Punishing Probability

I know I haven't posted in forever. I also know that this post is more serious than my normal satire. However, I have become increasingly interested in the shifts and shades of the great babysitter that is our "government." Today's subject: cell phones on the road.

Let me preface this by saying I hate it when people drive while talking on a cell phone. I very rarely do it because I acknowledge that I am a less-effective driver while I am on the phone.

Our city-council recently passed a law that you can not talk on a cell phone without a hands-free system while driving. Many people have fought against this and it appears that there may be enough petitions to get it on a public ballot. I applaud these folks for fighting this but I think this is a symptom of deeper problems that most people are not willing to fight for.

I oppose it for a specific reason: it is a law based on probability. Some group came up with statistics that say if you talk on your cell phone while driving you are X% more likely to get in a car accident. I neither dispute nor condone the results of the study itself. I dispute the right of our government to make any law based on probability, the cell phone is just the more recent example.

One hot topic lately is racial profiling. Many people dispute racial profiling. "How can our government say that, just because I am [insert race here], I am more likely to be a [terrorist/murderer/etc]?"

The facts don't lie: certain demographics are more likely to commit certain acts of crime. Should we be preemptive and arrest/search/harass those people because of their biological characteristics? Most [intelligent] people would say no.

So why are probabilities okay with a cell phone? Only because biology (race, gender, etc) is not involved? When did our government get into the business of punishing a probability and not actual crime that infringes on the rights of others?

Newsflash: there's nothing new happening here. Do you know what the most popular probability crime is? If you guessed DUI you are the winner.

I know this is where I'm going to lose most people because many of us know someone who would be alive today if it weren't for a drunk driver. But this is exactly how the government gained the power in the first place - they preyed on the fears of the public: If we allow drunk people to drive, people will die. We know this and so we allow ourselves to be pulled over and subjected to the humiliation of street tests, breathalyzers and other testing to prove that we are low risk. But what about other high-probability risks? What about the elderly, hearing-impaired, sleepy, sore, angry, etc? Many of these conditions are at least as dangerous as having a BAC greater than .08.

I'm not saying that drunk driving is intelligent, safe or morally okay. What I am saying is that government (if it has any power at all) should only have the power to punish actions that infringe upon the freedoms and rights of others.

This is an argument of principal. It applies to everything from driving laws to gun laws. America needs punishments for crimes that infringe on the rights of the public. America needs personal accountability. America does not need to be taxed heavily for a nanny service.

Whether you agree with me or not, I urge you to think about the laws you live under. Every law passed has overhead, an increase in cost for enforcement, court cases and potentially imprisonment. When you vote, remember that every law passed is another dime to the babysitter.

EDIT: Comments welcome...curious about your thoughts.

Jet Engines and Severed Heads

Today, after a long hiatus from blogdumb, I present to you two variations of the jet ninja. This specimen of ninja deadliness is particularly hard to find in it's natural habitat. Mostly because when you're trying to find it, it is stalking you for a swift and violent kill. Fortunately for you, I can sketch motion that cameras can't even catch: these two jet ninjas are but one example (are but two examples?).

You can identify a jet ninja by the loud roar of the engine. Unfortunately, since they always travel faster than the speed of sound, the final identification will be up to your severed head. The only person that has ever faced a jet ninja and survived is, of course, Chuck Norris. But even he lost a piece of his beard.

Average Joebot

I mentioned in a previous post how drawing a humanoid robot, for me, usually represents a sort of "average joe" or humankind as a whole. It's a little deep so I don't really expect you to get it.

Conversely, drawing an average Joe always represents the plight of the robot. Humans have always built robots to work. They make cars, vacuum our floors/haul cats, kill/spy on stuff and generally do our bidding, regardless of how repetitive and boring it is.

These careful illustrations represent these robots. I hope that by drawing them as a human face you can appreciate their contributions to our society. Perhaps by showing our appreciation, even this small bit, we can convince them to preserve a few of us when they finally rise up. Until that day, you can appreciate these Average Joebots.

Powerguy and the Slope Intercept Form

This piece is a chilling diatribe on the struggle of good against evil, rendered in four-part harmony with subtitles for the hearing impaired. If you carefully examine Powerguy's face, you will see all of the emotions of humanity, etched in his features and fed into the power of his attack. The elongated body shape translates the desperation and passion into line art in two-dimensions: X and Y. You can find Y rather easily if you have X, the slope (M) and the Y intercept (B) with the equation Y = MX + B. This simple slope-intercept form describes a line and art is made of lines.

Superheroes

These are some characters that I draw somewhat frequently. I waited awhile to post them because I was afraid that if I started right off with this cast of characters, the sheer awesomeness would drive readers away. As it is, by posting a chunk of the cast of characters at the top of this post I violated Awesomeness limits in three states.

Multi is a sort of tortured soul. Her super power is ghost-like facets of her personality that assist her. She's mostly bad but not necessarily because she intends to be. She had a rough childhood and you should give her a break.

Powerguy is the superhero's superhero (like a man's man but on a mutant level). He basically trained Superman, Spiderman and a lot of others. Powerguy is the good guy. He mostly keeps a low profile, usually appearing only now and then in the margins of notebooks and meeting agendas to fight Darkscary. Which brings us to the third character.

If you don't largely understand Darkscary by the picture and his name you should probably take an IQ test and maybe don't reproduce. He's dark. He's scary and he wears a powerful robotic suit. He's the bad guy.

Lobotomy is neither good or evil. He's really clueless and really lucky. He's a sort of wildcard. You could be fighting a dude and right as he tosses you in front of a freight train the train derails, missing you by a fraction. Or maybe the train hits you but a fragment of your exploding body embeds itself in your enemy's skull and he dies too. It's a tough call. So, nobody really wants him on their side but they don't really want the enemy to have him either. This character was not my idea, I credit a mysterious force called the "Jackotron".

The last guy is the mandatory genius professor. This bores me. Darkscary might kill him and ressurect him as an evil robot. That would be more interesting. And I could draw more robots. I like to draw robots.