Should we lower the blood alcohol level for driving? Interesting piece about that by Marcus Kowal, a mixed martial arts fighter whose infant son was killed by a drunk driver (a 72-year-old woman, in the middle of the day, hit the baby’s stroller in crosswalk). He advocates lowering the threshold.

In every state, the “legally drunk” blood alcohol level is .08. A few decades ago, the standard was .1. Lowering it reduced the alcohol-related fatality rate by 10%. Kowals argues for lowering it to .05, the standard in several European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands–where, though people drink more alcohol per capita than Americans, the traffic fatality is much lower.

He says many studies show that lowering the threshold would deter many people from driving while intoxicated. Utah and Washington states have considered lowering it to .05, but lobbyists for the beverage and hospitality industries swung into action. I don’t know if this is a Democrat or Republican issue. I suppose one or the other sides with the lobbyists.

Kowal mentions his home country, Sweden, where the limit is .02. DUIs bring harsh punishments. However, he said, drunk driving carries a strong stigma in Sweden–it’s not socially acceptable. He compared it to waving a loaded firearm in a grocery store–just not something you do. He said Americans are far too tolerant of drunk driving, sometimes treating it almost as a right of passage (think of the numerous celebrities who have DUIs, but have faced almost no consequences). How do we create a culture where DUIs are not socially acceptable?

Kowal also said the average person drives drunk 80 times before their first crash or arrest. That seems high, and I don’t know how such a number is determined. But if the number was just 10 times, that would still be very disturbing.

The victims of drunk driving are always innocent–persons driving to the store, cruising on a highway, walking along a street…or a baby in a stroller. Just as it bothers me that untrained people are walking around in public with loaded firearms, it bothers me to know that I drive the same roads with people who are legally impaired. I’d be in favor of lowering the threshold.

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, the ideological chameleon formerly of CNN and MSNBC, doesn’t see the value of diversity. He hits this theme often on his primetime FoxNews show. Most recently, he ridiculed diversity on Friday night for his three million viewers. Some, I’m guessing, are now questioning why they ever thought diversity was a good thing. Thank you, Tucker, for bringing enlightenment.

Carlson told his viewers: “How, precisely, is diversity our strength?…Can you think, for example, of other institutions, such as, I don’t know, marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are?…Do you get along better with your neighbors or your co-workers if you can’t understand each other or share no common values?”

He’s right, you know. Think about the church, as one “other” institution. Wouldn’t you enjoy church more if everybody was just like you? Carlson is Episcopalian, so I imagine he has found a parish where everyone is a white upper-class college-educated straight English-speaking conservative. In such a church, you can preach to the choir AND the “choir.”

Consider Anchor. We’re a diverse church, with blacks, hispanics, and whites. With people who didn’t graduate from high school, and others who hold graduate degrees. With old and young. With poor and not so poor. With ex-cons and good-goodies like me. With people who sport lots of tattoos, and with people like…well, me again. With conservatives and liberals and everywhere in between. In Tucker’s world, we’re a recipe for disaster.

Why would anybody think such diversity is a good thing? Wouldn’t Pam and I enjoy church much, much more if everybody was white, middle-class, college-educated, and without kids? Isn’t that the way God designed the world–for everyone to stick with “their kind” and not mix things up? Shouldn’t we go back to having separate churches for each race–white, black, etc? Wouldn’t that please Jesus?

There was a guy back in the 1930s who had philosophical problems with diversity. Even wrote a best-selling book. Unfortunately, he died tragically in 1945 before his ideas gained widespread acceptance. But perhaps Tucker Carlson can spark a revival. I’m sure he’d like to. And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of that silly motto adopted in 1782 by what was obviously a liberal Congress, “E Pluribus Unum”–out of many, one.

Meanwhile, I must rethink my backwards ideas about church. Does anyone know of a church in Fort Wayne that consists only of white politically-nebulous Communications majors? Where everyone has cats, but no kids? Because dog people can be SO tiresome.

Thank you, Tucker, for teaching Americans that diversity is a silly, impractical concept. Everybody needs to embrace your ideas. The President thanks you. David Duke thanks you. Ann Coulter thanks you. White nationalists everywhere thank you.

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