Wisconsin has the highest drunk driving rate in the country — and no one wants to deal with it

I knew when I moved here that alcohol would be in my face–not really a safe place for recovering alcoholics. I grew up here, and it hasn’t changed much since I was a kid, except now the cars go faster, and one drunk driver can take out more people in one shot.

Occasionally, someone tries to pass a law about it or increase the penalties, but there is a deep, passive aggressive resistance to not drinking alcohol that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Here’s a good example from “Letter to the Editior” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Tuesday, August 25, 2009, regarding proposed legislation to change the law allowing children to drink in bars with their parents (really). The new law will require children to be 18 before they can pop back a few Brewskis with their folks (the legal drinking age, however, will still be 21, so go figure.). See our previous blog entry about this.

Let parents decide

I totally oppose the proposed bill regarding minors drinking in a tavern with parents. I am not in favor of minors drinking but am absolutely against Big Brother taking yet more control over our lives.

This bill basically says that the parents are too stupid to know whether this is right or wrong for their kids. One would have to assume this is aimed at the “bad” parents who don’t know better!

Patrick Kemmerling
Waukesha

Well, duh, the legal system thinks “the parents are too stupid to know whether this is right or wrong for their kids”. Age-related laws exist because many people who have children don’t have perfect judgment — and you, Mr. Kemmerling, don’t get a pass just because you want one. Same with buying the Little League cigarettes, letting your daughter have sex on your couch with her English teacher and dropping the dead body of the girl your son delivered a drug overdose to on her front lawn.