Those Other Sidney Warriors

Citizens of Sidney, I bring you good news. You will be pleased to know that your Town Supervisor, Bob McCarthy, will staunchly defend your right to get drunk, get into your car and mow down your neighbors, my kids or anybody else unfortunate enough to be in the way.

In an email addressed to Lisa Barrows, coordinator of the Delaware County STOP-DWI program (and to the entire County Board of Supervisors), McCarthy made no secret of his disapproval of the program.

“I can’t conceive of anything as ridiculous as a ‘mock crash’ and I also can’t conceive of anything more useless than your department.”

McCarthy then goes on to call DWI “the most over enforced law in the country,” a remark that has me in something of a puzzle since I don’t know how it is possible to overenforce any law that’s … well, that’s a law.

He blames such over enforcement for cell phone driving deaths, without bothering to show what one has to do with the other. He blames it for making restaurants go out of business. He claims it has changed the social structure of our society, causing folks to fear stopping at a tavern after work to socialize with their friends because “there is a trooper waiting outside to arrest them.”

I feel it is important to note here that, in fact, simply drinking is not illegal. Even driving after drinking is not illegal. If you are not drunk — i.e., with a blood-alcohol content of .08% — then nobody can arrest you for anything because you have not broken the law.

Getting back to the email, McCarthy goes on to proclaim that the government will soon take control of what you can say in your email and on the Internet, along with “the current effort to control guns” — more mythology — all of which will make us even more susceptible to tyranny.

He closes as follows:

“I am sick of our Federal Government, I am sick of our State Government, I am sick of losing my rights, and I sm sick of wasting tax money on useless programs that are limiting everyone’s rights. Whenever I get a chance to vote against your program you can count on me doing so. The only person that this program is benefiting (sic) is you.”

I’m not sure which is more unnerving, Mr. McCarthy’s ignorance or his paranoia.

For the record, I have no idea what prompted this diatribe. The printed copy I saw did not also have Ms. Barrows original message printed out with it and I would prefer not to speculate.

Also for the record, the STOP-DWI program is a statewide program established by the legislature in 1981 to coordinate county-level efforts to reduce alcohol and other drug related traffic crashes. It supports a “comprehensive and financially self-sustaining statewide alcohol and highway safety program.”

No tax dollars are used to pay for this program, either. Rather, by choosing to participate, counties become eligible to have all fines for alcohol and drug-related traffic violations occurring within their jurisdiction returned to their treasury. That is what pays for the program.

Judging from his own words, Bob McCarthy believes that society has no interest in protecting people against criminally irresponsible behavior — whether that behavior involves cell phones, alcoholic beverages or guns — and that government should not interfere in people’s freedoms, regardless of how dangerous your freedoms might be to me.

Once again I am left to wonder why, if he has so very much contempt for government, McCarthy decided to become a part of it?

UPDATE: I have learned, since writing the above, that this diatribe was inspired by an invitation Ms. Barrows sent to Supervisor McCarthy to attend a mock DWI car crash that was to be staged at the high school. I guess that nasty email was the undeserved fruits of being polite. We’re sorry, sir, and we’ll try not to let it happen again!