New York Diary

How come I have to find these things out from a British newspaper?

Today's news flash: Texas arrests people for drinking in bars. I mean, is this not a bit over-the-top?

If you click on that link and read the article, you'll notice that the primary justification for this has to do with the prevention of driving under the influence. Two immediate reactions: 1. Wrongful arrest! 2. Thought police!

First, as the fellow in the telegraph article points out, there's no guaranteeing that any particular drunk bargoer is planning to drive home. What if I was going to take a cab? Or be a passenger in the car of my sober friend? Or bike home? Or have my husband come pick me up? Or walk?

Moreover, though, even if I was planning to drive home drunkly (a think which, like the police, I suspect most of these people are planning to do), my future plans are not enough to justify my arrest. Now, to be fair, the 2200 unfortunate Texans arrested so far haven't been arrested for DUI; they've been arrested for public intoxication. Well, okay, so I grant the legality. I merely state that the justification doesn't square with the action. Insofar as it's true that this is a part of a campaign against drunk driving--and, given that that's what everybody is saying, I believe that it is--it is a campaign aimed at the intention to drive drunk. That may be legal here, but it also goes against the spirit of innocent-until-proven-guilty, and I don't like it.

Finally, to justify this law on other, self-preservationist grounds (like protecting a drunkard from jumping off a balcony into a pool, only to miss) is stupid. The point of public intoxication laws is that there may be some public good associated with enforced sobriety. For example, barring public drunkenness in the streets weighs an individual's rights over his own body and what he imbibes against a community's desire to sleep soundly at night and not have its houses pissed upon. This is a reasonable public good, it seems to me; it is, at least a plausible public good. On these grounds, we might even grant the (silly!) idea that, because sober people cannot drive drunk, nobody ought ever to be drunk in a bar. But we would be hard-pressed to think that the government has any right to keep me from getting drunk when I am alone in my own home--even though I may do myriad stupid things. If I have a swimming pool in my back yard and a balcony on the third story of my house, the government is no more allowed to arrest me for drunkenness than if I live in a padded room where I could not possibly bring myself to any kind of accidental harm. This is the idea of a man's home being his castle; the idea behind the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Georgia v. Randolph; and the idea behind an American government dedicated to protecting individual rights.

So: the spate of arrests are no good on the grounds of protecting individuals from themselves. They're a bad way to prevent drunk driving (not a poor way--they might be very effective--but a bad way--they're not-quite-evil) because they punish you before you've ever committed the crime, and because it's quite possible that you never planned to do so in the first place. And finally, they're a silly way to prevent public intoxication. After all, the clear intention (and the clear good) of public intoxication laws has very little to do with people who are drinking indoors in a bar, even if it is a public space. We have such laws to protect people, property, and eardrums--all of which are doing fine if people are sitting in bars and drinking. And if they are standing in bars, shouting, and fighting--well, then the bartenders call the cops anyway.

posted by Skay @ 12:10 AM