August 20, 2007
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13,470 Drinking and Driving Deaths
Here is the link: Link
Why do we get so bent out of shape on the deaths of troops in Iraq
When we have over 13,000 dying in drinking and driving accidents every year?
Here is the link: Link
Why do we get so bent out of shape on the deaths of troops in Iraq
When we have over 13,000 dying in drinking and driving accidents every year?
Comments (97)
because we can prevent the drinking and driving accidents more
who knows.
fuck! she beat me.
*nudge*
maybe because accidents are individuals’ faults, while the soldiers’ deaths is due to the population decing who would control the gov’t, and therefore the population’s fault
Because we have our heads planted in a dark and smelly place
Because we’re idiots and all we care about is what we care about. Not what you or anybody else cares about! Who am I to care about what you care about? How offensive would THAT be!
both are wrong..
death is never good, whatever stats seem bigger or smaller
Daniel (doubledb)
Good point. I think it’s because people are more accepting, in a way, of drinking and driving than they are of the war. It’s easier to protest something that you are completely against than something you may possibly do yourself.
-shrugs-
priorities, priorities..
Media bias whips the ignorant mob into a frenzy.
I think we’ve come to accept deaths via drinking and driving as a social issue that we can improve, albeit never completely end. That’s why we have such strict laws regarding it. But the nation has not accepted this war, as it has many previous wars and the other consequences/issues of society (such as drunk driving). Since we choose not to accept this war, we cannot accept the consequences of it.
Drunk driving is so preventable.
Iraq is far away and it’s something the common people really can’t do anything about right now. Meanwhile, drinking and driving is something right here that we can do something about in the here and now. If we spoke out against drinking and driving, we might actually be obligated to do something. And it’s so much easier to be a critic than an reformer.
Because no one cares about stupid people.
both are wrong..
death is never good, whatever stats seem bigger or smaller
Daniel (doubledb)
excellently put, doubledb.
Because booze is awesome.
Maybe because drunk driving accidents can’t be blamed on Bush. It is much easier to blame a politician than take personal responsibility. War is a political decision. Drunk driving is a personal decision.
Sensationalist nature of war? Media can make a better story out of it and get people more emotional?
I get “bent out of shape” over both, so I don’t know…
We do a ton to fight “the war against drunk driving.” Hell, talk to the insanely humorous Illinois cops who were ropped into doing a cheesey television PSA on it.
Iraq is like taking all the drunk drivers in the US, putting them on the road, and then throwing in some innocent construction workers who are just trying to do their jobs. Then, we lie to the dying construction workers and tell them that it is necessary to fix the roads when it really didnt need to be fixed in the first place.
Dan…the reason is that we are stupid people
because one is trying to be stopped….i hear DUI things constantly….
“Since we choose not to accept this war, we cannot accept the consequences of it.”
Exactly.
Maybe because we feel guilty for, at first, being so for this war, and then all of a sudden being completely against it. So we feel more guilty about their deaths than people who choose to do stupid things.
♥
Because we can blame all our frustrations on ONE person in the case of the troops, or one political party, with which to bitch about, but drinking and driving deaths?
Those are individual choices. We can’t really bitch about that.
It’s a load of bull in one sense, the outrage.
How about all the dead each monsoon season in India?
How could human life have so little value in India that people die each year?
HOW DAMMIT?
You’re all monkeys. So am I.
because DUIs are an individual’s choice. the troops were sent to iraq for a war that’s absolutely ridiculous. they had no choice in their deaths.
AMEN!
Because a lot of the time, it’s people we know here that kill us. We do the stupid shit by drinking and driving.
The troops were sent there and are killed by people who don’t want them there.
Because people would rather make a fuss about something happening far away that they can’t do much about rather than deal with the problems happening in their own backyard. What can I say? That’s people.
DUIs piss me off because the number of fatalities are too high. And I had 2 friends die in alcohol related accidents when I was in HS.
I am not so upset about Iraq. We shouldn’t be over there anymore, but hey –its the job they signed up for.
The death tolls are both tragic. But the DUIs are more so.
Being killed by a drunk driver, or dying in wreck if the driver of the wrecked vehicle was drunk, is blame on an individual basis. We don’t have one person, or one set of people, to point a finger at and say “Those boys died because of the lies you told the American people” or “This is somehow your fault!” It is a fairly anonymous crime.
Plenty of people die from personal violence each year, too. Including many civilians.
Next you’ll be asking why we get bent out of shape over 3000+ U.S. deaths in Iraq when there were 58,000+ killed in Vietnam, 36,000+ killed in Korea, 100,000+ killed in WWI, and 400,000+ killed in WWII.
Why are some of us more concerned about war deaths than drunk driving deaths? That’s actually a good question.
I think it might be easier to lay blame for the war deaths. We have Bush, Cheney, and their little minions to blame, and we see them on the news every night. Occasionally, we even see foreign ‘extremists’ waving guns and screaming “Death to America”. But the face of drunk driving is harder to pin down. Sure, we see the the perpetrators every once in a while, but we don’t see the same individuals night after night, year after year. And when we do see them…they look a lot like us. We don’t like to admit that someone like us could do something like that.
Also, the war is also a bigger story — one that many people can share in. We can all (with some exceptions) turn on the same evening news broadcast and see the same images of death and destruction. The death of a loved one at the hands of a drunk driver might make your local news, but someone on the other side of the country probably won’t hear about it.
probably because one is at the fate of our own hands (controllable) while there’s usually more outrage when our fate is in anothers’ hands (not controllable). just like we cry out when a child is beaten vs. a man, it’s the powerless vs having choice.
It is all about the loudmouths who constantly bitch about their “rights.” We want rights at the expense of others. We could end drunk driving if some lawmakers would put on a pair of balls and take real action. Same goes for a lot of issues, but we let the same groups of the same people continue to victimize the victims, and bail out the criminals. How many people drive away from every bar in every city every weekend and no one does a thing about it? I have scooped up the brains, and uncrumpled the cars to extricate some twisted up dead body. outta sight, outta mind. that’s why the war has raised such a stink. someone dared to take action and the loudmouths cant stand it. dave out
People won’t admit that drinking is a problem!
we should be asking about how many babys die or are born deformed form depleted uranium
Because alcohol is an inanimate object. (so are cars, except when they’re driving!)
Isn’t that strange, how so many inanimate objects. . move?
Well they’re both just wasted lives.
Great point.
Because Americans get so goddamn picky over who dies and who lives. If it’s a soldier than mother fucker he better have died for a reason I give a shit about.
But you, fuck you. You died from a drunk driver.
And you, fuck you, it’s your fault for not being born an american.
And aids, cancer and other disesed people. Fuck off!! Get out of that hospital bed and contribute, then maybe we’ll give a damn if you die or not.
lol… u r funny…
AMEN!!!!!
…Not that the deaths in Iraq aren’t important. They are.
But so are the DUI deaths.
because it’s much more fun to point the blame at someone besides ourselves
hey, did that photo give names of who those soldiers are? the guy straddling his junk looks like a friend i know from college
No one cares about drunks.
Because “our society is a schizophrenic society” (Martin Luther King quote)
Drinking and driving is A CHOICE. Wether you just need to get home from the bar or leave home to get more booze. How do I know this? My younger sister is at this moment in jail due to having 5 count um 5 DWI’s the first in 1990 but hey! she didn’t takecare of it till 1994. In 2006 she got one in August, one in Oct, one in Jan 2007 and the one that FINALLY woke up the law was on April 12th when she took my car, left me on the highway at 10:30 pm and drove off in my car while I was talking to a hi way patrol about getting the keys out a a friends van to take them to his dad. She just got into the drivers seat and off she goes. Two am the sheriff calls me and tells me they have my car and my sister. She is in jail. Where she is today only because I let the entire family know that if they bond her out again they better have a place for her to stay.
my car? $265.00 for the tow and $2999.86 for the repairs. If she is sorry I have never heard it.
We are not monkeys we are human beings, but many of us are ignorant. We cannot control hurricanes, tornados, etc but we should be able to control ourselves.
This is my rant for the day.I HATE DRUNKS WHO DRIVE AND DRUNKS WHO REFUSE TO TAKE A BATH BECAUSE THAT WOULD INTERFER WITH THEIR DRINKING.
I have no idea, perhaps it’s because there are so many people drink and drive and don’t want the fingers pointed at them with the stats….everyone knows it’s wrong yet so many still do it…there is no honour there, but with the soldiers they are there to do a duty to their country and it is about honour
War is the answer if done correctly. Think about that one for a moment.
If we just go in and kill everybody around us…they will be giving up like the Japs did to us.(They never bother us since) DUHHHH! Just keep hitting them until they just give up. If they dont…we will just kill more of the problem until the problem isnt there anymore. That how wars was fought for thousand of years and it WORKS!! It is those STUPID liberals that think they got ALL the answers! They dont have a clue!
Drunk drivers are terrorists!
Because going to war is e something we’ve romanticized and rationalized to be the honorable and decent thing to do. Somewhere out there is this idea that only the bad guys die in war so when the young and innocent die it makes it so much worse. Stupid people drink and drive therefore I think that we care less even when the young and innocent die. If they are young and innocent then we tend to blame their parents but we don’t make as much of a big deal because of the whole they’ve just gone through a tragedy….it’s just hard to wrap your head around it when pretty much they’re the same set of actions, a choice that leads to death of some kind
Thank you for pointing that out Dan.
Hey how many ABORTIONS each year do we have? How about THIRTY FIVE MILLION since 1973…………We should mourn every death, whether from combat, drinking and driving or abortion. Remember “It’s A Child, Not A Choice”
Because of beer?
Soldiers are trained to kill alot of people. Drunk drivers drink and drive to kill themselves. Kill a soldier, and it makes it harder to kill alot more nameless and faceless people because that one soldier means two others have to cover his ass.
’nuff said….
The men who serve in our Armed Forces volunteered to serve and protect, knowing the dangers.
People who drink and drive, know the dangers, but it is also illegal. It’s not usually themselves they kill but someone else. I get much more bent out of shape over drinking and driving than for brave soldiers who give their life to protect our freedoms.
It puts things in perspective doesn’t it. We need to be doing more to prevent alcohol and drug related deaths.
we should be upset about the drinking and driving, outraged in fact, but to contrast with the war, umm dont have time, but its different, more collective thing there.
because of what it stands for………
we have the freedom in the first place to
have over 13,000 dying in drinking and driving accidents every year……
and as i said before on your photo questioning; the number of those that die in Iraq is nothing to those that have died in wars according to own historical accounts of war. how many millions and million of our armed forces died in our past wars or in WW2 alone??
Because the war is government sanctioned, and people are pissed that it is.
Drunk driving is your own fault. No one perpetuates it.
Sure, it’s your choice to go into the armed forces.
And I personally think you’re stupid for enrolling in a time of war.
But the gov’t just perpetuates this violence and treats the soldiers like machines.
Like they don’t have lives.
Like they’re inhuman.
Because we have a President that lies and kills 3700+ troops and there’s nothing we can do about it. Cons will label us as “unamerican” for not supporting a war that doesn’t solve anything. Drunk driving is at the expense of bad decisions and selfishness of the retard who decided to drive when they acknowledged the possible danger. It’s their fault.
All death is bad…and we should care about everyone.
Sadly, the reason people care about the death toll for soldiers fighting this war isn’t for the sake of the soldiers. They just want to find another excuse to blame Bush. It’s just another political game, fueled by the liberal media. And that’s why you don’t hear about the other, much higher death tolls. Like drunk driving crashes and car accidents. Those can’t be blamed on the president.
becuase its harder to blame bush for drunk driving.
Because the Iraq War is in the news more often than car accidents are?
Just a thought.
Because people dying in Iraq do so in service of our country, people who kill themselves drinking do so out of their own stupidity and therefore evoke less sympathy, exceptions being those killed by drunk drivers.
Because this is a very unpopular war, more unpopular the longer it drags out, and more dead the longer it goes on. People might have a little more closer if their loved ones and fellow countrymen were dying for something that they themselves believed in, not just the President and the handful of conservatives who haven’t been persuaded yet.
What’s the fucking point of this log? To insinuate that people have no business getting “bent out of shape” over soldiers dying because more people die in other ways?
Jesus Christ you’re really stupid sometimes.
Hmm…that’s a good point.
cuz one costs us as tax payers hundreds of billions and the other just costs a few cars and ambulances
ryc: I envy people like you that don’t overthink like I do…
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million men — that is statistics” or so Stalin says…
Neither one is more important or any more tragic than the other-but the spotlight sure makes it seem that way.
these two can not be compared, and you should be ashamed you even tried
They’re both preventable.
We should be upset about both.
Sorry Dan … but this is a rather lame comparison. Ya know … like apples and oranges. Seems a pity to put our brave troops in the same discussion as those who CHOOSE to drink and then get behind the wheel of a car. Ya really missed the mark on this one.
Uh, has anyone studied the history of war? We still have not even reached the death toll of D-Day… I support the troops, even in their choice to die for others. Iraq has minimal US casualties of war given the fact we are at war. What about the news showing the good they actually do rather than the fact that people die every day no matter what the occupation?
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD class=mainarttblhed>Worst Single-Day American Bloodsheds
<TR>
<TD>
<TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=1 border=0>
<TBODY>
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>Event
<TD>Place
<TD>Date
<TD>Dead
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>Antietam
<TD>Maryland
<TD>Sept. 17, 1862
<TD>23,000
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>D-Day
<TD>Normandy
<TD>June 6, 1944
<TD>6,603
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>Galveston Hurricane
<TD>Texas
<TD>Sept. 8, 1900
<TD>6,000
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>San Francisco Earthquake
<TD>California
<TD>April 18, 1906
<TD>3,000
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>Pearl Harbor
<TD>Hawaii
<TD>Dec. 7, 1941
<TD>2,403
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>Johnstown Flood
<TD>Pennsylvania
<TD>May 31, 1889
<TD>2,200
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>General Slocum Boat Fire
<TD>New York
<TD>June 15, 1904
<TD>1,000
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>Great Chicago Fire
<TD>Illinois
<TD>Oct. 9, 1871
<TD>300
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>Marine Barracks Bombing
<TD>Lebanon
<TD>Oct. 23, 1983
<TD>241
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>TWA Flight 800
<TD>Long Island Sound
<TD>July 17, 1996
<TD>230
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>Oklahoma City Bombing
<TD>Oklahoma
<TD>April 19, 1995
<TD>168
<TR bgColor=#cccccc>
<TD>Triangle Factory Fire
<TD>New York
<TD>March 25, 1911
<TD>146
<TR bgColor=#eeeeee>
<TD>Bunker Hill
<TD>Massachusetts
<TD>June 17, 1775
<TD>140
http://www.forbes.com/2001/09/12/0912casualties.html
Ok, that didn’t work… D-Day, 6,603, on the first day. An estimate of 48,000 total troops died in the 3 day battle. I don’t devalue life, but I don’t devalue the efforts of their death either.
I still don’t get why people get bent out of shape. I mean it’s horrible but they CHOSE to fight.
I would NEVER volunteer to fight in a war. Period.
Alcohol is not an “acceptable drug.” In Arizona, if you kill someone while driving drunk, you go to prison. I sure can’t answer your question, Dan! Beats the hell out of me!
The war makes me feel drunk… and not in a good way; more like when you have mixed too many kinds of liquor and you get the spins, vomiting, etc…
Because fighting a war has a noble cause behind it. Those fighting are protecting the country. Drunk drivers are silly people trying to have a good time, but making poor choices that end up hurthing them and others.
When you hear of a drunk driving accident you think, “what a fool!” When you hear of soldier deaths you think, “he sacrificed himself for the betterment of America!”
We get “bent out of shape” because these men and women are fighting and dying for our freedoms, because of duty. It is much more than being bent out of shape. It is a tragic thing.
This does not make deaths that occur over here any less tragic. I have friends who have lost loved ones in such accidents – it’s awful. They are different circumstances, but I don’t think anyone who is mourning the deaths of those in the war are taking drinking and driving accidents lightly.
I think the key word is “accident”. War is intentional. A soldier enters into it with full knowledge that he may not reurn home. One does not enter their vehicle with that sort of prediction–we fully expect to return home. Perhaps the key word is actually “intention”?
Bent out of shape? Are you kidding? Who’s to say I’m not equally concerned about both situations?
Unecessary death is just that; the form in which it occurs doesn’t matter.
“It’s a load of bull in one sense, the outrage.
How about all the dead each monsoon season in India?
How could human life have so little value in India that people die each year?
HOW DAMMIT?
You’re all monkeys. So am I.”
Heheh, Monkeys. I love it.
Because our President didn’t lead us into drinking and driving.
both are wrong..
death is never good, whatever stats seem bigger or smaller
Daniel (doubledb)
Amen.
People like to hear themselves bitch.
maybe because drinking, driving & dying is one’s own fault… and others view the death of a soldier to be unfair.. since they’re doing what is ‘right’.. to fight for peace, etc. .. u cant fight anything when u drink and drive but your low self-esteem!!! =O
and of course.. if they’re not to blame.. who is?
someone’s gonna take the blame.
because we think, “why complain about something we can actually fix?” or better yet “why fix something we can actually fix?”
we’re americans.
honestly, i think that we should make the punishments for dui/dwi a lot A LOT stricter than they are.
Believe me, the drunk driving deaths bother me. There was free taxi service,but those cops started following the cars to parties and arresting kids so that was that. We lost two students to drunk driving last year, it’s definately a big issue in suburbia.
i don’t think everyone quite understands.
The president did not decide to send thousands of drunks driving.
He did decide to send troops into hazzardous areas.
Deaths from drunk drivers are preventable in the long term through much hard work and public education, but the deaths in iraq would have been much easier to prevent; are all happening because of one man’s bad decision.
Maybe, because we think of the soldiers more as a hero dying to protect the US. Meanwhile, drunk drivers die for stupid reasons.
You make an excellent point. Some might say that the reason is because we can blame politicians for the deaths in Iraq while the other is the consequence of a personal choice, but that really isn’t the case. I have heard from several sources that when an accident involving drinking occurs the sober victims are much more likely to be killed than the drunk driver! Drunk driving is murder; even if no one is killed it is attempted murder and in my book attempting a crime and committing a crime should be treated as the same thing. Those who drink and drive are just as bad as corrupt politicians who send innocent, dutiful troops into harm’s way for no reason.
I recently asked the same question on my Xanga, except slightly different.
In order to compare the statistics with cars and airplanes, two airplanes would need to crash everyday, for an entire year to match the same number as drunk driving accidents.
We demand investigations and changes to be made when one airplane crashes because it should be preventable, so the preventable thing doesn’t universally apply.
Cuz a soldier dying sells better. Tugs at the strings of our national heart. This such n such up n coming youngun could b knee deep in poon, but he died 4 u… Reminds me of d churchs pitch, for some reason.
Nice. Zach was just talking about this yesterday.
dang hard question
probably b/c people are so against this war, but so many people like to drink. drinking and driving deaths are unintentional, starting this war was intentional. idk you could answer this a lot of different ways.
Most of the soldiers didn’t have a choice about going to Iraq or not. They were sent, and do what they’re told. People have a choice about being stupid enough to drink and drive.
Also, our country is doing all sorts of things to try and stop drunk driving; what are we doing to stop this war? Nothing. I’m not talking about peace rallies, I’m talking about contacting the government officials who represent you, and letting them know that the people they represent don’t want it.
Try to make a difference here, people! You do have a voice, so stand up and say something!
Hm, sorry about that. Got a little off-topic there.
Because in most cases the soldiers signed up and knew what they were getting into. They knew that there was a chance they would die.
The victims of drunk drivers never signed up for anything.