[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Freedom under law, my dear. Obviously Texas has a public intoxication law. There is nothing unreasonable about that. I believe you can live quite free without being stumbling drunk in public.

Freedom abused by licentiousness is eventually freedom lost.

[Junior_G]

I believe you can live quite free without being stumbling drunk in public.

This conversation isn't even about being blind, stumbling drunk in public. This is about people being arrested in bars after having 3 or more beers, which you seem to be completely happy with.

[Junior_G]

Freedom abused by licentiousness is eventually freedom lost.

"Free to drink alcohol, but only if you don't become drunk." That isn't exactly freedom.

[Wallace T.]

A bar or restaurant is not a public place; it is private property. A home or apartment complex is not private property, nor an automobile. Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment and the right to be free of unreasonable searches? Whatever happened until waiting until there is probable cause, such as driving a motor vehicle in an irresponsible manner?

At best, these crackdowns are examples of unwarranted government intrusion into private matters. I must wonder if there is not a hidden agenda of effectively shutting down alcohol sales in bars and restaurants. Smoking is essentially prohibited in most places outside of private homes. Perhaps alcohol is the next target.

What is hypocritical are these pseudo-conservatives who are really authoritarians who post on FR defending any and every abuse of government power. What the Texas Alcohol Beverage Control Board is doing is as much unwarranted government intrusion as any "hate speech" or "speech code" ordinance.

[Old Professer]

There is no greater loss of freedom than that imposed by an officer of the court acting in the interest of an overbearing legislature; for this reason, our Constitution has specific rights that bar government from acting in such a manner, the fact that we seem to be giving up these rights by meekly going along with each small bite of the whole, only means that we have no more respect for freedom than those who do not trust us with its license.