This is for those who do not respond to reasonable requests or rational discussion. You have shown that you cannot be reasoned with. You have eliminated the possibility of any more discussion on this topic, so there will be none. In one last effort to reach you before law enforcement is forced to drive the point home to you, we offer message in the hope you will get it.
Boys;
Most of you - not all of you - are mere boys, or have the mentality of a boy and thus exhibit much of the typical mind set of an adolescent. Your arguments clearly bear that out. Having a typical adolescent mindset, you refuse to hear what you don't want to listen to, regardless of its value or accuracy. You normally try to find the least little crack (perceived or otherwise) in a statement and argue it to death just to be right, and miss the entire point in the process. You do this to your parents and to other authorities. (Those of you who carry this attribute into adulthood will have painful marriages and failed personal and professional relationships. At best, you will spawn yet another dysfunctional family for our society). You lash out with vitriol, vituperance, and vile invalidations because you feel you are being personally attacked or have been caught being wrong. To the clear-headed and intelligent, you look quite insecure when you do that.
We know why you lash out, and you need to realize that it isn't because you are a big man. You do whatever you think you can get by with, even when it's counterproductive, morally lacking, damaging to others, or just plain stupid. Some of you use humor to try and invalidate the facts presented to you. That is just the symptom of a mind that can't deal with the issue straight on, feels cornered, and wants to duck out with some peer approval born out of tacit consent. For you, we don't expect this page to mean a great deal until you've become men; not just in the physical sense, but in your minds and souls as well. But we can lay out the litany one more time, just to say it's been said. Perhaps some of you, on the crest of manhood, or with a greater flicker of intelligence, social conscience, or moral responsibility will find some value in it, or a reason to reflect on some of your behavior.
I'm certain that most of the idiot types have stopped reading this by now and are off ranting about what a pile this is. If you're still reading this, that is commendable, and you have something going for you. The next few paragraphs respond to the same tired comments we hear again and again and again from boom car boys. Every time these points are delivered, the author comes across as if he (and rarely she) is the very wise origination point for such Zen marksmanship.
We do not use up all of our free time creating Web sites and researching resources just to punish you or deprive you. The real reason we put our blood, sweat, and tears into this effort? Believe it or not, because the booming honestly causes serious complications for our lives. That may not be enough information for you, so please review the Problems link on the website. Some of you have picked a few of these apart (see paragraph of this letter) to try and invalidate them. One that comes to mind is the 1999 Census Bureau figures about the reason people move. No one said it was strictly from boom car noise. We didn't make that claim, but in the process of picking it apart to be right, the invalidator missed the whole point (see paragraph one of this letter). The point is that noise is an extreme irritant to people - enough so, that they move out of neighborhoods when it gets so bad. We can't expect boys to understand this because you have little relevant life experience, but the financial toll from such a move can be very undesirable, especially when property values in an area have gone down. Pay on a house for 20 years, then throw thousands of dollars out the window as you leave the place where your children were raised. It isn't fun, easy, or desirable, and it shouldn't have to happen to anyone. But it is. We have specific, first hand accounts, and we have documented the large role that boom cars have played in them.
No, we don't wish to take away your fun. Throw in a 7 Hz CD at 170 dB if you like, but do it where others don't have to hear or feel the sound waves. The trouble with this technology, is that there isn't many places you can do that. What many boom car operators do not realize (but can learn from reading almost any comprehensive text book on physiology and perhaps even psychology), is that when the loudness crosses 120 - 125 decibels, the brain of those inside the car begins releasing endorphins, which can make you feel pretty good. If you've heard of runner's high, we are talking about the same chemical. But those hearing the low frequency or infrasound thump at a distance are getting a good dose of adrenalin, which is neither pleasurable nor healthy. It causes harmful effects on the body, especially when released with the consistency caused by boom car incidents. Infrasound, waves produced at 20 Hz or below, can be extremely detrimental. Those waves don't stop at the soundproofing of your car, nor the walls of surrounding homes. They collide with and damage the very cells of our body and can cause severe health problems. The stress produced by the irritation of the booming alone can cause adverse reactions in recipients. We realize it is difficult to see the harm because nobody is hemorrhaging through the nose right on the spot. But, I'll tell you what -- take just a wee bit of arsenic. We doubt if you feel very much. Do it every day for a while and see what happens. That is a facetious suggestion. It would kill you, of course. We hope you are bright enough to see the point.
Kids - the 57 researchers who spent many years and millions of dollars researching low frequency noise were not out to take away your fun, either. They were determining whether or not that kind of noise was harmful to us. What they found was that Vibroacoustic disease was just as real and harmful as if someone had taken a baseball bat and smacked a victim in the face. Did you bother to read the study?
Try to realize that while you are driving through a neighborhood booming because you have been misinformed that this is your right, there is a veteran cringing on the floor from post-traumatic stress disorder he got from risking his life in a war to defend all our freedoms. Somewhere else is a very tired young mother trying to put her child down for a nap, a day sleeper, a home-office worker, a student, Joe Average who has had a hard day and just needs to relax -- like all of us. All of these people have a right to peace in their own homes and you are depriving them of it.
The fact is that boom cars are destroying our quality of life and our health, and taking away our right to peace. We are defending ourselves from that. It bothers us enough that we are spending great amounts of energy and time in our efforts. We would much rather be doing any number of productive activities. We have tried talking to you face to face. What we get is defensiveness, the middle finger, higher volumes, threats, burn outs, sneers, and vulgarities. When reason and civility fail to reach you, we have to take other means. Those means now exclude discussions beyond such as this.
Being the reasonable individuals you are, we are telling you now that the noise is hurting us and making our lives hell on Earth. Knowing that, now, are you willing to stop? Reasonable people would, knowing what they now know. Sociopaths and morons would not.
Apart from most of you, there are the thugs and gangstas out there booming away too. Screw 'em. They're too stupid to know what logic or freedom are. We left them back at the second paragraph. Can't reason with 'em. They're the bad apples that are largely ruining things for everyone. They are the reason we need laws, and the law will deal with them.
Then there are those of you out there who are the exception to every rule and to every scenario. You are intelligent. You are "car audio enthusiasts" (euphemism for boom car extremists), you keep the volume down at "reasonable hours" and resent any implication that you are doing anything wrong. Maybe you only participate in dB drags. Pardon us for having a bad taste in our mouths for anyone who promotes the purchase or use of boom car equipment, but the booming of your peers has had a real, predictable, and substantial effect on our tolerance for low frequency noise. If you're not playing it so others hear it (or feel it), the law can't touch you. Incidentally, there is no acceptable time at which to ruin people's peace, quiet, or health. When you are able to grasp what low frequency actually is (not just in Hz), you will understand that no volume of it is acceptable either. Most of you are just pissed because you spent thousands of dollars on systems without considering how your fellow man might feel about it. Hopefully, you are intelligent, civil and fair-minded enough to accept that.
Each new generation seems to exceed the previous one in failing to understand that when we abuse our freedoms, we lose them. Philosophers have written for eons about the relationship between freedom and responsibility. When you look at the world, we know you don't see it as rosy. Things really did used to be pretty wonderful in America. Now, each generation has a progressively more dismal view of our society and tries, ironically, to take it down another peg. It is reflected in our films, our music, our diagnostic statistics manuals (the book that describes recognized psychological pathologies), our arts, our laws, our local news, etc. We are abusing many wonderful elements of our lives and our society, so many and to such a degree that you think life sucks (unacceptable record number of suicides), that older people suck (you think the old fogies brought it on, but the truth is - the older the person, the less likely they were as accomplices in this trend), and that lashing out with fury and behaving more outlandishly will somehow fix things. It is the "we'll show you" attitude, it comes out loud in clear in your sub-woofers, and it is destructive -- not only of our world, but yours as well.
The DC sniper had the right to own and use a gun. His rights ended where the lives of others were affected. He abused his rights. It is scary how many of you do not clearly understand what freedom (or freedom of speech) is, what it's worth, and how it relates to responsibility, and how many of you fail to identify what is a right and what is a privilege. No matter how you choose to slice and dice the matter, no matter what you THINK your "rights" are - you do not have a right to disturb people in their own homes. Period!
Although this Web site is mainly to help the many who feel victimized and alone, it is meant to educate. Before you pick this letter apart, invalidate what you don't like or don't understand, refute the facts, and miss the point all together, please look at the material in this site again. It isn't there to make you feel threatened, or to pick on you. It is an effort to educate and bring about change for a healthier world. Not only is that not a bad thing. It's one thing America needs.
Please lower the boom.