enthalpy

Saturday, February 26, 2005


I think I could have come up with a better headline for this one:
Polls show most Texans back hysterical overreaction and further erosion of fourth amendment.
Has MADD gone completely mad? I don't want to give them any ideas, but if they're really that serious of keeping "drunks" off the road, why don't they just put the checkpoints outside every bar? With the legal limit ridiculously low, 0.08% is the equivalent of a 150 pound man even thinking about drinking a beer. I'd wager that 99% of people driving home from any bar are legally drunk. So why is nothing being done there?
In the Scripps Howard Texas Poll, 95 percent of those contacted said intoxicated drivers on the state's freeways are a very or somewhat serious problem — a 6 percent jump from a similar survey conducted in 1999.

The poll also showed 67 percent said state officials should pass a law authorizing police to temporarily stop traffic to search for drunken drivers and arrest them.
Texas is far from perfect (maybe slightly closer than elsewhere, though) but I'm truly frightened of its citizenry if they believe that publicly accosting everyone is the solution to a problem that's largely ignored and already scaldingly illegal, anyway.



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