A POLITICALLY INCORRECT BUT PROPER MOVE BY CONGRESS

As issues go, this one is pretty clear-cut. On one side you have the forces
of right and good -- passionate, committed people who are determined to
save hundreds of lives each year by rolling back the national standard for
maximum legal blood alcohol levels in motorists to 0.08 percent. On the
other side, you have the slimy, greedy forces of the restaurant and liquor
industry lobbyists, getting members of a blinkered, Republican-dominated
Congress drunk on campaign contributions, and having their way with them as
the $200 billion highway bill is passed and sent to the president.

So how do I end up on the wrong end of this argument? How can I possibly
think that it's a good thing that states be allowed to keep the blood
alcohol standard at 0.10 if they wish without being denied federal money
for being so irresponsible?

Here's how: It bothers the heck out of me when "zero tolerance" is invoked
as some kind of license to abandon common sense and good judgment, set up
sobriety checkpoints and invasions of people's privacy, and in general
create a nuisance while diverting attention and energy away from the true
nature of the problems.

We don't usually hear it put that way, though. Instead we hear such
questions as, "If you think drinking is OK, how many drinks would you like
your surgeon to have before he operates on you?" This, of course, is
intended to back the doubter into a corner. Having slid all the way down
the slippery slope, we must agree with the questioner or risk looking like
a person who has no concept of the humanity that is at stake. The
implication is that there is no middle ground, even though anyone capable
of independent thought knows full well that there's a vast amount of middle
ground.

Stop for a moment, though, and it is clear that MADD and the others pushing
for the tighter standard invoke absolute arguments and yet they are clearly
willing to settle for much, much less -- a logical contradiction for people
who righteously ask us about surgeons. After all, if we agree that
motorists are like surgeons and police and pilots, then it is irresponsible
even to allow a 0.08 standard. We have to shoot for the works, zero
tolerance, no acceptable level of alcohol in the blood of anyone behind the
wheel.

MADD and the others don't go that far because the debate would end fairly
quickly and they would lose it. Most people recognize that there are levels
of impairment, levels of risk, and that when people drink socially or at
dinner at a restaurant, the vast majority of them do it responsibly and
aren't a menace to others.

What's more, we don't come any closer to catching those who truly are a
menace by sweeping up tens of thousands of other people with a tighter
standard. The people behind the wheel who register a 0.16 or a 0.22 are,
and will remain, the source of virtually all of the trouble, and the lower
standard doesn't do a thing about them.

What it does do is put everybody else on guard against being nabbed in a
roadblock or a checkpoint or a traffic stop and being found guilty of
drunken driving and having their lives ruined because they had two glasses
of wine with their dinner.

If law enforcement is going to become so totalitarian, then people out of
necessity will learn to live with it, more out of fear than out of reason.
And gradually they will resent and resist attempts by others to blur the
distinctions between what is acceptable and responsible and what is
dangerous and criminal.

MADD & Co. may win this in the end, though. Somehow I cannot help but think
that all the school students now being asked to blow into Breathalyzers at
the prom, who live under zero tolerance" rules that kick them out of school
for carrying a plastic table knife -- a weapon -- in their lunch box, will
grow up to become adults who are quite used to applying absolute and
inflexible rules without making critical distinctions.

After all, it's a lot easier than being forced to think, and to use one's
own judgment. And when the reward is being hailed as a hero for claiming
the high moral ground and saving lives, who will be left to ask what
happened, to venture outdoors into the free world again and make individual
choices and make them well without having others act as judge and jury?

So I say to Congress, especially this Congress, like the MADD folks, I
don't trust your motives, either. I think that, taken as a whole, you're a
conniving pack of sell-outs. But sometimes, you somehow manage do the right
thing despite yourselves. This is one of those times. Congratulations, for
what it's worth.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski