A Stitch in Haste

I always get into trouble when I blog about DUI laws. It seems that suggesting any curbs on the right to hurl multi-ton slabs of metal down public roads at lethal speeds immediately revokes your libertarian credentials in some circles.

Richard Posner sums up the libertarian argument as succinctly as anyone I've ever seen:

Why punish the 99+ percent of drunk driving that is harmless?

Would that it were so simple.

Posner's counterpart, Gary Becker, has it exactly right:

But drunk drivers often kill or injure persons in other cars, or pedestrians, and in this way they impose what are called negative externalities on these innocent victims. This is the main case for public policies to reduce drunk driving and other externality-causing driving behavior.

Precisely. Most people, including most libertarians, gladly acknowledge in every other context the rights-based principle that reckless conduct is properly proscribable when such conduct generates clearly observable and quantifiable negative externalities. But apply that premise to the context of people's cars, and suddenly we live in a dystopic tyranny.

Here's the comment I left at Posner's post:

It seems to me that Judge Posner is arguing against the very propriety of "reckless endangerment" as a broad category of crime.

Whom do I harm if I let my large dog run around public spaces off leash? So why have leash laws at all and not just punish post facto dog bites instead?

Whom do I harm if I frolic down the street brandishing a loaded firearm? So why make that an offense unless and until the weapon accidentally goes off and harms person or property?

Whom do I harm if I drive drunk? Same analysis, same absurd result.

There is no "right to just two beers." Imposing harm, even probabilistic harm, on others is grounds to curtail the behavior that generates the harm. Particular laws may, either facially or as applied, be too harsh or too lenient, well-reasoned or ill-advised. But to dismiss any and all DUI laws outright and a priori crosses the line between libertarianism and anarchism.