So off course this went over like a lead balloon, as the saying goes, and now we have to deal with the aftermath, which happens to be a bunch of pissed-off visitors who don't want to get arrested inside a bar while they visit Dallas.
DALLAS -- The Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau has been flooded with angry e-mails and hostile phone calls from meeting planners threatening to cancel commitments in Dallas, concerned a trip to the area could land them in jail.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't drink. I never have and never will. I hate drunks. I hate the smell and taste of alcohol. I think drunk drivers are a scourge and should have all driving privileges suspended until they can prove they've been sober for a year.
But that doesn't make this strategy a good idea for anybody. When you make a law, it needs to be enforceable and it needs to make sense to the common person. If the problem is drunk drivers, why not take more action against drunk drivers? And does anybody really think it should be against the law to be drunk in a bar? If we want that, then there should be a law of a two drink maximum.
And by the way, if Texas is a red state, why do we have such an active state government? Shouldn't we all just be able to do whatever we want without government interference?
3 comments:
Good point about Texas being a red state but having such government intrusion (in bars).
You'd think that would offend the GOP and their "personal liberties doctrine." Of course, so many are "anti-vice" in spite of the fact they accept thousands and thousands in cash from the liqour lobby (which is, actually, quite a bi-partisan giver). The only person I've ever known to refuse money from the Beer Distributors PAC was State Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Van), but he's always on a moral high-horse.
One has to imagine that this is a dumb idea doomed to be short-lived. After all, in every bar, every night, there's bound to be somebodywho's drunk...that's what bars are for after all, getting drunk in 'safe' place, right? And it basically just doesn't seem fair that all this time authorities have been harping on getting a designated driver before you drive home; it would appear they sanctioned public intoxication in the first place. Laws should be enforced as the vast majority of people understand them and as they have been enforced in the past(barring a dramatic change in circumstances).
That's my point. Laws and lawmakers must factor in common-sense (perhaps better expressed as the way laws and rules are commonly understood). And the TABC claims to be "only enforcing the law." Well they're enforcing a law none of us ever heard of. This will fail. The only question is how long it takes and how much it pisses people off before it does.
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