Posted on 11/09/2005 3:39:41 PM PST by elkfersupper
It is time to separate fact from fiction about our drunken driving laws. It is time to stop deluding ourselves into believing that stricter penalties are the solution. It is also time to start promulgating laws that attack the core problem, including creating a bright line that even an intoxicated person can walk.
Drunken driving is a problem in Massachusetts. It is also a problem in New York, Texas and every other state in the country. Statistically, Massachusetts’ roads are not the most dangerous in the country. There is also no proof that Massachusetts drivers are more likely to drive impaired.
-snip-
Perhaps it is time to make it illegal to drink any alcohol and drive a car.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
You think you have the freedom to hurt or kill people?
Cmon now.
How about my freedom from being hurt by your IRRESPONSIBLE choices?
THAT doesn't even play into your ideals does it?
Some equality you pose.
I oppose the DRIVING when you drink NOT the drinking. So this means you take the position of defending drinking and driving, I hope that works out for you.
"Laugh if you want, Blue, but since my one air trip since 9/11, I have lost any and all desire to fly to where I need to go."
Ok so you get a choice. When you drink and drive and are on the same road I am on, where is my choice when you crash into me?
"Want to see a dictatorship in action on American soil?"
Is it a dictatorship to have speed limits too?
How about any other LAW? Seems you conduse the rule of law and tyranny.
"liberty-loving people"
Explain to me about how my liberty was affected when a drunk driver crashed into me. I would love to hear what you have to say about that. Your position on this backs the position of the person that crashed into me. So by all means explain it to me please.
Take your 'troll' crap and shove it.
"Obviously, I'm against drunk driving, but it depends what you define drunk driving as..."
That rhetoricly asked, unanswerable (without endless deabte) question is exactly WHERE BAC came from.
BAC establishes a limit that is standard for every person. EQUALLY. The law (at least here) is based on the equality under the law while it also removes the endless debate.
"drunk" isn't the issue under the law at all, BAC is what the law reflects. A level is established by elected representatives, the way it should be in a represntative republic. SO then it seems you oppose a representative republic's way of forming the law. How conservative of you.
Yes, and I've even seen a few ZOTTED in pairs...
Uh, about your nick... For some reason, I keep thinking that I've seen the phrase "a jovial cad" somewhere in relation to anagrams, but I can't remember what it was. I can't seem to come up with any single words that fit it. Care to hit me with a cluebat?
"A Jovial Cad" may have some significance as an anagram, but if so I'm unaware of it. Indeed, the last time I even thought about anagrams was during the Scrabble scene in "Rosemary's Baby," LOL.
I think the phrase comes from Shakespeare, though I'm not sure about that. How I came across it was uniquely personal, but still an interesting story. When I was in the Air Force, I bought a set of those "great books" from an encyclopedia salesman I'd run across somewhere, entrance to a store or some such place. I guess I wanted to look intellectual or something, but my Air Force partying buddies knew me better than that, and it became something of an "inside" joke among us.
One of them, who was quite a bit smarter than the rest of us, was constantly asking to borrow one or other of the books from the collection, which is pretty much the only reading that got done in them until I got out of the USAF and into college.
Well, this fellow had signed his "farewell" to me thus: "To (my real name): a genuine cad--but a jovial one. Good luck." Thus was born the mighty FR moniker A Jovial Cad! LOL...
As I say, I'm guessing the phrase originally comes from some work or play of The Bard's, but don't know for sure.
"A just society shouldn't focus energies on punishing someone who does something a teensy weensy bit bad while ignoring people who do things many times worse."
Thanks for considering the loss of my career, my savings, the majority of use in my left hand and arm teeny wenny.
Thanks for considering the addition of titanium to my spine teeny weeny.
Thanks for considering a brain injury causing memory problems teeny weeny.
Thanks for considering 7 herniated discs tenney weeny.
Oh yes, a just society considers such things teeny weeny.
The problem with all activist groups is that after they succeed in their goals, their new goal is simply to survive... even if they have to artificially create a new reasons to.
http://www.duigulag.com/agenda.htm
Even the principal founder of MADD has left the organization, citing a lack of focus on the real public safety issue, that of getting high BAC chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers off the road.
"I think that any societal custom that is resulting in thousands of deaths of innocent people, is cause for great concern."
I do too. Many of these folks would consider suicide bombings something to be concerned about and indeed that is a social custom in 'palestine'.
Yea, I agree. Sobriety checkpoints are like searching homes without a warrent.
It's probably not the money, but the bureaucarcy which prevents cops from getting videos on their cars. I think many do though... You're right, there's no excuse for them not to have them.
Hope for anything you like. You're ideas about "law enforcement" are still depressing. Have one beer or a glass of wine and get stopped at a "a road check (block)" just after you leave your club/bar...then get back to me. Be sure to let me know how you feel about your life being put on hold by the bureaucracy.
FMCDH(BITS)
"Which is it? Drunken drivers or alcohol related? Why specifically change definitions in the middle of a claim?"
OK lets say you make a fair point there.
So we will cut it into thirds. A little over 5000 dies as a result of DRUNK drinving, lets call that HAMMERED.
A little over 5000 died as a result of drinking and driving.
A little over 5000 dies when there was a beer can in the back seat.
A litle over 3000 died on 9 11 due to the personal choices of a a very samll number of people. Take a good look at the reaction to that and see that even if you split it up based on your point ( that does hold some merit) this problem STILL KILLS more people. Not to mention the people HURT.
Perspective man, perspective.
A level is established by elected representatives, the way it should be in a represntative republic. SO then it seems you oppose a representative republic's way of forming the law. How conservative of you.
---
Woa bucko! Where did you pull all that from?
ok nearly doubles.....STILL talking about around 8000 and that doesn't include the people hurt.
"Yes, and I've even seen a few ZOTTED in pairs..."
Take note, I have not been zotted. Gee I wonder if maybe you are just...ummmm WRONG about me?
HA. Keep on trying son.
"Have one beer or a glass of wine and get stopped at a "a road check (block)" just after you leave your club/bar...then get back to me. "
It is IMPOSSIBLE to blow above the legal limit if you ONLY HAD ONE. Here is the real deal you had TWO...thye first and last...and you ignore the ones in the middle.
You sir offer a red herring here, if you had a glass of whine with supper you are abiding by the law and have ZERO to worry about.
Embelishing ones argument shows a lack of substance within it.
"Where did you pull all that from?"
Illinois LAW.
Where do you think legal limits come from?
Santa leave that in someones stocking or something?
Had I been I wouldn't be driving.
Which is more likely to cause an accident: (1) someone who drives a vehicle while eating a burrito, or (2) a small person who is basically alert who has recently consumed two beers?
The increase in accident risk caused by a 0.08 or 0.09BAC is statistically negligible compared with the many other factors which are routinely accepted. There are many things drivers do which are so much more dangerous than driving with a 0.08BAC that I see no basis for going after the latter.
And who is more dead: the motorist who got killed because a non-drinking driver was practically asleep at the wheel, or the motorist who didn't get killed because a driver--despite having a 0.08BAC, was awake enough to stay in his lane?
Nothing justifies checkstops...they're a harrassment of lawabiding citizens and a big sign of things to come, not to mention most DUI's are nothing more than overzealous revenue raisers of local townships.
Again, my thoughts and prayers for you.
FMCDH(BITS)
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