They Still Want Your Hooch

And they will lie, scheme, manipulate, and disregard the 4th Amendment to take it away from you. And they will take away your rights while they are at it.

And they never really went away to be honest. Like any malevolent being, the neoprohibitionists have simply morphed into something appealing to the current generation of killjoys, nanny-staters and just plain dupes that genuinely think they are doing the right thing and will never waver in their self-righteous furor.

Yesterday it was Carrie Nation, the Anti-Saloon League, and The Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Today it's MADD and, well, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. As far as I'm concerned MADD is no better than PETA, and we know what lunatics they are! Only problem is that MADD, having been establish with a noble goal to begin with, has evolved into a sacred cash cow for neoprohibitionists.

"But it's for the children!" goes the sacred mantra against those who dare question their lies. Only a monster would question a group that wants to put a stop to raving drunks plowing their car into a station wagon full of kids. But what they don't tell you is that that raving drunk is no longer the focus of MADD's efforts as they have shifted towards the casual drinker instead. In true Left-Winged fashion, they want to question what the definition of "is" is by redefining what it is to be "drunk." First it was "impaired", then it was a .10 BAC, then a .08 BAC. Now most jurisdictions will arrest you for DWI for having a .04 BAC (less than 2 drinks for some people) and even if they know the charge won't stick, they can try to plea-bargain you down or intimidate you into pleading guilty. And in some jurisdictions if you are on probation or parole they will arrest and convict you of DWI with a BAC of .02, as if somehow that assault and battery charge you got three years ago has lowered your body's resistance to alchohol and turned you into a raving drunk after one beer.

Let's not forget the unconstitutional roadblocks that still go on today in many States, where cars are stopped and randomly searched and the drivers given breathylizer without having done anything to indicate probable cause or generate reasonable suspicion. Of course if you refuse the breathylizer you get taken to jail and your license will automaticly be suspended, even if you are not convicted, even though you didn't even do anything to arouse suspicion.

There are plenty of cops and judges who think this is bullshit. One has even put out a video on the subject and advises people not to take the breathylizer test.

You can exercise your rights and refuse at any time. If you know you’re over the legal limit, which most people won’t know, I wouldn’t do it. Why give evidence against yourself? That’s like robbing a bank and sending the police department a note a week ahead of time saying so.

If I was stopped for a DUI, I wouldn’t walk, I wouldn’t talk, I wouldn’t do anything that’s going to help that officer articulate in his report that you are intoxicated. You will be arrested, but you have to buck up and play the game. I don’t believe in that implied consent crap, it’s blackmail. I’d rather lose my license for a year than get a DUI charge.

By this time many of you reading this are going, "well doesn't the fourth amendment cover this?" Well apparently since about 1983 or so (the same time that MADD came on the scene), the Supreme Court of these United States has been ruling that there is a "DUI exception" to just about every constitutional amendment that could apply to a DUI/DWI incident. Whether it's illegal search and seisure of your vehicle at a random checkpoint, avoidance of self-incrimination by breath, blood, or urine tests, your right to remain silent when questioned, the ability to have evidence examined by an independent body (when you take a breathylizer test, the air sample is immediately released into the atmosphere upon taking the reading, preventing any further examination of the evidence), or your right to a jury trial, the esteemed Justices of SCOTUS have said that you as an American have no constitutional rights.

Murderers, Rapist, and Child Molesters have these rights. But if you have a couple of beers, or even if you are completely sober and simply driving through a police checkpoint, then you do not have these rights. God forbid you should wear Aqua Velva or Brute.

But if you're not driving your safe, right? Right?

Not so. Public Intoxication is the charge that most jurisdictions use, and in effect it's become a "walking while intoxicated" charge, y'know, for when you've inconvenienced your local law enforcement body by not operating a motor vehicle so they can get you for driving while intoxicated. Hell in Fairfax, Virginia they just started sending police into bars, pulling people off of their barstools, giving them breathylizer tests, and taking them straight to jail. That includes designated drivers who were in there drinking coca-cola all night.

Now a lot of people were surprised at the gall that SCOTUS had in their latest ruling regarding imminent domain and property rights. But if you see the way that SCOTUS and MADD have been acting towards our right as Americans simply to have a couple of drinks, this sort of thing really doesn't seem out of step.

Oh, by the way, if you happen to have purchased a car made by General Motors in the last couple of decades, you've helped contribute a crapload of money towards taking away all of our constitutional rights. Over $3 million from 1995 to 2002 in fact. Thanks, guys!

Hat tip to Frank Kelly Rich and the folks at Modern Drunkard Magazine. Also a hat tip to the folks at The Center For Consumer Freedom who run the Activist Cash website.