I recently sat through a DUI class for a non-DUI ticket I received. Because of Ron Paul, I now see through government Propaganda well. This is the letter I wrote to my fellow classmates. by John Armstrong
(libertarian)
Monday, March 31, 2008
Unless otherwise noted, any italicized information below is from the "Highway Safety Desk Book" published by the National Highway Safety Administration (NHSTA). The NHSTA is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. This publication can be found at the website [link edited for length]. Or you can google it.
So what is your government really attempting to accomplish by creating and enforcing the laws that brought you here today?
To reduce the highway mortality rate from alcohol and drug impairment requires altering culturally rooted behaviors. Behavior-al change may best be accomplished through ongoing programs of vigorous enforcement, coupled with ambitious education and information activities. Thus, there is a broad range of issues involved with alcohol and drug enforcement on the highway. Effective DWI Statutes.
Let me break this down for you:
Altering culturally rooted behaviors = Changing the way people act by changing the way they think.
Ambitious education and information activities = propaganda (like the stuff we've been watching in this class the government made you attend because you broke a law they created even though you didn't harm anyone).
Just in case I wasn't clear enough, altering culturally rooted behaviors with ambitious education and enforcement activities has a simpler name: Brainwashing. And unfortunately, they are very good at it. Want a couple of examples? Fill in the blanks. The number one leading cause of death in America is _________. A drunk behind the wheel of a car is as dangerous as a ___________ _____. If you said, "smoking" or "obesity" for the first one and "loaded gun" the second one, give yourself a gold star. What do both of these things have in common? Both play on fears, and people who are afraid are easier to control.
A decade ago it was smokers who were the threat. In order to address this "issue" our government used our money to fund a ton of questionable "scientific" studies (about things like the DANGER of second hand smoke for instance). This caused people who weren't personally affected by the freedom limiting laws these studies ushered in to clamor for them because of the "safety" they provided. The propaganda was so good that the people who chose to smoke went from being someone who smoked to a being a "smoker" which carried a massively negative connotation. When people think that your choice to smoke is going to kill them, it's hard to find anyone to stand up for your right to do with your body what you please. And because of the dehumanizing collectivist "smoker" description, nobody cares if your rights are violated. Overweight (by FDA description) people are next as we gear up for the War on Obesity.
The loaded gun thing is no different. When a person who drives after having a few drinks turns into a "drunk driver", it's hard to find someone who doesn't believe that you got what was coming to you. Think of how an overwhelming majority of people thing of "drunk drivers". As I'll demonstrate later, this "loaded gun" statement is absolutely ridiculous, but so is the statement "with liberty and justice for all" yet millions of school kids recite and believe it daily.
Ask yourself this question: What is really scarier, a drunk driver mowing you down in cold blood or a government who decides what's best for the collective whole regardless of its impact on the individual and then uses its basically unlimited financial and media power to convince the masses that it's not only okay to create laws that interfere with individual rights but outright necessary before these "evil-doers" kill every innocent child in America?
Were you really drunk when you were arrested? Does it even matter? What is an "Effective DWI Statue"?
As we consider these questions, it is important to keep in mind that the real purpose of these laws is to alter culturally rooted behaviors, not to determine whether or not you actually deserve to have your freedom (financial, employment, time, unalienable rights) taken from you because of your actions. This is obvious from the following statement found in the same document cited above:
While substances affect different individuals in differing degrees, laws should emphasize the impairment of the driver-not the type, legal or illegal, or even the amount of the substance ingested. The effects of alcohol consumption are well known. Although they vary with the individuals consuming it, all persons are thought to be impaired by alcohol when its concentration in the blood (BAC) reaches 0.08 percent. Statutes should provide that presumptive evidence, per se, exists to suggest that a driver's ability to operate a motor vehicle is impaired when his BAC exceeds 0.08 percent.
Think about this for a second. This is a publication from our federal government telling the states how they should construct their laws to alter behavior. It openly states that you as an individual may not have actually been impaired when you were arrested, but that matters none. This .08 number is where all persons are thought to be impaired.
Below is a section from the Constitution's 5th Amendment. It reads:
No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
What does that mean and how does it relate to the .08 thing? Before I get into that, let's look at something else from that little "Highway Safety Desk Book."
The law should require all drivers to submit to a chemical test, or tests, at the option of the arresting officer, to determine the level of alcohol and/or drugs in their blood, as a condition of holding a driver's license. Consent to a chemical test should also be implied when a driver is incapacitated or killed while driving a motor vehicle.
In order to deter impaired driving, the penalty must be sufficient to outweigh the relatively low risk of apprehension.
"No Person" = an individual = you. As an individual you have individual rights, not collective guilt because of an arbitrary government selected number representing the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream of a "drunk driver."
Due process = innocent until proven guilty. In this particular case, that means proven to be impaired--not THOUGHT TO BE IMPAIRED because of an arbitrary number.
Another tenet of due process is that the "punishment should fit the crime." The "crime" most people commit when charged with a DUI is making wide turns, swerving, or failure to maintain control of a vehicle. The punishment recommended here obviously violates this Constitutional right. You are being punished not only for you, but also for everyone else who doesn't get caught since there is a "relatively low risk of apprehension." Why is there a "relatively low risk of apprehension"? Because the overwhelming majority of drunk drivers make it home safely, eat something fattening, and pass out (or do other things if they happen to come home with someone else they met at a bar, but that's a whole different story).
And I may be crazy but "requiring drivers to submit to a chemical test" or else lose the liberty that comes from driving seems an awful lot like testifying against yourself since whatever you blow is certainly going to be used against you in court.
Were you deprived of life? How have you been affected because of this "crime" you committed although you hurt nobody?
Were you deprived of liberty? Were you put in jail? Are you able to drive freely?
Were you deprived of property? Your money is your property. How much of that have you sacrificed individually in order to help your government alter culturally rooted behaviors? Was your car towed without your consent? Did you have to pay to retrieve it? If you have multiple offenses, was your vehicle seized and sold at auction? If so, were you compensated for it?
Well if those things are true, how has this happened?
I know history and government classes were boring and the Constitution may not mean much to you, but it is an incredible document. In actuality it is a Contract between "We the People" and our government. As with any contract, when one party benefits from violating the contract, the other party suffers. Think of it like this: if you had a contract with someone to build a house for you and they knew you'd never read the Contract or they could convince you that it was "too complicated" to try and understand, the person building your house could build it with substandard materials and charge even more than what was in the contract and you would may be upset but you'd have no recourse since you hadn't read the contract. Who would benefit? The contractor. Who would suffer? You. Our federal government is the contractor in this example, and you are still you.
On the other hand, if you wanted to allow the contractor to build you a brick house instead of the vinyl one in the original contract, you could-by changing the contract. We can change ours-it's called an "Amendment" (amend means change).
So what's the purpose of this Contract?
To establish a government that protects the freedom of the people. That's it.
And how does the Contract do this? By severely limiting the role of the federal government. The people who wrote it knew things would change, that's why they put a way in there to change it, complete with easy to read instructions. And only the people can change it, not the government. They knew how tyrannical a government could become if it were allowed to change the Contract without the direct consent of the people. As Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
Every President and Congressman takes an Oath of Office to "Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution of the United States of America" (aka your rights). They don't swear in to "Protect Americans from drunk drivers" or to "Defend people against poor personal choices which may kill them."
But it's the state that charged me with this crime, not the federal government.
Yes, that may be true. And the states may have a right to make a law restricting drunk driving (as long as your rights aren't violated in the process) according to the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
But consider two things: The reason these laws exist in their current form is due to Federal Government suggestions. If States don't comply with these "suggestions", they don't receive funding for highway projects. Secondly, enforcing these tyrannical laws wouldn't be possible without federal government funding. And if the states don't do what the federal government tells them to do, they not only lose highway funds, they lose out on enforcement funds as well. This is how they mandate a "national" drinking age which ironically enough was raised due to MADD lobbying as a way to reduce underage impaired driving fatalities (which it didn't). But it did expand the role of the federal government.
I won't bore you with many more history details, but trust me when I tell you that nobody who truly understands the purpose of the Constitution (ensure freedom, limit the federal government) would ever read this line:
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Which is found in Article 1, Section 8 and think that the government has a right to create programs to fund aggressive DWI enforcement. But this is exactly the clause cited as the reason they have power to do so. It's called the "Commerce Clause" and was meant to, for example, keep someone in Virginia who sent money to a horse farmer in Kentucky from being screwed over and never receiving a horse due to the horse farmer's claiming "you're in Virginia; I'm in Kentucky; screw you." But now it somehow means that they can take money from you and give it to a state law enforcement office in order to deprive you of your God-given rights in an attempt to alter your behavior through vigorous enforcement of effective DWI statutes.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your government is not supposed to protect you from your own stupid decisions. But it isn't supposed to punish you for them either unless you hurt someone else. If you'd killed or hurt yourself when you were driving drunk, too bad. If you had hurt or killed someone else, you should be in prison or worse. If you'd broken something, you should have been made to pay for it. But you shouldn't be a "criminal" for making a poor personal decision that harmed nobody. Even the government produced "Handbook" I've cited doesn't say that the purpose is to "prevent people from killing or hurting other people" it is to "reduce highway mortality rate" (by violating your Constitutional rights in order to brainwash the public).
The government is supposed to protect your liberty not find any way possible to take it. Here's another Thomas Jefferson (he was a smart dude) quote about that:
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
So who really gets harmed by your "criminal" activity?
Organizations like M.A.D.D. would have you believe that the people who are harmed are the "innocent victims" slaughtered by maniacal sociopathic drunks. These victims are always sweet little prom queens who made straight A's and had promising futures until people like you ripped it all away. They started this propaganda campaign full swing back in the 1980's (which is why many of the videos you've seen in this class are from that era). Drinking related accidents increased last year, so the propaganda machine is gearing back up for another run in an attempt to get rid of drunk driving permanently by getting the government to force auto manufacturers to install the locking devices on all cars and developing technology to tell if you've been drinking (along with more aggressive DUI enforcement of course). There was a time when an officer who pulled you over when you were drunk would ask you to pour out your beer, follow you home to make sure you made it safely, or if you were really messed up even take you home and leave your car sitting until you could return the next day to get it.
So I ask you again, who is really being harmed by your "criminal activity"?
1. The American Taxpayer. In 2008 alone, over $135,000,000 in taxpayer money was spent by the NHTSA (the people who wrote the report I cited earlier) solely on DWI issues. Of course this agency is just one division of the Department of Transportation that just requested $68,199,000,000 (That's $68 Billion) to do all kinds of fun stuff with in 2009 to keep us all "safe." You could buy a lot of cab rides with that.
2. Individuals. Like you.
As the old maxim states: there are three types of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. And it is the third type that help feed the first and second types in order to turn people who drive after drinking into "drunk drivers." Let's take a different look at the numbers:
In 2006: 38,588 people died in car crashes. 15,945 were alcohol related of those 11,180 were single vehicle crashes.
In 1994: 36,254 people died in car crashes. 14,814 were alcohol related of those 10,017 were single car crashes.
First of all let's take out those single car crashes. Why should the single car crashes be excluded? It's not the government's job to enact laws to protect you from yourself. If it were, they could make you go on a diet or force you to sleep 8 hours a night. The notion of protecting you from you is preposterous (in the words of Ron Paul) and in absolutely no way represents what America is supposed to be about. Other people who shouldn't be included are the people who voluntarily choose to get in the car with a drunk driver and the kids who don't have a choice and are the responsibility of the irresponsible person driving.
Once we take those people out of the statistics, you find that there were 4765 innocent people killed by drunk drivers in 2006 and 4797 killed in 1994.
So after spending literally Billions of Dollars chasing the myth of "Safety" 32 more people were killed by drunk drivers in 2006 than in 1994.
While I am sure the purveyors of "ambitious education" and "information activities" would take these same statistics and cite a 10+% decrease in alcohol related fatalities, the point is missed. The only people who didn't "deserve" to die were the ones who were driving sober when an individual who was driving after drinking hit them (and is there any way to definitively know that this wouldn't have happened if the drunk guy had been sober? Perhaps that's why it's alcohol "related" instead of alcohol "caused" fatalities)
Let's do a little comparison:
4797 people were killed in a collision involving an individual who had been drinking.
22,242 died of poisoning (many by side effects of "safe" government approved prescription drugs)
15,764 died from a fall.
12,574 died of suffocation.
1,200,000 adults were arrested for DUI.
Now get this-that Million Plus was only 2.9% of people who said that they had driven after drinking. That means that if everyone who actually admitted driving after drinking did it only once there were over 41,000,000 chances for a "drunk driver" to kill someone else. 4797 isn't that many. In fact, only .01% of drunk drivers kill someone (and that's assuming that every time they kill someone it's only one). That's one person killed for every 10,000 times someone drives drunk. What happens the other 9,999 times? The individual driving after drinking at worst either kills or hurts himself and possibly passengers who chose to get in the car, hurt someone in another car without killing them, or in most cases makes it home safely.
So the next time you hear some ridiculous propaganda about how a drunk driver is as dangerous as a loaded gun, you can ask the speaker of such propaganda which one they'd rather take their chances with. Someone would have to be as poorly skilled in shooting a gun as the government is good at creating emotional, fear based, freedom destroying, unconstitutional decisions in order to actually shoot you with those kind of odds.
There is absolutely nothing that justifies these tyrannical, life- destroying laws. It is sad that a few thousand people a year die because people drive after drinking. But by creating an "issue" called "drunk driving" and creating criminals called "drunk drivers" and selling it through emotional propaganda, the general population goes mindlessly along with the song and dance. Less than 5,000 lives lost despite the laws vs. 1+ million lives ruined annually as a direct result of these laws. Think about that.
The only way this type of legislation could possibly be justified is through flawed logic and the assumption that even 5000 lives are too many to lose if something can be done about it. The flaw is the assumption that what they are doing about it actually works. If it did, there would be zero fatalities. The tragedy is that individuals' lives are destroyed because of the way the issue is addressed.
Keep in mind that our government doesn't solve problems; it addresses issues. Actually solving problems would reduce the size and power of the government, so it makes much more sense to create issues and then make laws to address them. Laws can't make you a better person. They can only make you a criminal. But these laws are for the "common good", I suppose. I mean, what parent deserves to see their kid die because of a "drunk driver"? We could prevent every crime in America. All we'd have to do is put everyone in prison. This idea of a "Common Good" isn't a new idea. The following line is the first tenet of the platform of another historical figure you've heard of:
COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD
You know whose platform that was a part of? A little guy with a funny moustache from Germany named Adolf.
The laws as they are currently enforced haven't been around that long, but we're reaching the point that people don't really question them anymore. As Thomas Paine wrote in the introduction to Common Sense:
A long habit of not thinking a thing Wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.
Don't most people at least believe that it's "not wrong" to have DUI laws? By merely mentioning that these laws may be wrong there is certainly an "outcry in defense of custom", i.e. keeping the laws the way they are or even toughening them. Yet I am here to say that these laws are not right despite their superficial appearance of being so.
And as Dresden James said:
When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.
I'm sorry if I seem like a lunatic to you, but I'm not one complain about something and then sit idly by. When I wake up to something, I share it with as many people as possible because I also believe Jefferson when he wrote, "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
This DUI thing is just the beginning. When you understand the insanity of everything our federal government does that starts with the "War on" or in the name of "safety" you will be up in arms, figuratively if not literally.
Unfortunately, you are a criminal now. Very few people will stand up for you because they haven't suffered and have been convinced that you deserve to suffer because of your heinous act of having a few beers after work and subsequently turning too widely into your driveway. Had you actually hurt someone, you'd be in jail-not in this class. Few will stand up for you now because you are a criminal.
As is written in a famous poem about Nazi Germany:
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
If you can see what's really going on here, will you use your 1st Amendment right to stand up for others while you still can or will you just be glad to get your certificate and go home? Either way it's your choice. Just like driving home after drinking should be.
Feel free to write me and tell me I'm crazy if you'd like:
As always, unlike the NFL, any rebroadcasts, accounts of, or repostings of this article in full or part are not only permitted but encouraged by the author.
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i think as far as driving drunk with kids in the car, that person should be tossed in the county clink for child endangerment- after that i agree with you completely. its nobody's damn business.
With regards to the "dangerous smokers" analogy, isn't interesting that they demonize smokers for their dangerous secondhand smoke, yet allow cigarettes to stay on the market and allow the cigarette companies to continue? Even more interesting that they allow it given that the companies were convicted of deliberately making their products more addictive. For the record, I am not a smoker. I've just always been bothered by these facts.
Posted By: Ivan from Oregon
Date: 2008-03-31 08:51:12
We allow cigarettes for two reasons:
1. They provide some tax revenue.
2. There is a lot of profit in the cancer-related pharmaceuticals, now almost an industry in itself, not to mention the heart-related stuff, also an industry unto itself.
   I have to admit I was quite skeptical that I would buy your arguement until about 1/2 way through the article. If your statistics are correct, which I have no reason to doubt, you provide a very compelling arguement against another form of "victimless crime". Laws such as these should be required to provide a means of determining efficacy when instituted and a schedule to evaluate for positive results. If the results are not met, the law should be automatically recinded. I don't blame MADD for trying - it is certainly their right. I don't blame the lawmakers for trying either - if you felt you had the power to change those 4700 awful outcomes each year, wouldnt you try. I blame the system for not scientifically evaluating the effectiveness of the laws instituted. In medicine, you test a new medication in a controlled environment first, it must prove its effectiveness in altering outcomes before it can be sold nationally. Emotion reigns supreme in the political realm, at the detriment of our nations wealth and productivity.
When I was younger and stupid I did a fair amount of driving under the influence of alcohol. Fortunately, I was never caught nor was I involve in any accidents while "impaired". If I was too screwed up, somebody drove my car and sent me home. If I was high on the alcohol, I drove extremely careful and about 5 to 10 mph under the speed limit because I realized that my reflexes were slower and I needed more time to react. When driving with alcohol, it was usually very late at night (2:00am to 4:00am) and the roads were pretty much empty.  If I had an accident I probably would have crashed with a non-moving object and since the speeds were slower, the damages would have been less. The worst time for me was when I drove myself sick to the emergency room (not alcohol related).  Then in the hospital they gave me some drugs and released me shortly after.  I was very heavily under the influence of those drugs that the hospital gave me but I drove myself home and I had the most difficult time ever. Fortunately nothing happened but I would never do that again.
On the other hand, I was a worst driver when I was sober. I was overconfident, drove from one town to another at a 100 miles away in less than an hour, cutting in line, using the shoulders at high speeds, going through red lights, etc. I had like 20 traffic violations in two years, license revoked twice, and although a lot of close calls, NO ACCIDENTS. Since I was so reckless, I was more dangerous to myself and others sober than drunk.
Worst than drunk driving or reckless driving is driving with very little sleep.  A lot of truck drivers do it. Sometimes depending on the job circumstances we are force to do it.
I am older now with three kids and a wife and therefore much more to loose.  I am very responsible now. I rarely drink and when I do so, I mostly do it in the comfort of my home. I have not been drunk in over a decade.  It is a matter of choice. It is my choice and not the government’s choice. We need to learn to be responsible by ourselves. Back in those days, I could have done some damage to myself or others but I don’t need the government for that.  I would have paid the consequences if my actions during those times resulted in something bad.
In addition to drunk driving, today, the government keeps expanding its reach into our driving prohibition to include use of cell phone even though a cell phone may help you stay awake after a long night at work. At this rate, future governments may ban the use of radios, talking to the passenger, eating in the car, drinking water, drinking coffee, singing in the car, driving with one hand, switching radio stations, changing the air conditioning controls, not been able to drive if you did not sleep for 8 hours the night before, can’t drive under the rain, or snow, or at night. Maybe they will even set a curfew for all drivers all in the name of ‘safety’. These may seem like exaggerations, but it may happen.   Â
This is an issue that has me on the fence. Even after reading your article. There is something wrong when you can have a glass of wine with dinner, but you can't drive home without the fear of being arrested. But, there is also something wrong when people go to bars and get so intoxicated that they can't walk straight, but they get in a car and drive home. It is dangerous. They can certainly afford a cab if they can afford to drop $100 at the bar. The problem is that the legal limit is so low that it targets people have a drink or two with dinner or at the bar, instead of just targeting idiots that we all know shouldn't be driving. What we all have to remember it that driving is a privilege not a right. And I suppose when an insanely drunk driver kills one of your loved ones, when they could have gotten a ride home, you might think a little differently.
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-03-31 11:19:37
Government is and should be a tool of the people. The people of California said ENOUGH of you ugly, inconsiderate, smelly people stinking everything up, turning restaurants into ash trays, bars and clubs into toxic-air  arenas that non smokers should avoid because... um... well, see... now you've gone and trampled the rights of the majority.
Â
I fully applaud using government as a tool of society. Remember, it was society who voted in the anti-smoking regulations, and they did it overwhelmingly. Those were people who were tired of having their rights trampled by stinky smelly smokers whose addiction turns them into inconsiderate and impolite air polluters. Many people are allergic to cigarette smoke, not just annoyed by it. It triggers ashma attacks, allergy attacks, etc...
Given the nature of my sanity, I much prefer to grant those affected by cigarette smoke more rights than those who choose to spread their poison around public places. Perhaps I am just too logical?
Also, it was MADD and others like them that brought on the stiffer drunk driving laws. Mother's who had lost children to careless drunks on the roads banded together and demanded change from their government.. These were citizens who took it upon themselvs to help reduce casualties by instilling laws and funneling money into awareness programs. The fact that people still drink and drive only attests to the basic stupidity of the average "individual", not the lack of brainwashing success by the government. Trying to argue that the government has no right to ensure that those on the roads aren't impaired suggests that society has no tool to protect itself from its most stupid and irresponsible members. Again, government is and should be a tool of the people, and sane people know that having an increase of impaired drivers on the roads leads to an increase in death and destruction by impaired drivers. It ain't rocket science.
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-03-31 11:54:57
And finally, your statistics only include those cases where the presence of alcohol was confirmed and a death occured. You have used "selective stats" (propaganda) to make your case. What you have NOT included is damage to property, life altering injuries, etc...
How many people suffer chronic neck pain because they were rear ended by a drunk? ou have no clue, do you? Were their rights violated?
And you can't "remove" single car deaths from your stats just because you want to. Again, property damage means others were affected. Insurance rates affect everybody, not just the dead drunk. And these dead people had families, some of which disintregrate because of the tragic loss. Now you have psychological issues that leak off into society, causing all kinds of other societal problems.
Drink driving is a societal problem, and a society has to have a way to combat it. The only practical methods available are laws and education. Sorry, I don't buy your premise at all.
I'm looking forward to the day I can sue an auto manufacturer because the 'alcholic consumption lockout device' told me I was oK to drive, but I still wrecked the car.
Drunk driving puts others' right to life in jeapordy. Drinking at your home is absolutely fine. When you talk about the Constitution and how it protects against incrimination, I agree with you. Breathalizers are absolutely wrong. I would also state that the IRS making us file taxes and leaving us liable to imprisonment is a violation of the 5th amendment.
I do have a problem with your thoughts on decriminalizing drunk driving. I agree .08 BAL is wrong, and it needs to be discussed. We have a tendency to pass laws very quickly nowadays without discussing/compromising them. If that isn't the case, strict "I can't vote that way because it's not 'liberal'' mindsets get in the way. I don't necessarily know an easy solution, but it should definitely be rehashed at some point. .08 is too low for the majority of people. Remember, Majority rules in our society.
I am a libertarian-minded person, and agree that we have way too many laws. Drunk-driving is a good law because it protects everybody's right to life. Remember the saying by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that states "Your rights end where my nose begins"? Well ...This is a perfect example. People should be able to do whatever they want in the privacy of their homes or in a place designated for certain purposes, or I would even say in public as long as they aren't hurting anybody. I personally think prostitution and all drugs should be legal (of course there is an age issue here, as minors' brains are still developing) as long as nobody endangers another person.
Again, I like the article, but it doesn't necessarily follow the doctrines of liberty. You are talking about a free-for-all society where anybody can do as they please and if somebody gets hurt, oh well.
We do need to rethink our strict drunk-driving laws and give a little more room for error in judgement, but I wouldn't make them null altogether.
68 billion dollars divided by the 40 million drunks on the road is $1,700 in cab ride money for each of them.... Problem solved!Â
Just give the drunks $1,700 in cab stamps each year (you know...like food stamps)....
That comes to $32 a week for taxi money to take you to and from where you want to imbibe!
5,000 lives saved!Â
But wait...money would be saved on the police force as there wouldn't be 1.2 million DUI arrests, so officers could be laid off. That or they'll have to look for ways to protect us from smokers.
Hospital staff could be reduced. Drivers License fees would be reduced.  Car insurance fees would be reduced.Â
The benefits of giving drunks money for cab rides is endless!Â
Some municipalites have actually done what you were describing above. The have similar programs for cab rides free to the drunk and paid by the municipalities. Hewever most municipalities with such programs have had to end them because the people will claim to be drunk just to get a free cab ride.
However, at the private level, in the city where I live, a local man came with up with an idea which he currently developed into a business. He has a fleet of 9 passenger vans and drivers. The local bars pay his company to bring the drunks to them. The drunks consume much more alcohol because they don't have to drive and they don't have to pay the transportation.  When the bar closes the van drives them home. The bar owners are happy because the company brings them the drunks or the heavy drinkers who may have otherwise stayed home and of course the ones who don't drink or drink too little don't need the service.
Another private service on another city have drivers on call who will go to the bar with a mini-motorcycle that fit in most trunks. The driver will then put the mini-motorcycle in the drunk's trunk and drive the drunk home in his car. Then he will take the mini-motorcycle out of the trunk and drive to the next call. This service is also paid by the bar and works for short distances.Â
As long as the drunk spends more money to the bar in drinks than the bar pays the private driver then it works and the bar may generate extra revenue. The more they drink, the more sense it makes for the bar to pay for such services.
That way, at the private level exists a partial solution without much government interference, without costing us taxpayers and without costing extra to the drunk.
Scott - you are way off base. You argue against the statistics saying they are selectively propaganda - but he provided more information - just made it simpler to digest. Do you think MADD's goal (and that of the legislation they proposed) was to protect property. Nope - it was to prevent their little angels from being killed by the evil "drunk driver". Their intentions were good as was the intention of the law. John just asks us to look back at the effect of that law. It has not saved lives. It has not saved property. What it has done is cost taxpayers billions of dollars to enforce, and more importantly, cost over a million americans a year legal and financial freedoms, and worst of all, placed repeat offenders in prison despite the fact they never actually harmed anyone - we just guess they might some day - which is apparently "good enough" to put them behind bars. Logic and sense of self preservation would suggest that if you are piss drunk, you dont operate heavy machinery. If you think that education cannot get that point across - sure, society can decide to create a law - but it should be EFFECTIVE. Ineffective laws that take away personal freedoms only harm this country. With no proven benefit, how could it be an effective tradeoff.
 Bottom line. The law or its enforcement is flawed. Laws should be reassessed to decide their effectiveness intermittently. It is just stupid to continue to pour money and resources at this until we find a satisfactory solution.
Thanks... I obviously was being fecitious... but I do like your "keep the government out of it" solutions that the bar owners utilize.
Anytime I know I am going to drink, I have the phone number of a Taxi driver with me. It just makes sense to plan ahead.... The bar owner should read your comments!
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-03-31 16:13:58
"John just asks us to look back at the effect of that law. It has not saved lives."
Â
Ummm... this is also untrue statistically. If you have an increase in cars on the road from 1994 until 200?... and you have an equal number of deaths, then there must be a factor that accounts for the discrepancy between the rise of drivers verses the lack of rise of deaths. Otherwise there would be direct correlations, which there isn't.
Â
Also, you can attribute the lowering death total to better safety standards in cars. Which means more drunks are living through their accidents, and not a plateau of accidents occuring. How many of these went on some form of disablity due to drunk driving that ended up costing their communities in some way? John's numbers in no way account for these costs.
You also have the introduction of mandatory seatbelt laws which would account for fewer drunks actually dying when they crash. Meaning, John's numbers mean doodoo...
Â
Again, the laws are there to reduce the number of accidents caused by drunks on the roads, and, appear to be working. They also rake in a lot of revenue via steep fines that doesn't seem to be accounted for here in John's numbers...
Screw "revenue." We need to shrink government and spend less so we don't need that revenue to run our out-of-control prison system, with it's war on drugs and whatnot.
By the logic of DUI laws, 2 legals put together is an illegal.
Newton's Laws of Motion should be the guiding principles here.
Drink and Drive, no problem.
Drink and Drive and HIT SOMETHING: PROBLEM.
It's never the activity itself that causes the problem. It's the disruption of that activity that causes the problem. Accidents don't happen by driving. They happen by having that driving interrupted, usually by losing control or hitting comething.
This is why DUI laws defy common sense.
This is why in times past a DUI driver spent the night in the tank, sobered up, and was sent home. No lost license, no checkpoints or breathalyzers, no ridiculous court cases, no traffic school. Sober up, go home, don't do it again.
Welcome to the modern police state, starring everybody. Pass the martinis and enjoy the show...before they jail you for drinking and watching, too!
Posted By: John Armstrong
Date: 2008-04-01 00:54:16
Scott and others,
The statistics I used were from government websites. Â I would have used the per 100,000 licensed driver stats or per 100,000 miles driven stats, but that would have been too confusing. Â
I'll tell you what ain't rocket science: figuring out that the people have no say in determining which tools the government uses or how they use them.
If there were no laws, and people were killing each other driving drunk other people would (society) would find a way to solve the problem if there were actually a problem to be solved. Â Â
This is a classic example of an issue turned into a problem and addressed without the consent of the people at the expense of the people.
I have had friends die from driving drunk and killed by people who were driving after drinking. Â The DUI laws didn't save my friends. If anything they reduced societal and individual responsibility because the government was 'taking care of it.'Â
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-04-01 01:16:49
"I have had friends die from driving drunk and killed by people who were driving after drinking. Â The DUI laws didn't save my friends. If anything they reduced societal and individual responsibility because the government was 'taking care of it."
Â
Bullshit. Your friends died IN SPITE of the laws because your friends ignored the laws.
Â
The DUI laws came about because citizens asked for them and got them. That is the definition of good government.
America is a civilized place because we have laws that help bridge the chasm between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Labeling all laws enforced by government "bad" because people break them is ridiculous.
Â
Laws never solve societal problems, but they effectively diminish many of them, including limiting drunks on the road.
My biggest gripe with the whole situation is that everyone is treated the same with DUI, regardless of their BAC content. Someone who blows a .08 will be treated the same as a .15 or .19. The only change occurs if its over .20, a interlock deivce is required then. But like everything else in our society, it boils down to money. The person with a .08 has to shell out just as much as everyone else.Â
Then to top it all off, the breatlyzer is not accurate, Reference Chun-V- New Jersey which was ruled on last week or so. In summation, the Supreme Court of New Jersey admitted (5) sources of error in the breathlyzer but would not throw out the results/convictions. And who can blame them, if they did throw out the results the criminal docket would increase by (3 or so) years worth of DUI cases. Taxpayer nightmare.
I agree that Drunk Driving is a problem that needs a solution. However in the interest of public saftey, its seems that something is getting lost. We are more interested in covicting and instilling fear than getting to the source of the problem.Â
Did you vote on the DUI law in your state? I know I never did. Did you have a say as to what level it was set at? For all the clamoring for enacted DUI laws the people did not have much say in them. Â
Should citizens not have a right to help set the laws they wanted enacted?Â
Actually laws do very little to make places civilized. Basic human needs to want to belong to something creates civility. When people are allowed to choose what is best for them instead of being told what is, that is when civilizations flourish.
    America was the idol of the world when we were a non interventionist free society. The world wanted to emulate us. There were problems by gradually citizens found solutions without an all encompassing law.
Having your rights mandated to you because of the fear of a state losing funding is ridiculous. Look at the Real ID.  Â
His friends got killed because some punk thought that it was up to him to determine when he was too impaired to drive. He likely estimated that his blood alcohol level was at around 0.9, just 0.1 above the legal limit. So he got behind the wheel and killed someone. Or maybe it was an act of civil disobedience - why would government tell me that I can't drink and drive.
The problem is of course the hypocrisy and the philosophical bullcrap that is produced by a combination of being bored in a DUI class, being convinced that you did nothing wrong, and being full of freshly acquired ideas.  Which of course rapidly change when something like this happens to them – then statistics are out of the window, philosophy is gone, views change, and people start screaming why this drunk driver was allowed to drive despite being arrested for DUI twice before.
So maybe this is the approach we should take. The next time someone thinks that they are ok to drive and that government has no right to tell them otherwise, and kills not a prom queen but someone close me, say my 85 year old grandmother, I following suit, will exercise my constitutionally provided right to bear arms will hunt him down and shoot him – who’s to tell me that I can’t? Certainly not government.Â
This of all the savings!!! We can repeal DUI laws across the nation, someone can undoubtedly come up with amount of money we can save on eliminating enforcement of anti-gun laws, plus all the costs for incarceration and litigation of DUI offenders, and we can also save a ton of money by switching to Geico. Heck, this might even result in another $1,000 rebate check for us all.
You are missing the point. Basic laws to protect live and private property are good and much better than anarchy. BASIC LAWS: murder, rape, sexual abuse of minors, theft, vandalism of private property, assault, corruption, etc... The author is talking about laws that put criminal charges because of the possibility or chance of injuring or killing somebody. If a drunk driver kills somebody, then you use the law and press criminal charges because he killed somebody. However, drunk driving laws put criminal charges before the basic law is broken. That is what the author claims that is unfair or unnecessary.
The following are more extreme examples but at our current government’s incremental rate of addition of laws we could get there: Putting you in jail for having a gun because there is a chance that you could kill somebody with a gun instead of putting you in jail because you actually killed somebody with the gun. Or imagine that after finding out that your wife cheated on you, government mandates psychological evaluations and determines that based on your government tested psychological profile there is a high probability that you would do some harm to her or kill her and thus you are arrested and put in jails for those impure thoughts of killing her. Once again, these are extremes but there could be a tendency to get there.
By governments making criminals of drunk drivers that have not killed or injured anybody yet, they could later keep adding on and they have: cell phone use while driving, driving with less than 8 hours of sleep, driving with one hand, etc.. Then you have a high quantity of rules that if you do not follow there is a chance that you could kill somebody and little by little they can make criminals of all of us or selectively enforce.
In conclusion: Basic laws are essential.  However, extra laws to prevent the higher probability or the chance but not the action of breaking the basic laws are just derivatives and an intrusion into my choice of selecting my own behavior. And the more laws, the more chances of selective prosecution or government corruption.Â
A well-written essay for the most part, but as another poster noted, the statistics are a little shaky, however, the points remain valid. In fact, the author overstated the problem. For example,  in alcohol-related, multi-vehicle collisions, one must remember that sober drivers caused many of the accidents and the drinkers were the victims.Â
I invite readers to get a mountain of information on this subject in a free book at dammdrinker.com
I was once tried and convicted of DUI after having take a breathalizer test which showed 0% --- SIX TIMES! I asked the officer why he continued to give me the same test over and over. His response: "Because we didn't get the result we wanted!"
Â
You see, I had pled guilty once before to DUI, so I was automatically guilty this time. Apparently, that's the way the judge saw it, too.
I have learned a few things reading these posts, but nothing more obvious than the fact that Scott from Oregon is a JACKASS! I would quit smoking but I'm afraid I would end up like you - YUCK !
Posted By: Doug from California
Date: 2008-04-04 17:33:08
Scott:
 You are missing the big point here. There is no victim in a DUI arrest. The government has no business arresting anyone for victimless crimes--at least, that is the basis for our constitution.
Our roadways have become way too authoritarian. We have in California a Highway Patrol who makes a habit of lurking behind cover to catch you "speeding," a heinous crime which should be punished by confiscating your property. DUI and seat belt laws are just another extension of this tyranny of the roadways.
There is a thing called road rage. It is caused by this threat of an iron boot. Check out what happened in Europe when they asked the question "what causes Road Rage and how do we get rid of it?":
Vadim: Please consider the quote John included from TJ.Â
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Â
Unless you udnerstand the underlying "philosophy of liberty", you will not be able to argue effectively against John's article.  Then again, if you understood it you probably wouldn't try to argue your point.
This is from the creed of freedom:
NTRINSIC NATURE OF RIGHTS Â Â Â Â Â I believe that only individuals have rights, not the collective group; that these rights are intrinsic to each individual, not granted by the state; for if the state has the power to grant them, it also has the power to deny them, and that is incompatible with personal liberty. Â Â Â Â Â I believe that a just government derives its power solely from the governed. Therefore, the state must never presume to do anything beyond what individual citizens also have the right to do. Otherwise, the state is a power unto itself and becomes the master instead of the servant of society.
 http://www.freedom-force.org/freedom.cfm?fuseaction=creed
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