Posted on 10/24/2005 8:32:02 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
I begin to think that Mothers Against Drunk Drivers constitute a public nuisance, and need to be stuffed down an abandoned oil well. And indicted for fraud. We could dangle a microphone down the well on a wire so that they could testify.
These tiresome biddies aren’t against drunk driving, which anyone with a possum’s brains is against. Your dangerous drunks are incorrigibles who time and again blow horrific BACs and wobble around the roads like student unicyclists. The proper response is permanent revocation of driver’s licenses. If they need to go to work they can buy a horse.
But the MADD girls are not against drunk driving. They are prohibitionists pretending to be something else. Their name is artfully crafted to make them seem to be no end virtuous—moral bidets squirting purest goodness. What could be more pure than motherhood? But it is like calling the Spanish Inquisition a society for the protection of orphans. It still isn’t.
An example of the swindle: Texas sends undercover cops into bars to arrest drunks before they drive. (Links below.) A bit shaky, that. You are talking to your date over a bottle of wine and dinner when the guy at the next table pulls out a badge and a Breathalyzer. “Step this way, sir….” But never mind.
At The Agitator, I find this: “Heather Hodges, an Abilene-based MADD victims advocate, said her group is working closely with the TABC on the project.”
Says Heather, ''We believe responsible adults should drink responsibly. And those that serve them should be responsible. A lot of people think it's OK to be drunk in bar, but it's illegal. A bar is not intended to be a place to get fall-down drunk ... . You don't have to be fall-down drunk to be considered drunk. Even after one drink, you aren't 100 percent.''
Following the introductory platitude, note the logical sequence: Falling-down drunk is bad. If you aren’t falling down you are still drunk. After one drink you are impaired. Therefore if you have a glass of wine at dinner, you should be arrested. This is not opposition to drunken driving. It is prohibition in drag, to be enforced by disguised police.
Let’s think about this. After one drink you “are not a hundred percent.” Heather believes that we must keep people from driving who are “not one hundred percent.” OK. I’ll buy it. Let’s get impaired people off the road.
Going to the web site of The Women’s Health Channel, I find the following listed as symptoms of PMS:
"• Mood-related ("affective") symptoms: depression, sadness, anxiety, anger, irritability, frequent and severe mood swings. • Mental process ("cognitive") symptoms: decreased concentration, indecision."
Does that sound like one hundred percent to you? I figure it’s a pretty good description of an unstable borderline psychotic. Oh good. I want to drive on the roads with someone who doesn’t pay attention, couldn’t decide what to do it she did, and wants to kill something. Me, probably.
We need to recognize the seriousness of PMS. People joke about it, as they do about drunkenness, but these women are public hazards. “Anger, irritability, frequent and severe mood swings”? (Now that’s a revelation.) “Decreased concentration”? Sounds like a bad drunk in a pool hall, a recipe for inattentive homicidal road-rage. I think the police should send squads into supermarket parking lots to check for these impaired women. Other cops should wait outside churches. To better protect the public we should have checkpoints on highways.
How does an officer tell when a woman is irresponsibly driving while under the, er, influence? Not by asking her. The impaired lie. With drunks, the dissimulation is often obvious. (“Jush two beersh, offsher.”) Those suffering from PMS can feign sanity, however briefly. Perhaps they should be required to carry a notarized letter from a gynecologist, like a hall pass. Or a governmentally issued calendar.
Ponder this from Planet Estrogen: “Additionally, several studies demonstrate reduced reaction time, neuromuscular coordination and manual dexterity during the pre-menstruation and menstrual phases.”
Are not these the classic symptoms of a snootful? The police might reasonably carry a device to test reaction times. They might profitably lurk in nail salons. Disguised.
But there is hope in technology. Last year for a newspaper I covered a proposal in New Mexico, supported by MADD, to make it impossible to start your car if you have been drinking:
From The Agitator: “People across the state are upset with House Bill 126, which would require ignition interlock devices be installed on all new cars sold in New Mexico by Jan. 1, 2008, regardless of the purchaser's driving record..." (It didn’t pass.)
"...The interlock device uses a blow tube which activates sensors when one blows into the tube. If alcohol is detected, the sensors activate a mechanism which shuts down the vehicle's ignition system and the car cannot be started.”
The approach illutstrates the weird totalitarianism of the female. Anything, anything at all, to increase security, security, security. We are all two-year-olds in need of diapering. The Mommy State is well named.
The wisdom of the ignition-interlock is of course evident. You go camping with your daughter. While you sit around the fire heisting a brew, she falls and cuts herself on the ax. She is bleeding badly. You rush her to the car to go to the hospital and…it won’t start. What the hell. You can adopt.
I believe that cars should be equipped with hormone-level detectors, similar to the blood-sugar monitors used by diabetics. At the very least, to start the car the potentially impaired driver should have to insert her governmentally-issued calendar into a slot and put her hand in a fingerprint-reader.
Whatever the solution, society should not have to tolerate such threats to children. Note that women are in fact sometimes around children, when they get home from work. Further, research shows that they are habitual offenders. Drunks can sometimes be weaned off the juice, but here we are dealing with assured repeaters. At the very least perpetrators should be required to undergo therapy, perhaps in twelve-step programs. Should this not work, electronic ankle-bracelets might protect us. Institutionalization could help.
Nelson Soucasaux, gynecologist: “Psychological signs and symptoms: Increase of nervous tension, anxiety, irritability, changes in the personality, emotional instability, depression, as well as increase or reduction of the sexual desire.”
Irritable sex-crazed depressives at the wheel, with bad reflexes. Alternatively, frigid nut-cases. This is the adult responsibility that Heather wants? I am going to start a group called DAMM, Dads Against Monthly Murder. We will meet in tree houses, above the roofline of an SUV.
Sounds like what they do in Delaware. It took nearly 10 yars, but they did finally change the DUI laws regarding los of driver's license - the way it had originally been written dolks doing the right thing such as walking or even riding a bicycle were losing their DLs.
As another FReeper often posts - if they don't want you driving after drinking why do bars have parking lots?
"Women - can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em."
Well, you can, but pretty soon, all the good places to bury them are used up!
Mark (ducking and running!)
I wish I could write like that..
LOL!
In truth the Mom's got kicked out of MADD Long ago.
More proof it has everything to do with revenue and nothing to do with safety. If they are going to pick up people walking home, then what motivates people to make the right choice? Won't these people then say, screw it, if I get caught walking or driving then it is the same, why not drive? How on earth does that discourage drunk driving?
What amazes me is that the same liberal nanny state busybodies who rail endlessly against alcohol and file lawsuits against bars - have no problem with judges that keep letting repeat offenders out on bail until they finally kill someone. It's the same with guns: liberals are endlessly solicitous of career criminals with arm-length rap sheets who use guns to commit crimes. But if you or I use a gun to defend ourselves against such punks, they'll sue you, me, and the gun manufacturer, too.
However, the tone of his little rant suggests to Fred's got some issues of his own. He's a bit too angry. Girl problems, bottle problems, maybe both.
If the people that instigated these laws, legislated these laws, enforced these laws, litigated on these laws, and judged upon these laws, were themselves AND their families SUBJECT... to these laws (absent the special dispensations they usually arrange)...we wouldn't HAVE these laws in their present form.
Just let these above-the-law bastards be subject to the standard penalties they advocate and inflict, and watch these hypocritical SCUM run...to hammer out the inevitable amendments. I have nothing but disgust for these holier-than-thou EXCREMENT.
That is simply NOT true... after 1 drink their BAC is somewhere in the .02 range, and they are not capable of driving any better but rather have a little less ability to react than if they were completely sober, and after 2 drinks, they are approaching .04 range, which is DWAI in Colorado. I don't know what data you are relying on...
Yeah, I know whacha mean. I read about Churchill's diatribes about Hitler. Over the top, yaknow? Also, Churchill was way into the sauce. Also, insulted a woman about being ugly long after he sobered up. Guess he was wrong about WWII 'nd stuff too...
Fred's got issues. His rant is crap.
Thou hast spoken, whoever the hey YOU are. (Smirk)
Stupid law problems. MADD's latest initiative is trying to get states to lower their DUI line to below the margin of error on even the best breathalizer machines. MADD's gone crazy with their own power.
Not saying I disagree with you about MADD. Nevertheless, Fred's choice of words suggests he's basically pissed at women in general.
I totally agree with you.
Unfortunately there are FAR too many people on this site who support all of these nanny state busybodies, and in fact are among them, themselves.
You've got to be kidding?
As a woman I found the entire thing about PMS to be absolutely hilarious - and in many ways very correct - just ask my husband :)
That one always made me laugh.
Too true.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
They're not Mothers (for the most part). They increasingly expand the scope of their activities beyond Drunk Driving (they're really lobbyists and fundraisers). So what does that leave?
Against.
Against what? Freedom? Travel? Movement by anything other than Shank's Mare or public transportation? What?
I've filed a complaint with the IRS, targeting their tax-exempt status. These people are dangerous.
I totally disagree, along with every state legislature, alcohol therapists, alcohol education programs, AA, and anybody familiar with the problem of drinking and driving. In Canada, did you knbow that a DUI is punishable with up to 10 years in jail?
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