comment: >
  
  When I'm about to have a difficult discussion with someone, I play and replay the imagined conversation in my head ad nauseum. When the conversation inevitably fails to play out according to my plan, it can be hard to adjust. It shouldn't be, but it is.
  I suspect OPs get overwhelmed, especially when it's their first time.
context: Attempted murder charges are lighter so that even if someone starts a murder, they always have an incentive to not finish the murder. It's not great, but it theoritically reduces harm to victims. >
  
  Wouldn't that just mean that if you followed through with the attempt and failed you'd get a different punishment than if you changed your mind part way through? >
  
  No, because "changing your mind partway through" is also a failed attempt at murder. >
  
  
  Scenario A: Individual drives under the influence and hits someone. Victim survives with either minor injuries or none at all.
  Scenario B: Individual drives under the influence and hits someone. Victim is critically injured or is killed in the accident.
  In each scenario, the same exact crime or act is committed yet the punishment for each scenario will differ greatly depending on the outcome or result.
  The offender in scenario A likely receives probation and is required to complete community service hours, among other things.
  The offender in scenario B likely spends over a decade in prison. 
  
  The wider population tends to think in consequentialist terms, which is why we have phrases like "victimless crime". The problem is that if society were to always punish drunk driving with a decade in prison, regardless of the outcome, it would be widely perceived as being disproportionate if there were only minor injuries or no victim at all, and it would make the justice system seem indifferent and unnecessarily cruel.
  One could say that by driving under the influence, drivers freely decide to take part in a "lottery" with potential consequences (severe punishment) that they would receive IF they got into severe enough accidents. Through this lottery, many drivers are lucky enough to get away scot-free (or with minor punishments for DUI only), while some will be punished for killing/injuring someone. That's the risk they took. They could have also chosen to not get drunk, or to get a taxi.
  It's in the same sense that when a heavy smoker gets lung cancer we tend to blame their smoking habits, even though there are also many examples of people who smoked the same number (or more) of cigarettes throughout their lives and never get any lung cancer, and there are lifelong non-smokers who get lung cancer. >
  
  This point is valuable.
  It's worth considering why laws exist. There's nothing inherently immoral about drunk driving, for example. The prohibitions exist because of the harm that impaired driving can cause, so it follows that the response to a crime should match the harm caused, not an arbitrary number. >
  
  Thanks. For some reason, it seems quite common for OPs in CMV to only be interested in engaging with those objections that they already anticipated.