Fox news reported on Aug 26 that “17  million” people drove drunk in 2008. This number only represents the number of individuals, not the actual number of times people have driven drunk during the 2008 year. Meanwhile, sites like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (the appropriately named MADD) keeps reminding us about deaths each year due to drunk driving. In 2008 there were 11,773 drunk driving fatalities including 216 children. I was not able to determine the percent of 11,773 which were innocent victims; it seems the MADD women don’t care to share that stat.

It has been a while since math class, but pretending that the 17 million drunk drivers only drove once per year that would mean that only about 0.07%, (not to be confused with 7%) of all drunk driving led to fatalities. This is only a fraction of 1% and probably a majority of these fatalities are the perpetrator. I am a betting man, and I would wager that the MADD women all wish to keep legal plenty of other activities that are of far greater harm to others.

MADD reports that in 2006 1.46 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence (the sources don’t show if this is per individual or per incident). These arrests incur fines, jail time, lost wages, and black marks on permanent records, to name a few consequences. Money is spent on lawyers, judges, the ever present traffic cop, and a whole host of industries with no real productive value. All of this is of a huge net loss to society. Is it all worth it? MADD people might shoot back “if it saves one life.” Guess what else would save one life: “banning automobiles”. If no one could drive a car, less people would die. It would save much more lives than cracking down on drunk driving. Saving one life is not society’s end goal and never should be.

But it is not about saving lives. It is not about making society better. It is all about control. Some people love to control others. It was the bully on the playground, the older sister at home, the talentless boss at work. People long to control others, the more minute, the better. The amount of water in a flush, waiting at a red light at 3 in the morning with no traffic anywhere to be seen, smoking on private property. It is all about control, and the control freaks know how to use the system to create their perfect world of automatons.

Drunk driving is barely even definable. Even the staunchest of MADD people will admit that not everyone who blows a 0.08% is drunk. The MADD hatters draw an arbitrary line in the sand and anyone who crosses it, no matter how innocent, will be punished. When crimes are made up, they will rarely be consistent, definable, or equitable. It is the law of control.

God gives us a different system. In God’s legal system, the activity leading up to the crime was not the crime, e.g. Building a shoddy house was not a crime; negligent homicide due to structural collapse of a shoddy house was. In our society, we have reversed God’s law. Negligent homicide is now legal and building shoddy houses is not. MADD people have slapped God in the face proclaiming they know better than He, and misery is the result. If drunk drivers engaging in negligent homicide were swiftly, painfully, and publically executed as God commanded, people would calculate their drunk driving activities a little bit more carefully.

I recently sat through another lecture on drugs and alcohol. I could not help but reminiscing about the countless hours of brainwashing I encounter in public school concerning the exact same topics. I mentioned to Miss DEA that the government intentionally poisoned people during prohibition. It is not about saving lives; it never is. As Steve Lansburg would point out, the lesson is never about tooth brushing it is about authority.