, but I don't see much evidence. If laws are based on morality only because you assert that they are so, I'm not finding that especially compelling. But if laws are always moral, if laws indeed define morality, how can such a pronouncement be made? As I predicted - you don't even understand the question. And I understand further that there's plenty of people on the other side who want the exact same thing.So the solution, as represented in the US constitution, was to take morality out of the equation, since none of us can agree on precisely what is moral and immoral. Not precisely enough to make laws about it, anyway.Sure, I want to avoid being in the position where the law makes me do something I think is immoral, or where conduct I feel is moral is punished as immorality by the state. I imagine that's what most people want. The solution there is to recognize that morality is personal but laws are secular tools of society, tools society uses to shape itself, and to not cast laws as moral issues.People have to come to an individual morality. Laws have to be something we all (or we most, anyway) agree on. Thus, they must be estranged from moral issues. When have you even been libertarian about anything?

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simple because ownership of a modern car is immoral .

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yes, damn those immoral car owners to hell!

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most of the features on modern cars are there to pamper our glutony and greed , and do not make the car a better A to B transporter ie cd/mp player , electric mirrors , heated seats ,

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Bring back horse-drawn carriages I say!

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Cars are designed to make people jealous and greed to own them , they corrupt us to waste our wealth on unneed machines .

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I say we build a big bonfire and throw all cars in it!

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speeding , in any form is just compounding the immorality by being even more wastefull.

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naturally, what could possibly be worse than wasteful immorality ?

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OR maybe cars are not the work of the evil one ...and im just ranting ,

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no, not at all. I, too, think that the chief designer at Toyota is Beelzebub himself. And don't get me started on General Motors!

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PS sorry to all pertolheads who cant live without there cars ..you sad sad bunnies

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hey, here's an idea: let's go out one night and attack cars and car-owners. We could beat them up, put flaming rags through their letterboxes, smash their windows up and paint big 'C's on their walls. We could call it 'KrystalCarNacht' or something similar. What do you say ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

I don't think anybody who's never lived in Minnesota is in a position to judge the necessity of heated seats, I'm sorry.

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I don't think anybody who's never lived in Minnesota is in a position to judge the necessity of heated seats, I'm sorry.

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so you're saying that just because it's -50 in the mornings you need to place your arse on a heated seat? My God, your immorality knows no bounds! I hope you enjoy your warm seat, just know that it will be much warmer IN HELL!ikabod, back me up on this mate.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."

What I find really comfortable are the seat warmers that work by burning endangered species alive.

Once they burned they not in any danger no more.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

That's exactly how I justify it. That, and the oh-so-pleasing warming sensation around my nether regions as I drive 2 blocks to the store to buy one item.In my gigantic SUV. Doesn't even have a gas cap, just a slot for $100 bills.

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What I find really comfortable are the seat warmers that work by burning endangered species alive.

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I hear that pandas burn the slowest while also producing low CO2 emissions. You can have a warm arse AND the comforting knowledge that you're not depleting the ozone layer.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the bug and some days you'll be the windscreen."