If you are anything like me, you hate sobriety check points — those blights on weekend and holiday traveling where police officers commandeer an entire highway, slow all traffic to a near-standstill, and lecture each and every driver about the dangers of drunk driving all under the guise of ridding our roads of drunk drivers.
I won’t go into all the reasons I dislike them nor the reasons they are an abysmally-poor use of limited law-enforcement resources that don’t work well at all. I will say that if I had a way to find out where my local police department had set up a sobriety checkpoint, I’d use it to plan a route around the traffic delays and unwanted lecture. I’d actually pay money for, say, a smartphone app.
And what do you know? Such apps do exist, or at least they did until a few busybody Democratic Senators stuck their noses into our business.
Research in Motion said Wednesday that it would comply with a request made by four U.S. senators, and will pull BlackBerry apps that alert drivers of police drunk-driving checkpoints.
“RIM’s decision to remove these apps from their online store proves that when it comes to drunk driving, there should not be an app for that,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), one of the four lawmakers, in a statement Wednesday.
At least one app has disappeared from the BlackBerry App World.
On Tuesday, Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Schumer, Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Tom Udall (D-NM) asked Apple, Google and RIM to pull an unspecified number of apps from their mobile app markets.
Actually, it proves no such thing. What it does prove is that a few Senators have no problem abusing their power to bully a private company into doing what they want it do ti. It proves that Schumer, Reid, et. al., are eager to take yet another choice away from you. It proves that, contrary to common leftist cant, it is the totalitarian-minded progressives in our government who leap at the chance to force their beliefs about how you should live your life on you.
Shame on them for taking away your freedom of choice and shame on RIM for giving in to them.
(via memeorandum)
Tags: Democrats, Nanny State
Interesting logic-since RIM's decision to comply with their request 'proves' that they were right…let it henceforth be known to all, that when any of these Senators makes a request of you, it is your duty to DENY that request (unless you can independently determine that you have a parallel moral obligation).
And of course, the possibility that the Senators might get involved in a more formal manner never, ever crossed RIM's mind at all.
[...] Jimmie Bise: If you are anything like me, you hate sobriety check points. [...]
>If you are anything like me, you hate sobriety check points
I guess that's why I'm not anything like you; an idiot.
>I won’t go into all the reasons I dislike them nor the reasons they are an abysmally-poor use of limited law-enforcement resources
You won't go into it because you're wrong, the link you provide says in that case says:
. Reasons for this failure in Maryland include insufficient levels of enforcement (e.g., too few sobriety checkpoints and vehicle contacts occurred to raise public perceptions of risk pertaining to impaired driving) and inadequate publicity surrounding this campaign. Suggestions for overcoming these problems are offered.
When done right they work quite well and RIM was right to pull the apps because drunk drivers, y'know, kill people and it's wrong to enable that sort of thing?
Jimmeh it's been a while since I've read your idiocy it's comforting to know you still know very little.
Unlike you, I have direct experience with sobriety checkpoints. I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that they do not work nearly as well as saturation patrols, whether targeted as likely areas of drunk driving (i.e. in and around areas with more bars) or not.
I'm glad you decided to welcome my "idiocy" with a helping helping of your own. next time you have the impulse to give so generously, repress it.