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One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

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Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#41

Post by jessaustin »

revelation wrote: post #33
robkix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now you know why the US houses most of the world's prisoners [0]. This is the same thinking that brings the US security theater at its airports. Anything for safety, even if it only mariginally works. [0] https://www.aclu.org/safe-communities-fair-sentences/prison-...

Who's talking about prison? Driving is a privilege. Suspending it, possibly forever, doesn't appraoch custodial sentences.

How does one enforce such a suspension, without resorting to prison? (I suspect someone will mention "fines/monetary penalties", but that's rather begging the question.)

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#42

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jessaustin wrote: post #40
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is not realy the USA, they don't like much law and taxes. Most states come down hard on drinking and driving.

Texas is not realy the USA... An attractive sentiment in general, but it's not true. Texas is just like every other state, in that they spend way too much on the "enforcement" of drunk-driving laws. The reason is obvious: local police and sheriffs get the same ridiculous federal grants that LEOs in all other states get. EDIT: Congratulations to Louisiana, I expect they laugh at Texas' patchwork of dry and "partially-…

Louisiana back in the 80s/early 90s had very lax drinking laws: the drinking age was 18 and they had "drive thru" daiquiri stores. I think they gave that up for highway money, but the culture still hangs around.

In contrast, many states in the north are now zero tolerance states. The limit is quite low, and the penalties are quite harsh. Well, that pales in comparison to Japan, where you would probably lose your job if caught (and they have a very low limit also).

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#43

Post by cylinder »

jessaustin wrote: post #40
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is not realy the USA, they don't like much law and taxes. Most states come down hard on drinking and driving.

Texas is not realy the USA... An attractive sentiment in general, but it's not true. Texas is just like every other state, in that they spend way too much on the "enforcement" of drunk-driving laws. The reason is obvious: local police and sheriffs get the same ridiculous federal grants that LEOs in all other states get. EDIT: Congratulations to Louisiana, I expect they laugh at Texas' patchwork of dry and "partially-…

Texting (and talking on phone) while driving are still legal in Texas. Texas road deaths are double the OECD average.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#44

Post by ianferrel »

baddox wrote: post #32
geebee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good observation, and reminds me of an article I read a while back about why the parole system works so poorly (it was a great article, sorry that I don't have the link). The theory was that much or our criminal law system makes an assumption of a rational actor. A 1% chance of severe penalty would deter a crime where they payoff is minor (i.e.., the small chance of a severely punished DUI would convince a…

Your description of people's reaction to the risk and severity of punishment sounds entirely rational.

A rational actor would be twice as deterred if you kept the risk of punishment the same and doubled the severity.

But actual people don't respond that way. They respond to the risk rather than the expected punishment.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#45

Post by baddox »

ianferrel wrote: post #44
baddox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of people's reaction to the risk and severity of punishment sounds entirely rational.

A rational actor would be twice as deterred if you kept the risk of punishment the same and doubled the severity. But actual people don't respond that way. They respond to the risk rather than the expected punishment.

You'd probably need to define and use "marginal severity," which unfortunately probably ends up being subjective and difficult to analyze.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#46

Post by baddox »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #3

She runs “bartending school” for incoming students during mandatory orientation sessions at Georgia. Handing over a vodka bottle full of water, she asks them to pour what they think is one drink into a 16-ounce cup. After a discussion of alcohol’s physical effects and consequences, she empties the cups into two-ounce shot glasses. What seemed like one drink is often two or three. In normal countries, teenagers start…

Everyone says this, and I wonder if there's any data backing it up. Is there correlation, for instance, between having your first drink after high school and binge drinking? I know everyone likes to say that Americans don't drink until they're in college, but even that certainly doesn't reflect my experience and the general sense I get from talking to other Americans.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#47

Post by droopyEyelids »

ianferrel wrote: post #44
baddox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of people's reaction to the risk and severity of punishment sounds entirely rational.

A rational actor would be twice as deterred if you kept the risk of punishment the same and doubled the severity. But actual people don't respond that way. They respond to the risk rather than the expected punishment.

The problem with this is everyone's definition of Rational Actor is arbitrary in what incentives it excludes or includes. Talking about what a Rational Actor would do makes about as much sense as claiming your opinion is fully objective.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#48

Post by selimthegrim »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #42
jessaustin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is not realy the USA... An attractive sentiment in general, but it's not true. Texas is just like every other state, in that they spend way too much on the "enforcement" of drunk-driving laws. The reason is obvious: local police and sheriffs get the same ridiculous federal grants that LEOs in all other states get. EDIT: Congratulations to Louisiana, I expect they laugh at Texas' patchwork of dry and "partially-…

Louisiana back in the 80s/early 90s had very lax drinking laws: the drinking age was 18 and they had "drive thru" daiquiri stores. I think they gave that up for highway money, but the culture still hangs around. In contrast, many states in the north are now zero tolerance states. The limit is quite low, and the penalties are quite harsh. Well, that pales in comparison to Japan, where you would probably lose your job…

Indeed, Louisiana still has drive thru daiquiri places. They just put a piece of tape over the straw hole in the lid as they hand it to you.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#49

Post by jessaustin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #29
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #20

The solution to this is to start drinking beers with your kids at age 10. This way drinking will be the most uncool thing ever, and they'll grow up to be teetotalers. Seriously though, we need a culture change. You can't tell them they can never drink, then turn them loose in another city by themselves and expect it to not be taken to extremes. That's pretty dumb.

This is actually allowed in some states. There's doesn't seem to be any particular pattern to which states allow it and which don't, eg stereotypically liberal California has the same ultra-strict requirements as stereotypically conservative Kentucky. Here's a neat summary of the different exceptions to the 21-year minimum age rule, broken out by state. http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...

3. for religious purposes in 26 states

Haha, I guess all the Catholic churches in the other 24 states will get raided next time they have a First Communion. This is just one example of how unreliable these sorts of comparisons are.

Re: One college town's uneasy embrace of drinking

#50

Post by praneshp »

jessaustin wrote: post #41
revelation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's talking about prison? Driving is a privilege. Suspending it, possibly forever, doesn't appraoch custodial sentences.

How does one enforce such a suspension, without resorting to prison? (I suspect someone will mention "fines/monetary penalties", but that's rather begging the question.)

Taking away the driver's license is how it is enforced, I think. So if you are stopped, you get a ticket/arrested for driving without a valid license.
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