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PRISONS AND CHECKPOINTS: WHAT PRICE SAFETY IN A FREE SOCIETY?

America is a land of extreme contradictions: rich and poor, the freest with the most prisoners, and the most committed to liberty with some of the most repressive attitudes.

We certainly live in a very dangerous society.  Handguns are one of the leading causes of death among young men.

People are afraid, and politicians prey on that fear.  Legislation has been proposed in my state to legalize police highway checkpoints, already legal in forty states (a U.S. Supreme Court decision on this is pending at the time of this writing). HIGHWAY CHECKPOINTS!!  Politicians always look for easy answers; but, they are often unwilling to make hard decisions to protect us.

There is no question but that one of the great sources of danger in our society is the automobile.  More Americans are killed each year in car accidents than Americans died in the War in Vietnam.  Most fatal accidents involve alcohol.  But despite the vast war on drunken drivers, highway safety has not been dramatically improved.  Politicians will always take the easy steps of increasing penalties and restricting individual liberty, rather than taking the hard steps of limiting the proliferation and legal immunity of taverns, and funding rehabilitative programs.  The society that glorifies alcohol finds it easiest to deal with the damage by imprisoning the drinker.  If the present rate of increase continues, within this century the majority of the population of the USA will be in prison.

When the constitutional liberty of a single one of us is trampled in the name of public safety, we all suffer from a loss of freedom.  I do not support drinking and driving. It is a reprehensible evil, just as is murder.  But I object to the suspension of human rights that has occurred in the name of the unsuccessful war on driving while intoxicated.

In my state, which is festooned with saloons, a simple dram shop law (requiring tavern keepers to accept their responsibility for pushing alcohol on their drunken patrons) would do more than all the jail cells and highway checkpoints combined.  But the legislature lacks the spine to stand up to the special interests.

This little handbook on drunk driving is, therefore, intended to be one man’s statement in support of the right to be left alone, to be free of unreasonable searches, to a presumption of innocence, to a fair trial, a fair verdict and, yes, if you deserve it, a fair punishment.

You need to get help if you want to fight your OWI arrest or even if you just want to be treated fairly by the system.

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FREE WISCONSIN OWI CASE EVALUATION-CLICK!