Crapo arrested on DUI

[minionofmidas]

I wonder how drunk he was.

This. This very very much.

In part because anybody capable of driving accident-free while *blind* drunk has a history of undetected drunk driving.

[minionofmidas]

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.

For .11? Don't be effing ridiculous.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/alkoholsucht-in-der-politik-es-muss-viel-passieren-bis-etwas-passiert/4376606.html

[minionofmidas]

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.

For .11? Don't be effing ridiculous.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/alkoholsucht-in-der-politik-es-muss-viel-passieren-bis-etwas-passiert/4376606.html

I believe the above figure is percentages, not promiles.

Yes, the above figure is American-style.

[minionofmidas]

many more people get killed in accidents that have nothing to do with alcohol.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

'deterrence' is a false flag myth designed to perpetuate the prison-industrial complex.

So what if people get killed in accidents that have nothing to do with alcohol? That doesn't mean drunk driving should be legal. I'm guessing you are the type that drives drunk.

Driving should be illegal, full stop.

[minionofmidas]

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.

For .11? Don't be effing ridiculous.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/alkoholsucht-in-der-politik-es-muss-viel-passieren-bis-etwas-passiert/4376606.html

I believe the above figure is percentages, not promiles.

Yes, the above figure is American-style.

And this is above the legal limit everywhere, as far as I'm aware.

Yes, and rightly so by the way.
But it's only slightly  above what the legal limit in this country used to be not so very long ago, and the notion that it's some kind of capital crime that deserves *years of* jail time is... uh... out there with the notion that marijuana possession deserves jail time.

There's a lot of things that are rightly forbidden and that still are not dreadful horrible crimes. Fine him, take his license away for a few months maybe.

Driving should be illegal, full stop.

I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying it's totally reasonable that driving under the influence is illegal and can come with jail time. That's common sense.

You need to bite that bullet to retain a logical position.

[minionofmidas]

You need to bite that bullet to retain a logical position.

It's a matter of opinion if drunk driving should be illegal or not.

Well, not really - unless you take Tweed entirely literally - but then my claim quoted above isn't entirely true either.

A ban on cars certainly "logically" follows from any position that says anything that endangers other people should be illegal. It is never an entirely sufficient argument to point to the number of victims of conduct x. You always need to weigh all the factors - and as it happens it does make sense in that context to ban drunk driving but not driving per se (though I'd like to see it made easier to permanently and irretrievably revoke someone's driving permit, whether their repeated infractions are alcohol-related or not.)

[minionofmidas]

Current DUI/DWI penalties are fine.

you support coerced 12-step participation for non-addicts and non-alcoholics?

Coerced therapy is useless to its nominal aims and not really any sort of therapy at all, but it feeds a lot of people (and feeds them well) out of the public purse without officially swelling the ranks of government employees. Besides, it's cheaper than jailing middle class offenders and preserves their respectability. From the point of view of bourgeois democracy, it's a win-win-win-win.

[minionofmidas]

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.

Not if you choose times and locations wisely.

[minionofmidas]

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.

...and more to the point, actually aren't perfectly OK but merely still able to remain entirely accident-free as long as everybody else around them is a model driver.