Monday, July 4, 2011

A Constitutional Issue?

In just a few hours the Texas' "No refusal weekend" will come to an end. You may ask just what this is and what it entails. I'll be happy to tell you. You see, any police officer in the Republic can pull you over for suspicion of being hammered behind the wheel and mandate that you have  your blood drawn to test for intoxicants.
OK I get it. We don't want, or need drunks and other intoxicated fools behind the wheel of an automobile. They cause havoc and cost lives. That being said, do we really want just any cop having that much authority? Not in my country. So far we are not citizens of a police state. Heading that way sure, but still a long way off.  There is a trade off living in a free society with legal protections such as "innocent until proven guilty," protection against illegal search and seizure, etc, etc. Do we need to go into what that trade off is?

Again I agree that drunks need to be taken off the road but it is going a bit far; way too far; when any cop has the legal authority to have blood drawn.

I don't like that vato. I don't like that!

3 comments:

sth_txs said...

Well, you are not too bad a person if you say something like this. I don't care for drunks either, but this is getting out of hand.

As for Ron Paul, you are right. Even the 'educated' are too dumbed down to understand where is coming from. The Bill of Rights is now the Bill of Suggestions.

I've concluded that most Americans are too dumbed down to own the property they think they own much less own their air wasting lives.

No one thinks much anymore.

Jayhawk said...

Well, I have no particular problem with tough drunk driving laws, like you I want them off the road, but I know that those laws cannot ever be tough enough to be a solution to the problem. The drunk never thinks that he is drunk. That is not pretense, he literally and sincerely believes that he is not drunk, and the the laws regarding drunk driving do not apply to him.

Sadly, I know this from personal experience. Not for the past 30 years, but for almost thirty years before that.

The solution is to make is socially unacceptable for anyone to drive after taking even one drink. Unacceptable to the degree that a friend will tell that person, "Don't come back to my house. You are not welcome here if you drink and drive." when that person drives a car after taking even one drink.

Crazy Life of a Writing Mom said...

That's way too much power. Maybe I'm just writing this because I've met a few cops that are . . . "gems," but still. So crazy.