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By Bob Dyer
Published on Tuesday, Sep 11, 2007
Boy, it's great to be an American.
Land of the free, baby!
Did you know that, in some countries, the people aren't free? Why, in some countries, the authorities can just stop you at random, even if you're not doing anything wrong.
Seriously! Just imagine: People wearing uniforms and guns can delay and question you even if they don't have a reasonable suspicion you're doing something illegal.
Say what?
The sobriety checkpoints we're running all over Summit County aren't anything like that.
Why? Well, we're trying to catch bad people. Really bad people. People who might drink and drive and kill someone we love.
The Constitution? Well, yeah, I remember reading that in school. But that stuff was written a long time ago by guys who didn't even have cell phones. If the Founding Fathers were alive today, I'm sure they'd retract that stuff if they could make the roads safer.
Besides, look how well we've been doing.
Why, on Aug. 11, the Summit County OVI Task Force spent six hours stopping vehicles in Barberton and Norton. Officers from a variety of cities and villages ordered 1,263 drivers to halt and found...well, OK, they only found three drunken drivers.
That's a fielding percentage of .002. Less than 1 percent.
But who cares? They found a lot of other bad guys, too. Among them:
Two people were cited for not wearing seat belts.
Three people were cited because they forgot to renew their driver's licenses.
Seven people were cited for not flossing after meals.
OK, just kidding on the last one. But that may be next.
Buoyed by the remarkable accomplishment of ridding the roadway of three drunks in six hours, the task force headed back out Sept. 1.
This time, on a Saturday night near the big entertainment district in downtown Akron, they stuck their noses in 1,292 vehicles and found -- drum roll -- six drunks.
That sent their fielding percentage soaring to .005.
The checkpoint lasted 71/2 hours. Now, I'll bet you a week's pay that if you took all those cops and put them out on patrols in their own communities to watch for drivers weaving back and forth, they'd track down a lot more drunks in 71/2 hours.
But whether this is a wise investment of law-enforcement time is really beside the point. The point is this: We live in the United States. This is a nation that was created by people who wanted to get government off their backs.
Here's a well-kept secret: A lot of cops in our area think this is wrong. A patrolman from a Summit County city who doesn't want to be named for obvious reasons told me service on this task force is voluntary, and that he and many others refuse to participate on principle.
I also have talked to the people who run these things. They sincerely believe their methods are proper. In fact, they are convinced they are doing all of us a huge favor.
They are not. What they actually are doing is chopping away at the very essence of our nation.
And most of us just sit there and take it.
Today, our thoughts turn to the anniversary of 9/11 and our place in the world. Take a moment to ask yourself something: As we think about all of the Americans who have died in various wars to make this country different from all the other countries that have gotten big and powerful, why are so few of us worried about the fact that it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference?
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
Boy, it's great to be an American.
Land of the free, baby!
Did you know that, in some countries, the people aren't free? Why, in some countries, the authorities can just stop you at random, even if you're not doing anything wrong.
Seriously! Just imagine: People wearing uniforms and guns can delay and question you even if they don't have a reasonable suspicion you're doing something illegal.
Say what?
The sobriety checkpoints we're running all over Summit County aren't anything like that.
Why? Well, we're trying to catch bad people. Really bad people. People who might drink and drive and kill someone we love.
The Constitution? Well, yeah, I remember reading that in school. But that stuff was written a long time ago by guys who didn't even have cell phones. If the Founding Fathers were alive today, I'm sure they'd retract that stuff if they could make the roads safer.
Besides, look how well we've been doing.
Why, on Aug. 11, the Summit County OVI Task Force spent six hours stopping vehicles in Barberton and Norton. Officers from a variety of cities and villages ordered 1,263 drivers to halt and found...well, OK, they only found three drunken drivers.
That's a fielding percentage of .002. Less than 1 percent.
But who cares? They found a lot of other bad guys, too. Among them:
Two people were cited for not wearing seat belts.
Three people were cited because they forgot to renew their driver's licenses.
Seven people were cited for not flossing after meals.
OK, just kidding on the last one. But that may be next.
Buoyed by the remarkable accomplishment of ridding the roadway of three drunks in six hours, the task force headed back out Sept. 1.
This time, on a Saturday night near the big entertainment district in downtown Akron, they stuck their noses in 1,292 vehicles and found -- drum roll -- six drunks.
That sent their fielding percentage soaring to .005.
The checkpoint lasted 71/2 hours. Now, I'll bet you a week's pay that if you took all those cops and put them out on patrols in their own communities to watch for drivers weaving back and forth, they'd track down a lot more drunks in 71/2 hours.
But whether this is a wise investment of law-enforcement time is really beside the point. The point is this: We live in the United States. This is a nation that was created by people who wanted to get government off their backs.
Here's a well-kept secret: A lot of cops in our area think this is wrong. A patrolman from a Summit County city who doesn't want to be named for obvious reasons told me service on this task force is voluntary, and that he and many others refuse to participate on principle.
I also have talked to the people who run these things. They sincerely believe their methods are proper. In fact, they are convinced they are doing all of us a huge favor.
They are not. What they actually are doing is chopping away at the very essence of our nation.
And most of us just sit there and take it.
Today, our thoughts turn to the anniversary of 9/11 and our place in the world. Take a moment to ask yourself something: As we think about all of the Americans who have died in various wars to make this country different from all the other countries that have gotten big and powerful, why are so few of us worried about the fact that it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference?
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
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