Crapo arrested on DUI

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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.

silly liberals.  drunk driving should be legal

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Considering that a lot of people have been killed in drunk driving accidents, jail time is more than reasonable.

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

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

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

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'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.

can you demonstrate that the explosion of the criminalization of drunk driving has done what you want it to do?  what is it that you want it to do?  pay off the lawyers and social workers and insurance executive and corrections officers?

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Current DUI/DWI penalties are fine.

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

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Tweed, drunk driving deaths have dropped a lot
http://www.centurycouncil.org/sites/default/files/images/AIDF-Rates.gif

that's fine, but we still must balance a. the human costs of criminalization with the perceived human benefits and b. further assess causality: the harsher penalities may not be driving down the rate and recidivism, it could be the public health campaign, something else, etc.

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Current DUI/DWI penalties are fine.

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

<facepalm>

excuse me?  this goes on all the time.  drug criminalization and drunk driving criminalization have become a scam-slush fund for the 'treatment' industry and insurance companies.  people caught driving over the legal limit or in possession of any amount of an illegal drug are diverted to treatment, where they are taught that they are powerless over their addiction (although many of them do not meet the criteria for drug/alcohol dependence to begin with), and that they have an interminable and incurable disease.  the treatment-industrial complex has grown by hundredfolds over the past few decades thanks to ignorant attitudes such as yours.

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It would seem by any reasonable measure that the criminalization of grossly irresponsible behavior of getting behind the wheel of a multi-ton vehicle moving dozens of miles an hour while under the influence, measured against the lives and limbs saved SHOULD be a no brainer.

people who are extremely fatigued drive at a level of impairment comparable to those driving on several drinks, should this behavior be criminalized?

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What level of statistically-increased danger is acceptable to criminalize? Should it be illegal to change the station on the radio since that increases the chances of an accident occurring?

Statistics don't have anything to with it, you don't need numbers to tell you that impaired driving should be illegal. It's not the same thing as changing the station on the radio.

so rather than being concerned about its concrete effect, you are concerned about some magical and unnamed quality it has that requires it to be prohibited.

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Other drivers and pedestrians have a right to be safe from impaired drivers.

there is no such 'right'.  thankfully I understand what you are trying to say.  unfortunately you have singled out only one of the many forms of impairment and deemed it worthy of draconian punishment.

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there is no such 'right'.  thankfully I understand what you are trying to say.  unfortunately you have singled out only one of the many forms of impairment and deemed it worthy of draconian punishment.

And there is no right to drive drunk. Drunk driving laws are to protect other people, not restrict people of rights that aren't at all enshrined in the constitutional. If a drunk driver injures or kills someone, they should get a jail sentence. If not, they should get a fine and have their license revoked.

worst of all possible argumentum ad hominem, if I were of a different stripe I would 'Report to moderator', a resort to this type of nonsense is somewhere in between pitiable and reprehensible.

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ah, I guess it magically disappeared, I'm glad I preserved it.

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there is no such 'right'.  thankfully I understand what you are trying to say.  unfortunately you have singled out only one of the many forms of impairment and deemed it worthy of draconian punishment.

And there is no right to drive drunk. Drunk driving laws are to protect other people, not restrict people of rights that aren't at all enshrined in the constitution. If a drunk driver injures or kills someone, they should get a jail sentence. If not, they should get a fine and have their license revoked.

Technically, no one really has a right not to be robbed, assaulted or murdered, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws against that. Some may hate those laws as restricting freedom, but they do make sense. Sorry.

speaking of constitutional rights, enforcement of drunk driving law via the checkpoint came under fire for bending the 4th amendment protection to unreasonable search and seizure, as drivers are able to be stopped and in effect forced to incriminate themselves via a sobriety test.  unfortuately, despite the best efforts of liberal hero Thurgood Marshall, the good guys lost 6-3:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Dept._of_State_Police_v._Sitz

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I thought of something better to say, I went over the top and shouldn't have. It's just aggravating to me that some people don't see that drunk driving is not safe.

I've never said it is safe.  operating a vehicle is inherently unsafe.  I am even willing to concede that operating a vehicle while under the influence of enough alcohol is to one degree or another less safe than it is otherwise, but it does not automatically follow that the behavior should be criminalized.

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@patrick: how was your outpatient experience?  was it 12-step oriented?  PM me if you resist going public, I might even know of your treatment center given our proximity.

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no follow up questions, just a small suggestion or notice.. there is an alternative recovery program, I think it has 3 meetings on LI and a bunch more in the 5 boroughs, it's a lot more to-the-point and speaks not of a Higher Power, perhaps you'd be interested.  http://www.smartrecovery.org/   and the meeting list for NY: http://www.smartrecovery.org/meetings_db/view/showalpha_state.php?search=N

also it shows a high level of awareness to ask-out of the not-self-referred groups, good work.

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And if you are able to drive normal at BAC 0.09, you won't get pulled over.

false.  random checkpoints.

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they exist so cops can target people they want to target and try to get big drug scores.  blacks and poors and young males.

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I'm pretty sure he was trying to meet a quota or just hoping I had drugs in the car.  He asked if he could look in my trunk, but when I told him yes he didn't do it.

NEVER say yes!  next thing you know a bag of coke appears out of nowhere.

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I mean, it's not like the cop is actually going to plant drugs in my car.

nah they neverrrrr do that