Murderously Bad Takes from the Past

And you thought the New York Times had bad op-ed pages today! This pro-drunk driving op-ed from 1984 is….I don’t even know what to say.

LAST Saturday night I drove home drunk or almost certainly that would have been the indication from any breath or blood test that I might have been required to take. I drove home drunk the Saturday before that, too, and the one before that, and the one before that, in what probably amounts to a fairly consistent pattern over the last 25 years, ever since I have been licensed to drive.

During those 25 years, I have never had an accident, nor have I ever been issued a summons for driving while intoxicated or impaired. This is not to suggest that I encourage weekend intemperance, or intemperance at any time, for that matter. Neither do I wish to extol my own driving ability, nor to say that somehow I’ve been leading a charmed life, because what happens to be true for me applies no less to nearly all of my friends.

Indeed, I would venture to extend that to include the vast majority of those whose life styles are in general similar to mine; namely, to all who regularly socialize with family, friends and neighbors, at cocktail or dinner parties, in private homes, restaurants, clubs or any other place where alcoholic beverages are customarily served. At the end of any particular evening, most of those who have engaged in such activities undoubtedly have in their bloodstreams a measure of alcohol above the minimum percentage established by the state beyond which one may be considered intoxicated or impaired, or, to put it bluntly, drunk. Yet these people almost invariably drive home safely without incident, accident or arrest – just as I do.

…

Let us eliminate once and for all the mystique and the myths about alcohol along with the attitudes that led to such follies as Prohibition and the W.C.T.U.. Rather than raising, perhaps we ought to eliminate altogether the minimum drinking age, thereby removing from alcohol the tantalizing mystery that often accompanies things that are forbidden.

At the same time, let us as parents educate our children in the mature and responsible use of alcoholic beverages rather than forbidding them, which only leads to their childish and irresponsible misuse. Let us as citizens and motorists demand the enforcement of strict penalties for those found guilty of abusing that responsibility while driving, and by so doing, let us return a lost liberty to responsible users of alcohol and restore safety to our highways.

There is of course an argument for eliminating the minimum drinking age. And there’s no real reason to just express outrage at an op-ed that is pro-drunk driving published 37 years ago. What there is to say is to remember just how ubiquitous driving a murder machine while sloshed was at that time. I know people do still do this today. But it is not socially acceptable. And it’s sure as heck not so socially acceptable to write a New York Times op-ed about it with your own name! I mean, can you imagine having written that and remembering back on it? It’s really a pretty wow time around this issue.

Credit for finding this monstrosity here.