Hungarians Oppressed By North American Police

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I agree, but is being on a phone worse then all of the other things people do? That is where I have the problem. Is listening to talk radio (sports, politics, etc.) any less distracting then listening to someone on the phone? How about singing along to your favorite song? How about just talking to the passengers?

Studies that are showing that cellphones are a distraction aren't showing that we are already distracted anyway.

Texting while driving is just plain stupid. You have to be able to see where you are going. I don't think anyone will argue to ban things that involve you not looking where you are going.

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I decided to do a quick Google to see if there is any evidence that cellphone bans while driving is actually reducing the number of accidents. I'm not surprised at all that the first page appear to show that the bans have done nothing.

https://www.google.com/search?q=are...e7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=&oe=

 

And my response to that is show me the evidence that the bans are accomplishing anything. From what I saw so far the evidence is no.

I understand what you are saying, and I agree with the premise. Where I have a problem and obviously a lot of lawmakers do is that there may not be a correalation between the heightened distraction level and accidents.

 

Snook - These kind of laws may save YOUR life, or that of your children's. Don't be such a corporate suck-up. Show some fortitude.

 

You mistake the premise, it is very clearly not Orbán's doing. He is 99% innocent.

 

The odd thing is that I notice when I'm on a cell phone when driving*, I'm less attentive to what's going on around me than if I'm just talking to a person in the passenger seat. It's almost like I feel I need to pay more attention to my conversation when it's with someone on the phone rather than in person. Weird.

* of course, I mean that in the past tense. I'd never dream of talking on a cell phone now that its illegal. Nope, not me. **

** Actually, I don't do it very often at all. But that's mainly because nobody ever wants to talk to me.

 

Studies show that distractions in the car inhibit response times. The laws need to be in place to let people know it's a serious business. They may be ineffective, but I can't think of a better approach, and I'd rather an effort were made to keep people safe.

 

I'm kind of talking out of my butt here as I can't cite any studies or data, but I'm pretty sure that the distraction factor relates to number and types of distractions, with the largest cumulative values obviously being most dangerous. And I think this is determined largely by the regions of the brain occupied by the distractions. e.g. you can drive and not really think about driving and still be perfectly safe because region x which handles routine brain functions y and z is handling driving considerations as well. e.e.g. you don't think "there are 50 meters between me and the next car," you just know you are near or far, etc., and behave accordingly. Obviously it's not particularly distracting just to think consciously, as we all do that while driving.

But operating a second device (cell phone, hair brush, etc.) while driving takes up CPU power normally used for driving - subconsciously judging those 50 meters above, for example - leaving less available. Even just holding an object can require processing power, which might explain why it's distracting to talk on a cell phone but not directly to a passenger. Combine greater processing requirements like pushing little buttons while internally composing speech and not looking at the road and you've got very serious distractions.

Incidentally I've found through my own experience that the more memory-based and subconscious your driving is (and I don't mean sleeping at the wheel, lol), the less fundamentally distracted you are by things like cell phones. You will, for example, still show up at work while on the phone without consciously thinking "that's my exit."

/end ramble.

 

I get the irony (joke), but it's not funny. This has not been the first time someone doesn't know here who these "socialists" are in terms of Hungary. Of course, you can't be blamed, but then let me clear it for you.

Socialism and related parties (e.g. Tony Blair's party in the past) indeed have to do with ideology and principles (economic etc.) in the West. In Eastern/Central Europe, however, blood is tied to their hands. Socialists in Hungary are the ideological and political successors of the pre-1989 oppressing elite. Their highest ranking (nor lower-ranking) leaders were never prosecuted.

So when I'm talking against socialists, in 99% cases it isn't directed at socialists at the Western part of the world. When I say they must be defeated in Hungary, I am not talking against socialism as an ideology. I'm talking about people, and not all of them, but very many of them. (On a side note, the most recent Hungarian socialist government can hardly be called socialists: they implemented serious austerity measures against people, they supported multinational companies and banks etc.)

To be brief: socialists (communists) between 1945-1989 were our "nazi" regime. So when you're easy going about them, think about families whose fathers, sons etc. were taken away in black cars. It was a typical situation in Hungary and Czechoslovakia that your bell was ringing at 4 AM, and then they took someone from the family with a black car, and noone ever saw the arrested person again.

The world, unfortunately, doesn't seem to consider communist crimes as severe as nazi crimes. Because it just doesn't understand it, that is the biggest reason, probably.

The argument that the current Hungarian socialists aren't political and ideological successors of the pre-1989 villans is not true. As I said, most of them were never prosecuted, and those who don't have political positions now usually have economic positions (as wealthy owners of corporations, members of executive boards, owners of media realms). In a democratic country, you would think that the servants and leaders of the pre-1989 dictature would lose their wealth to a certain extent when the dictature ends (even if they get away with the criminal prosecution). So how is it possible they became USD millionaires? It's sad but true: it's not that their wealth was lost (taken) after 1989, it was multiplied instead! The reason: privatization. Discussing Eastern European and Hungarian privatization is beyond the scope of this topic. Just one feature of it: corruption, enormous corruption, and extreme amount of money.

Orbán may be a slight populist, he may be somewhat authoritarian, he may have problematic laws, but he is fighting against these people as much as he can. This is not a demagogy from his side: he proved it many times (he was getting hit by police in pre-1989 protests when he was young), and he keeps proving it (see the recent law which states that the current socialist party is responsible for the crimes of his political predecessor. Hell, if the socialist party inherited the financial and other assets (!) of its dictatoric predecessor, it must inherit the crimes too). (This law, however, doesn't create the option of prosecuting anyone.)

Does the Nazis have a (legal) political or ideological successor party in Germany?...

 

You're right, that joke was in bad taste. I apologize.

 

No problem. You couldn't know it. It just reminded me to write the above post.

Even though I'm quite sure Ragusa will drop in soon and state/imply with sarcasm that "socialists are true devils, as Baronius says" (as he did in the past) and then prove how wrong I'm. I wonder what his arguments will be.

Again (for everyone): I have no serious problem with socialism as a principle (even if I disagree with one or more of its points). The true problem is that the Hungarian Socialist Party and most socialists are not true socialists. They are usually greedy people, who prefer power in Hungary to everything else and at any cost (not that Fidesz doesn't prefer power -- everyone does -- but they have a vision, a democratic approach*, and well-built economic politics which already proved to be successful between 1998-2002). Of course, it is also true what I stated: 99% of "criticism" (attacks) on Hungary is not valid and is politically/ideologically motivated.

* I know we disagree in this, but let's agree to disagree. I don't doubt some laws may be problematic in Hungary now (and several of them might be changed in the future), what I always stated is that similar problematic laws exist in most of the EU countries (and noone cares about them), PLUS many of these problematic laws are needed temporarily (until the country consolidates and socialists are removed from high-ranking economic positions, plus these laws also give a better negotiation position with EU -- it's easier to negotiate when you start with "more" than if you started with "less").

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To return to the topic, I have a story from my cousin regarding American policemen. I'll tell it soon, probably.