"Quote from Ghost of Cutten:
By driving you pose a risk to me and other pedestrians. You and other murdering scum like you should be jailed for the tens of thousands of innocent people you kill each year."
Quote from vhehn:
ok. this one got you put on ignore. somebody this stupid does not deserve to be heard by thinking people.
It's interesting to see the uncontrollable emotional response of a typical oppressive personality type. Vhehn thinks it is outrageous how Rearden Metal takes drugs, causing the heinous consequence of very marginally increasing the demand for opiates. The appropriate punishment, according to him, is for Rearden to be violently kidnapped and then kept for years during the prime of his life in a small room with a steel door and bars on the windows. Nothing about this strikes Vhehn as barbaric, disproportionate, or anything other than laudable justice in action.
Vhehn justifies his position not by anything Rearden Metal has done wrong, but by the actions of other people. In other words, if others who use drugs do bad things, Rearden deserves to be punished for it. Effectively he is to be punished for the sins of others i.e. collective punishment. Collective punishment is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions and is specifically outlawed by the UN convention on human rights, to which the USA is a signatory. It is also widely viewed by normal people as barbaric and unjust.
But, suppose we give Vhehn the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that the negative actions of some drug users *does* justify punishing all drug users no matter if they individually have done anything harmful to society. Fine, let's accept collective punishment after all. And let's not stop at drug users. Let's go to vehicle users.
For is it not a fact that vehicle users, collectively, kill tens of thousands on the roads each year? Do they not also maim and injure hundreds of thousands? Other vehicle users could be said to have accepted these risks the moment they drive a vehicle. But pedestrians, cyclists, and people who do not even own cars obviously do not tacitly accept these risks. The fact is that vehicle users kill and injure huge numbers of non-vehicle users. Thus, if we are to punish all drug users for the sins of some, should we not by the same principle also punish all vehicle users for the sins of some?
We therefore arrive at the conclusion that vehicle use should be outlawed for exactly the same reason that drugs are outlawed - they kill lots of people and inflict misery on others. Vhehn's individual driving standards and record are irrelevant to his guilt, just as Rearden's conduct with drugs are irrelevant to his guilt. What matters it the actions of the group of drivers, and the group of drug users. Both groups by their actions cause very bad consequences, therefore both individuals, judged by the collective actions of the groups they are in, deserve prison. Vhehn must therefore commit himself to years behind bars for the sin of driving, or change his mind and admit that drugs should be legal - anything else would be gross hypocrisy.
