@Zetetic11235,
Zetetic11235;81661 wrote:Your stance is incoherent here. Drinking and Driving and Drinking and Flying both transcend individual liberty, so that is not a cogent justification for disallowing a ban of either.
Both actions have definite and likely consequences that interfere with the life and liberty of other individuals.
A consequence cannot both be definite and likely. If it can be proven that flying drunk will, in all cases, cause harm to an individual or to the property of an individual, in the same way (with regard to causality) that pointing a gun at someone's head and firing will cause harm, then flying drunk should be a crime. An action which is directly causal of harm, i.e. action which cannot but cause harm, are as criminal as the harm itself. However, flying drunk is not directly causal of harm: i.e. harm does not result from each instance of flyinf drunk without exception. In fact, it's not even very likely, let alone the rule.
If we decide that any action that can potentially (i.e. through circuitous and not direct causation) result in harm to person or property should be prohibited, then we have eliminated any barrier to infinite state interference. What activity could not, by some logic, be claimed to pose a potential threat to someone or someone's property? Smoking in one's own home might cause a fire next door. Rollerskating could cause a traffic accident. Eating a steak could build muscle which later would be critical in a physical assault. You see the point I'm sure. If we abandon the strict standard of clear, direct and demonstrable causation (aiming a gun at someone and firing e.g.) for the abstract standard if potential harm, we in practice eliminate all standards and ackowledge that the state has a right to unlimited interference in all aspects of life in order to prevent this or that problem. For a particularly distopic, but very possible (given recent history) scenario for how this could run amok, think about eugenics. Might it be reasonable to prevent the birth of certain people if the progenitors of those people are shown to have a genetic predilection for violence? Sure, no crime has been commited by the unborn (or unconcieved, in the case of sterilization) person, but his very biology presents a potential threat that can safely be banned; so his existance is banned.
Quote:If an action puts another person in severe danger, how does one justify its legality through individual liberty?
Again, that depends on what you mean by 'severe danger.' My idea of individual liberty is, in simple terms, that every person should have the right to do whatever they like, so long as that action does not
directly harm another person. Potential harm is not of the same kind as actual harm; no people suffer from potential harm. No one sits in the hospital due to the potential harm they suffered in a mugging. No one declares bankrupcty because they were potentially harmed by a con-man. The right of an individual to be free from being harmed by another individual who is free to do what he likes, excepting actions which harm others, is not violated by an act of potential harm. In any case where someone identifies a potential harm, such as flying drunk, and there then accurs an actual harm, the person responsible for that actual harm should be held accountable for that actual harm. There is no need to criminalize actions which are associated with actual harm, but which do not themselves cause actual harm or lead direcly and invariably to actual harm.
More specifically with regard to air travel; a person who voluntarily enters into a contract for service (air transport) has accepted the terms of that contract. If the terms for airfare include the presence of a sober, competent pilot, and such is not forthcoming, then that person can sue the other party for violation of contractual obligations. If actual harm results from this failure on the part of the airline, the passenger can sue in civil court for harms done, or press criminal charges against the party which caused the harm. What he, the person who voluntary enters into a contract for air travel, does not have a right to do is 1) use the state to force the other party (the airline) to change the terms of the contract such that, e.g. pilots are tested before flight (if they don't like the contract, they are free not to enter into it), or 2) use the brute force of the police directly to punish a pilot, who has done him no harm, for doing something that the passenger supposes might have led to harm. An eye for fear of losing an eye? That is injustice and, as noted already, sets a very dangerous precedent for the expansion of state power into the regulation of private habits and issues.
Quote:Drinking might be perfectly fine, so might be any sort of isolated intoxication, but once a person has put others at risk he has stepped beyond the bounds of individual liberty and must be restricted. Any such restriction would be just.
I believe I've already dealt with this. An individual does not have the right to be free from the risk of harm, but rather to be free from harm itself.
Quote:I would also say that liability can be shifted back to the airline if it is mandatory that they test each pilot before they board, so that any resultant loss of life or limb due to the transgression of the pilot falls back on them.
Or, if the government did nothing, the airlines which failed to test pilots could be held liable in civil court when the inevitable class action suit arrived in the wake of a crash. They would be shredded financially and the others would soon learn from their example and reform, or soon go bankrupt.
Quote:Furthermore; a similar principal goes for the guy waving a hand grenade. Hazardous action, henceforth referring to actions that endanger others unwillingly or unwittingly, should not be tolerated and cannot be justified by means of individual liberty.
Again, the same. Potential harm is not actual harm. An individual has no right to be free form potential harm and anything could be be defined as potentil harm: i.e. everything could be banned or regulated. This is not a world I want to live in, it's not a just world, not a free world.
