Posted on 10/26/2005 4:37:08 PM PDT by ex-Texan
I begin to think that Mothers Against Drunk Drivers constitute a public nuisance, and need to be stuffed down an abandoned oil well. And indicted for fraud. We could dangle a microphone down the well on a wire so that they could testify.
These tiresome biddies aren’t against drunk driving, which anyone with a possum’s brains is against. Your dangerous drunks are incorrigibles who time and again blow horrific BACs and wobble around the roads like student unicyclists. The proper response is permanent revocation of driver’s licenses. If they need to go to work they can buy a horse.
But the MADD girls are not against drunk driving. They are prohibitionists pretending to be something else. Their name is artfully crafted to make them seem to be no end virtuous—moral bidets squirting purest goodness. What could be more pure than motherhood? But it is like calling the Spanish Inquisition a society for the protection of orphans. It still isn’t.
An example of the swindle: Texas sends undercover cops into bars to arrest drunks before they drive. (Links below.) A bit shaky, that. You are talking to your date over a bottle of wine and dinner when the guy at the next table pulls out a badge and a Breathalyzer. “Step this way, sir….” But never mind.
At The Agitator, I find this: “Heather Hodges, an Abilene-based MADD victims advocate, said her group is working closely with the TABC on the project.”
Says Heather, ''We believe responsible adults should drink responsibly. And those that serve them should be responsible. A lot of people think it's OK to be drunk in bar, but it's illegal. A bar is not intended to be a place to get fall-down drunk ... . You don't have to be fall-down drunk to be considered drunk. Even after one drink, you aren't 100 percent.''
Following the introductory platitude, note the logical sequence: Falling-down drunk is bad. If you aren’t falling down you are still drunk. After one drink you are impaired. Therefore if you have a glass of wine at dinner, you should be arrested. This is not opposition to drunken driving. It is prohibition in drag, to be enforced by disguised police.
Let’s think about this. After one drink you “are not a hundred percent.” Heather believes that we must keep people from driving who are “not one hundred percent.” OK. I’ll buy it. Let’s get impaired people off the road.
Going to the web site of The Women’s Health Channel, I find the following listed as symptoms of PMS:
"• Mood-related ("affective") symptoms: depression, sadness, anxiety, anger, irritability, frequent and severe mood swings. • Mental process ("cognitive") symptoms: decreased concentration, indecision."
Does that sound like one hundred percent to you? I figure it’s a pretty good description of an unstable borderline psychotic. Oh good. I want to drive on the roads with someone who doesn’t pay attention, couldn’t decide what to do it she did, and wants to kill something. Me, probably.
We need to recognize the seriousness of PMS. People joke about it, as they do about drunkenness, but these women are public hazards. “Anger, irritability, frequent and severe mood swings”? (Now that’s a revelation.) “Decreased concentration”? Sounds like a bad drunk in a pool hall, a recipe for inattentive homicidal road-rage. I think the police should send squads into supermarket parking lots to check for these impaired women. Other cops should wait outside churches. To better protect the public we should have checkpoints on highways.
How does an officer tell when a woman is irresponsibly driving while under the, er, influence? Not by asking her. The impaired lie. With drunks, the dissimulation is often obvious. (“Jush two beersh, offsher.”) Those suffering from PMS can feign sanity, however briefly. Perhaps they should be required to carry a notarized letter from a gynecologist, like a hall pass. Or a governmentally issued calendar.
Ponder this from Planet Estrogen: “Additionally, several studies demonstrate reduced reaction time, neuromuscular coordination and manual dexterity during the pre-menstruation and menstrual phases.”
Are not these the classic symptoms of a snootful? The police might reasonably carry a device to test reaction times. They might profitably lurk in nail salons. Disguised.
But there is hope in technology. Last year for a newspaper I covered a proposal in New Mexico, supported by MADD, to make it impossible to start your car if you have been drinking:
From The Agitator: “People across the state are upset with House Bill 126, which would require ignition interlock devices be installed on all new cars sold in New Mexico by Jan. 1, 2008, regardless of the purchaser's driving record..." (It didn’t pass.)
"...The interlock device uses a blow tube which activates sensors when one blows into the tube. If alcohol is detected, the sensors activate a mechanism which shuts down the vehicle's ignition system and the car cannot be started.”
The approach illutstrates the weird totalitarianism of the female. Anything, anything at all, to increase security, security, security. We are all two-year-olds in need of diapering. The Mommy State is well named.
The wisdom of the ignition-interlock is of course evident. You go camping with your daughter. While you sit around the fire heisting a brew, she falls and cuts herself on the ax. She is bleeding badly. You rush her to the car to go to the hospital and…it won’t start. What the hell. You can adopt.
I believe that cars should be equipped with hormone-level detectors, similar to the blood-sugar monitors used by diabetics. At the very least, to start the car the potentially impaired driver should have to insert her governmentally-issued calendar into a slot and put her hand in a fingerprint-reader.
Whatever the solution, society should not have to tolerate such threats to children. Note that women are in fact sometimes around children, when they get home from work. Further, research shows that they are habitual offenders. Drunks can sometimes be weaned off the juice, but here we are dealing with assured repeaters. At the very least perpetrators should be required to undergo therapy, perhaps in twelve-step programs. Should this not work, electronic ankle-bracelets might protect us. Institutionalization could help.
Nelson Soucasaux, gynecologist: “Psychological signs and symptoms: Increase of nervous tension, anxiety, irritability, changes in the personality, emotional instability, depression, as well as increase or reduction of the sexual desire.”
Irritable sex-crazed depressives at the wheel, with bad reflexes. Alternatively, frigid nut-cases. This is the adult responsibility that Heather wants? I am going to start a group called DAMM, Dads Against Monthly Murder. We will meet in tree houses, above the roofline of an SUV.
Wow, nobody touching this one?
The DUI laws as written make parking lots obsolete for bar rooms. And if that's the intent, just enforce it. They're ruining lives with what they're doing now.
Well ... many are reluctant to attack good ol' American icons ... like Motherhood and apple pie ...
A review of the Puritans in England, and how extraordinarily destructive they were, might be informative.
I'm going to sue, as I had already started my version of DAMM: Drunks Against Mad Mothers..
Never trust a culture that insists women cover themselves to the neckline.
May we trust them more than a culture that makes them wear a bhurka?
LOL
Be smart. Do your drinking at home. Or, ride the bus or take a taxi. It's risky to be caught under the influence behind the wheel. Very, very expensive, too. A friend of mine estimated the total cost of a DUI at more than $ 10,000 in California. Not including legal fees, if you take a chance and fight the ticket.
I've already learned my lessons. But drinking at home is usually no fun. So now I just rarely drink.
The Puritans are alive and well in the US and always have been. If it's not sex it's alcohol and if it's not alcohol it's cigarettes. They're always out there trying to make us all perfect.
I could not agree more. The old "perfectability of man" schtick.
In other news, Teddy (hic) kennedy established DAMM today to protest this group.
He is the one and single inspiration for this support group, DAMM = Drunks Against Mad Mothers.
Don't drink and drive!
(You might spill your drink.)
I believe that MADD was created by the American Bar Association as a kind of "jobs program" for both new lawyers as well as old hacks who wouldn't be able to continue in the "profession" without their silly enforcement and prosecution of folks who've had 2 or 3 beers.
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