Live in Texas? Don't get drunk in the bars!

According to you, Reaver, Texas is partaking in Thought Crime. Which is just great.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

I don't really see the huge problem with this. It's not like they're arresting people for drinking, they're arresting people for getting drunk enough they'd be arrested if they were out in public doing the antics they could be up to in the bar.

They're arresting people before a crime has been committed, and there is no conspiracy in crimes like these. None that could be taken seriously, anyway.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

You know, any asshole who isn't careful could do this. Regardless of being drunk or not.

You're saying it's pretty much illegal to be fucking stupid? If that were the case, sir, the jails would be overflowing - literally - with a huge percentage of the nation's population.

At least someone here has sense.

Originally Posted by CloudNine

It might be stupid, but they have a basis for doing it.

Are you shitting me? That's utter and total BS. You can find a BASIS for doing just about anything, that doesn't make it right. Period.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

They might be vacant, but that's just because of the popularity of capital punishment.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I find your rhetoric to be insufferably blind to the actual world. A baby cannot alert others to a problem, a baby will not have been taught to lock doors and roll up windows. While I've seen some people get pretty stupid drunk, I've never see one to the point where he had the mentality of a baby. If a person was that out of it then the cuffs would go on an unconcious man, which isn't needed because there's no need to arrest a sleeping man.

As such, your comparison holds no water, sorry. Unless you actually intend for them to arrest those knocked out due to alcohol consumption, which I find laughable.

Alright, so the second someone goes outside they are drunk in public. They got drunk in a bar, private place. If they go outside in an effort to either get into a car--not driven by them--or to walk home they should be left to do so in peace. As the police on this task have no better thing to do then they could follow them until there is a need to arrest them.

And, of course, if they try to get into a car to drive it they get arrested. Duh. No reason to arrest an innocent person simply for habing one too man on the basis they could hurt someone.

Double Post:
Also, couldn't this be seen as precedence for further laws hindering gun ownership and the like? I suppose I could be reading too far into it, but I don't like where this whole, "You may do something wrong, we're arresting you," may lead to.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by CloudNine

It's like leaving a baby inside of a car while you go into the gas station to pay for your gas. Sure, your only going to be inside of the store for a minute but something could happen to your baby while you were inside. Last time I checked, this is considered negligence on the drivers part.

That's your only example, and as I explained earlier, it doesn't work very well. This is wrong, I don't see how someone can argue against that.

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Correction, I don't see how someone can seriously argue against that.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

See, I read those--because I did go through the thread--but those aren't so much examples of this law in action as much as you clarifying what can, and does, already happen. Why? Because the answers seem so ridiculously obvious. Do you think a cop would bother a man asleep in the back of a car? If it looked like he had broken into it, maybe. Other than that I doubt he'd even notice. The only mildly likely one is where he's sitting there with his car running, and there's nothing wrong with that because at that point it would seem, extremely so, that the man was going to drive while intoxicated.

"Arrestable offences" and "Being arrested" are two entirely different things. As it is it's illegal to step outside of the bar while drunk, but I've never seen it happen. Have you? Maybe if you live in Texas. This law is making it laughably easy for police to trod on citizens rights, and what's worse is they are.

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But please, since I'm a young idealist who let's little things like the Constitution dictate my stances on rights, explain to me what you're getting at. The point is obviously lost on me.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by CloudNine

My neighbor was arrested and charged with a DUI while sleeping in the passenger seat of his car while drunk. The car was not started and he was not planning on driving anywhere.

Alright, name five more cases that you know of off-hand. One doesn't cut it when you're using such a shakey point, sorry.

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Like I said before, just because it doesn't happen, doesn't mean that it can't happen and because of the laws surrounding it, (you yourself just said it was illegal to leave the bar intoxicated) they are justified in arresting people who do such things.

If it can happen but it doens't there's a reason, in this case the reason is drunks walking home or getting into a car (to be driven by someone sober) pose no threat. The laws you allude to are in place for the instances where a drunk does do something stupid after walking out, last I checked we didn't run a zero-tolerance country.

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My point is that things like this has already been happening in this country for years and have been approved in many cases. I will once again go back to my case, which I still believe is completely valid. Just like the mother who leaves her child in the car seat is negligent of the possible dangers that may face her child, the drunk person who leaves the bar is being negligent of his resposibilities to not harm innocnet people. Why is the mother charged with a crime of endangering her child when nothing has happened, but the man who leaves the bar is not? I would venture to say that more people are killed by drunk drivers every year then parents leaving there children in the cars. Why is there nothing to prevent this type of negligence?

You're wrong. Things like that haven't been happening, not on this scale anyway, they've only had the ability to happen. I can go buy some advil if I get a headache, but instead I'll most likely leave it alone. Why? Because in itself it won't do anything more than annoy me. Just like the majority of drunks. For the minority that do lose all common sense we have the laws that have been in place for years, and if they are not being enforced properly the solution is not to arrest people for the ability to break the law, but to better enforce the laws. As for you comparison, again, it sucks. Get a new one.

If what you want are more solutions to this DD problem, which is what it appears you are asking for, fine. This isn't one of them. Mentioned earlier were people who's states make bartenders keep tabs on people who have had too much, and act accordingly to prevent them from doing anything stupid. Add to this the fact that a chuck, I don't have statistics, of drunk drivers come not from bars, but parties held other places that this bill does not address and you'll see this isn't doing all that much but stepping on the toes of your rights.

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Why do you think we have drunk driving and public intoxication laws in the first place? Because people intoxicated are generally unable to control themselves and will act in irrational and negligent ways.

Drunk driving and public intoxication laws are in place so that in the event a problem does arise or a problem appears to be inevitable action can be taken. They are not there so that every idiot who's had one too many can pay the state an exorbiant amount of money because he was trying to walk home.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well that depends on what they've done. If they've acted out, then sure. However, the same goes for the current laws concerning public intoxication. As has been stated before, a man who's intoxicated should not be bothered while walking home peacefully. Not unless he does something to merit such action, like throwing a baby.

It really doesn't matter to me whether or not the bar is a public or private place, it only matters to the letter of the law. It breaks the letter, but it's the idea behind it that's worse, and that stays regardless of private/public status.

Jam it back in, in the dark.