Crapo arrested on DUI

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hmmmm, isn't he a Mormon?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He should go to jail for a fairly long time. Unfortunately, drunk driving laws in this country are a joke.

I agree with this a lot.

Oh come on guys - jail?  You actually want people imprisoned for drunk driving?  Sounds ridiculous to me.

Well...uh, yes, as it's incredibly dangerous to oneself and others.

I would say removal of driving privileges would be the appropriate remedy.

I think New Mexico does it best, first offense is a fine plus a breathalyzer installed in your car required for a start. This means people can still get to their jobs and all easily yet are guaranteed to not be a threat to others. I understand NM also has a lower recidivism rate on this than most states as well.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Nice use of the twilight fallacy (completely unrelated to stupid sparkling vampires) by SPC there.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It is more or less arguing that because it's hard to set a clear line when something becomes something else, there is no difference between any point of the spectrum. The name comes from one arguing that there is no difference between night and day, because it's difficult to pick an exact point when this change occurs ("twilight" referring to the transition period here.)

Anyway I also think it'd be pretty silly to judge Crapo on this more harshly because he's a Mormon. He should be judged because he did something very dangerous (and much worse than what Vitter did), but no more so than if any non-Mormon Senator was arrested for a DUI. Since I think the LDS church is wrong about alcohol, why should I give a f**k if individual Mormons follow that rule? Of course Mormons in Idaho might, and they make a notable percentage of GOP primary voters.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It is more or less arguing that because it's hard to set a clear line when something becomes something else, there is no difference between any point of the spectrum. The name comes from one arguing that there is no difference between night and day, because it's difficult to pick an exact point when this change occurs ("twilight" referring to the transition period here.)

That wasn't my argument. I was genuinely asking how to measure impairment without using an alcohol-specific scale (and even then one cannot use BAC as a measure of impairment since people who drink a lot require higher levels to experience impairment, as anyone who's ever been to a party could tell you.) It would be far more reasonable to temporarily suspend driving privileges if it if evident that one is driving erratically and poses a danger to others, regardless of whether that individual has met an arbitrary threshold of alcohol in their bloodstream. To arrest someone driving normally with a BAC of .09 while giving a lesser punishment (if any) to someone driving dangerously while sober does not make sense from a public safety perspective, although such a standard makes sense from a prohibitionist mindset.

Well there is a "reckless driving" offense. And if you are able to drive normal at BAC 0.09, you won't get pulled over. The problem is the amount of people who THINK they can drive normal at such a level is quite a bit higher than those who actually can, so some sort of limit is needed. It's much like speed limits in that sense, we all know driving at 56mph in a 55 mph zone isn't particularly dangerous or a huge threat, but some limit is obviously needed.

(Although yes, I wouldn't mind DUI laws being enforced more like speed limit ones since one isn't likely to get a ticket going 56 in a 55mph zone. Of course one difference is the speed limit serves as more of a "recommended speed" and you go in a 5 mph window on each side since going too slow can be just as dangerous as going too fast, but no one would argue that it's ideal to drive at exactly a 0.08 BAC.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Are those more of an East Coast thing or something? I've never ran into one or had to do a breathalyzer test.

Even if legal those are still insanely stupid, common sense dictates that pulling over a bunch of people at random as opposed to looking for signs of drunk driving will end up netting significantly less drunk drivers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Even if true that doesn't make what I said false. Furthermore common sense also dictates it makes more sense to catch people who are drunk and show signs of it than people who aren't. I know that sounds like what SPC is saying, but we all know if there wasn't a DUI limit at all we'd have hordes of people driving and insisting that they are perfectly OK to do so even if they were at something like 0.15.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well Harry is white.