It is threads like this that make Free Republic members look dumb.
Nobody really seems to know anything about this guy or what he has done, but because Obama appointed him to something Freepers start attacking him and the organization he was part of.
Obama appointed Bush’s Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates) to be his SOD. Did Gates suddently turn into a flamming lefty liberal? No.
Most people on here aren’t old enough to remember, but there was a time when drunk driving (and its consequences) was no big deal. It was a traffic violation. If you killed someone while driving drunk, the fact that you were drunk was a mitigating circumstance in your favor. The court went easier on you if you were drunk and ran someone down, than if you were sober and ran someone down.
MADD pretty much by itself changed the attitude (and laws) about drunk driving in this country. And it was not an easy change to make. They also keep track of judges that want to go easy on drunk drivers, letting people know who they are (if only we could get a group to do that for judges that go easy on people that commit murder.)
Nothing about this makes them a left wing group. If anything, they are a right wing get tough on crime group.
If you think the drunk driving laws are too tough and blame MADD, sorry you won’t get any sympathy from me. You’re free to put your own life at risk all you want, but not to put my life at risk by driving drunk.
And MADD is involved in other activity, including taking away your guns, as well. You know, because guns kill people. Just like Booze kills people, so we need to tax the crap out of it, and cigarettes, they cause lung cancer, so rather than ban them, lets tax the crap out of them too....
That's what MADD is all about. Taking away your RIGHTS. If someone is visibly impaired and kills someone, fine. There WERE laws already on the books to deal with that person. Instead, what is MADD responsible for? Making millions of others criminals that can handle their .08 level of alcohol.
MADD has recently been pushing to lower the drunk driving line to below the margin of error on most commonly used breathalyzers. If they succeed in that even people who’ve never had a drink in their life have a 50% shot at blowing drunk. If you don’t think that’s a problem sorry you won’t get any sympathy from me. And the guy in charge of that organization, and that push, is now nominated to be in charge of safety in America. Damn straight we’re attacking him.
Sane people know that .08 is too low and does not represent "impairment" in the average adult.
Spend some time around your local courthouse and you will see that only a tiny percentage of DUIs involve an accident. It's just a revenue scheme for the local criminal justice system. Every time someone blows .08 after being pulled over for "failure to maintain lane," MADD gains an opponent.
My life is more at risk by people driving STUPID, than people driving drunk. In fact, of "drunk driving accidents, it ISN"T the drunk that caused the accident. it was the stupid person. The drunk just happened to be in the way, and gets blamed for it automatically.
So maybe we should have a law against stupid drivers, right? If your IQ isn’t up to parr, no licence for you. Or, if you get in an accident, and fail an iq test, your stupidity, regardless if it was temporary, should land you in prison because you killed someone while being stupid.
I’ll stand with you Brook.
I’ve had my A$$ flamed many a time by PRO-DRUNK DRIVING FReepers who hate MADD and their efforts to enforce the law and reduce fatalities.
But most of these morons are harmless enough. Even (Hello Elk) the ones who claim more people die in murderous mop buckets than die in DWI crashes.
I’ve learned to accept this: There are way too many liberals on Free Republic who enjoy their “right” to drive drunk.
Candy Lightner, the woman who founded MADD after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver, quite the group several years later because she recognized that it no longer had been taken over by jack@sses who were hell-bent on using public concerns over drunk driving as a tool to implement a "neo-prohibitionist" agenda.
And after it was accomplished, they went commercial, with high paid execs overseeing a fund raising organisation.
Define “Drunk”.