I'm against drunk driving. I'm against drunkenness, period. But I know the reality from the other side, too. If we're talking about somebody who lives a typical life and occasionally goes out drinking and dancing on a Saturday night, and who had too much to drink but didn't want to hassle with calling a cab and then having to come back to the club the next day to get the vehicle... yeah, that's a bad judgment call, but one that normal people make all the time.
Drunk drivers need to be in jail regardless of circumstances. They need to pay the price for being a stupid idiot. One step above a child molestor in my book.
LB, I don't know you and your recreational habits for jack, but just based on the fact that you wear that hat, I'd venture to say that at some time or other you've driven home from a dance or a friend's weekend barbecue and football game party with enough alcohol in you to be considered legally intoxicated. If so, then the only difference between you and the people you're talking about is, you didn't have a wreck that particular time. If my comments don't apply to you, they certainly do to your next door neighbor or the guy down the street.
My remarks in the previous post were about alcoholics, not weekend partiers who let it get out of hand. I'm certain you don't want to hear it, because it's more satisfying to just be mad and rail about punishment, but the fact is that alcoholics are in the grip of something they can't control without help. They are struggling in the grip of a life-destroying problem and at the same time trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life. They are driven to drink constantly, but they also are trying to work a job, raise kids, maintain a marriage, and so on. Yeah, usually it's all a horrible mess, but they're trying to keep it up anyway; what else are they going to do (before they get help)? So they drive. To work, home from work, to the grocery store, to take the kids to soccer practice, and so on. And they do it while drunk, because most of the time they're drunk.
I must have driven tens of thousands of times while legally drunk, before I had that car wreck. If you wanted to punish me enough to cover every time I drove drunk (it's the driving that's wrong, not the having of the wreck, right?) then you'd need to give me the death penalty, because life in prison couldn't cover it all.
So, what's better, LB... that I be languishing in prison for the rest of my life? Or that I be put through a treatment center, given time to dry out and adjust physically, taught lessons in life and responsibility and adulthood, and then put back into society as a responsible, functional part of it?
