Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Uh, yeah, ok, did you work in the basement for that company in "Office Space" and do you like to set fires? You seem a little unstable. You have run away with what I have said and turned it into "the sky is falling."

Somehow we got from fines for crimes after convicted (you can still go to court) to death automatically and "shouldnt even have courts."

HAHAHAHA, yeah, ok.

If you want to actually debate the point then we can do that, but chicken little style exagerration aint helping anything.

Back to the original point, fine proportionate to income, GREAT idea. you made a few points in your first sentences, after that paragraph you got lost in the hysteria and hype of the "slippery slope" argument which is totally crap (in this context and every other where it is used, its just a convenient cop out to actually debating the points.)

1. "dude? How does the income someone makes affect the rightness/wrongness of their action?"

It doesnt. Irrelevant to the point. How does making the fine proportionate to income affect the "rightness/wrongness", there is no correlation. Yes the fine is related to the offense, ie the formula is different for speeding than it is for insider trading, etc, but its the ratio of crime to fine percentage that matters there, not the income. Then when you factor in the income it makes the fines FAIR regardless of income. The rightnesswrongness has nothing to do with the income part.

2. "If someone is wrong, then they should pay the price - the same price as anyone else should pay. What if the situation were reversed?"

If someone is wrong then they should pay the price, the SAME price. That is EXACTLY the POINT, THANK YOU. 100 bucks to a millionaire is NOT the same as 100 bucks to a thousandaire. It should however be the SAME. The factoring in of the income accomplishes this. As to "what if the situation were reversed", that I dont understand, if it were reveresed, and a poor person was going over 15km over the limit then they should pay the SAME fine proportionate to income same amount.

3. "What if a more plutocratic government were in place? They could then pass a law saying that since richer people pay more taxes, then they shouldn't have to pay higher speeding fines because they pay for the roads in the first place."

Sorta off the point here, but related enough to address. This goes to taxes and modifying the formula, not whether or not there should be a formula. As far as taxes go, I think our system sucks, I think all people are taxed far too much and that government does a terrible job of managing money. I think it should be a flat sales tax, no income tax at all. But as to this situation, taxes are a good example of how income proportionately matters. Income taxes are based on your percentages that vary based on your income. Same principle. Should rich people get a break because they paid more to build the roads, no, I dont think they should pay "more" in the first place. I think taxes should be a single, simplified flat rate percentage. Throw out all the tax code and start over, sales tax or not, but I really like the national sales tax idea.

The point here is, what is the "SAME", is it the same dollar amount or the same percentage. I understand that you think it should mean the same dollar amount, I disagree. I disagree because that is just not the same, we use these percentages all over society when calculating taxes, loans, finiancial aid, grants, etc, there is legal ground that income matters in ration to dollar amounts. It should be the same for fines.

1. fairness - life aint fair, by my 2 cents says speeding tickets should be more fair. making them proportionate to income IMHO makes them more fair. lets not throw out everything on the "life aint fair" wisdom.

2. - work harder, college, its my money - YES, exactly right, I agree and it pisses me off when taxes, etc are put more on the rich because they have more. seems contradictory to my speeding thing, not really, its not the same thing. once you have committed a crime, and been convicted then the penalty should be fair. economic penalties are not fair unless they are proportionate. after all its supposed to be a PENALTY, its supposed to be punitive and prevent future similar crimes. it is your money, you went to college, you should get more of it if you work harder, etc, that applies to taxes, etc, but not once a crime has been committed. then you shouldnt have a lesser penalty just because you have more. dont want to give up your money, DONT SPEED.

the whole point of the poportionate income is again to make the FINES fair. the best way to do that is to take into account "ok, so how much should this hurt." the hurt is to make it matter to people and the whole point of the fine is to prevent it from happening again. if speeding fines were proportionate to income you would get to keep your damn money, you would just have to slow down, and thats the objective here.

where did you go to college anyway, go get THAT money back, you got ripped off!!!!

we have some different views , well except that it is agreed that sally struthers is a bitch (i still havent gotten a call back either.)

dont get me started on jail. i dont understand it. its not rehabilitative, yet we give people 8 life sentences. we tell them, your never getting out, and we pay to keep them alive and furnish them with cable tv. lets not go to the prison thing. we are talking about fines, prison is not a fine, thats different. prison is meant to be punitive in its own way, our judicial and prison system is a mess and not very effective, but the original point was punitive. now its a damn jobs program for people convicted of murder multiple times. anyway.

i think fines for traffic violations are punitive. i dont think they are just for local revenue generation. i agree that this probably gets abused, and probably should be addressed (such as all fines dont go to local municipality but instead go to state or federal fund that is put back into roads, transportation, etc, that aint perfect i know ,just something different than sherrif jeds back pocket.)

in sum, i think fines are punitive and are a deterrent. i think fines should be proportionate to income in order to make them an equal punitive measure for all.

we need to take personal responsibility, in ALL areas, MUCH more seriously than we do. I think that would fix a lot of our current problems. dont want a big fine, then dont speed, stop bitching about the fine, and who gets the money, and dont SPEED!

I gotta go with atrox on this one. As a person who lived on very little money for several years, I can tell you that if you get a $100 speeding ticket making $12k/year and can't make your rent because of it, that means a hell of a lot more that if you make $100k/year and get the same ticket. I think the idea of imposing a hardship of somewhat equal proportions on people for violations is certainly reasonable.