MADD makes me so mad
Have you heard that more than 100 college presidents are asking for a debate on the drinking age? They believe lowering the drinking age to 18 will help curb college student’s from binge drinking. As expected, Mother Against Drunk Driving is against lowering the drinking age. Personally, I think both sides have pretty good arguments. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
What bothers me about this debate is MADD. It’s no secret I’m not a huge fan of MADD. Yes, I’m all for being against drunk driving. Drunk drivers kill tens of thousands of people every year. We should absolutely be discouraging people from driving after drinking. We should absolutely be educating people on how impaired you are after even just one drink. But I don’t like the way MADD does it. I think they are very aggressive to the point of bullying people and the government. And frankly it pisses me off. If it was up to MADD drinking would be banned permanently. Left to them it would be illegal to drink a few beers with your pizza in your own home.
And this debate is no different.
According to the CNN article, MADD “accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem.” That may be, but instead of criticizing the college presidents we should be looking for alternate ways to help them deal with the problem.
But MADD isn’t doing that. They would rather than just attack them by “urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.” Laura Dean-Mooney, the national president of MADD said, “It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced on those campuses.”
What?!? I’ve seen local coverage on this issue as well as several articles on the web and never once have any of the college presidents who signed the petition said they won’t follow the law. They are asking for a debate. You know, a grown up discussion where you weigh the pros and cons. Apparently MADD has never heard of debate. In MADD’s world they are always right and nobody else has the right to another opinion or, God forbid, to challenge their thinking.
MADD needs to get a grip. They have some good points, but if they are going to resort to (essentially) name calling then who will listen? This isn’t the playground. You don’t get to just take your ball and go home. It’s time for Ms. Dean-Mooney to put on her big girl panties and act like a grown up.
So true. When they have gone to the extreme like this, and they think they should be the final say in everything, they lose the respect of all of us, parents and students. They have a good message, but they’ve alienated people from being willing to listen. It’s too bad.
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I completely agree. MADD has also been trying to urge colleges and universities to go dry, and not allow alcohol on campus at all (whether you are of age or not). If this happens, then the students would just be driving off-campus to drink, rather than staying on…
I agree with their message, but not their delivery.
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I’m not sure what I think about changing the age, don’t think I can be neutral with alcoholics in my family.
However, I’d love to see some statistics regarding drunk driving when the drinking age was still 18 back in the day and what it has been since it was changed to 21. I mean, if there is no definitive data showing that if the legal age is 18, there will be more drunk driving, why not change it? Especially if half the appeal for younger people is the “forbidden” nature of doing it though they aren’t supposed to.
I think changing it will be an uphill battle, even with all the rational arguments in the world.
MADD loves to use the NHTSA’s FARS data to convince an all to gullible public that, as the author of the above post stated, “Drunk drivers kill tens of thousands of people every year”. For example, MADD’s former president Wendy Hamilton stated in 2002 that “Last year, 18,000 people were killed in drunk driving crashes.” A statistician named Jean Pruett looked at this number and reported to Paul Mulshine of the star ledger. Here is an excerpt, ["Pruett is a numbers nerd - and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. She downloaded the federal data base on drunken-driving and began to rip it apart. "They're trying desperately to make the problem worse than it is," Pruett said of MADD. "The reason why they have to make such a big deal is they have to justify their existence."
The actual number of people killed annually in accidents involving drunken drivers is not 18,000 per year but 7,500, said Pruett. And most of those victims are the drunken drivers themselves. For example, almost a third of the drunken drivers involved in fatal crashes are on motorcycles. Many others kill only themselves when they run off the road late at night. When you get to the statistic that should be central to the debate - the number of innocent people killed by drunken drivers - it is about 2,500 annually, said Pruett"].
Why bring this up in response to the issue of lowering the drinking age? MADD will no doubt be at the forefront of this issue. You need to prepare yourselves for a barrage of absolute bullshit from MADD on this. Partial facts and vague statistics are the lifeblood of the MADD propaganda machine and it is a machine that will not tolerate any dissenting viewpoints, nor will it debate its critics in any open forum.
["MADD generally attempts to mask its radical, neo-prohibitionist agenda in the veneer of
sound science and sober statistics." Charles V. Pena, former MADD executive director, Virginia.]
["MADD continues to inflate the number of people killed by drunk drivers to further its
prohibitionist agenda." Center for Consumer Freedom.]
[MADD's report is "chock full of inaccuracies and errors, but MADD officials have
refused to comment on them". Jerry McCory, Director of the Governor's Council on
Impaired and Dangerous Driving.]
[Its "inflated drunk driving statistics confirm MADD's relevance and help it raise funds."
Radley Balko, writer.]
[Mothers Against Drunk Driving "has basically become a propaganda mill churning out
false and misleading statistics." Jay Caruso.]
Even Candy Lightner wants nothing to do with the new corporate MADD. For those who dont know, Candy Lightner quit MADD in disgust, which is very telling considering that, back in 1980, she founded the organization after her daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver. MADD’s leadership is now a group of executives, mostly men, pulling in six figure salaries with all the trimmings including generous pension plans. They hold court with politicians while the good hard working people in the grass roots MADD toil endlessly for meager scraps.
["MADD has become big bucks, and that's it." "It's a big corporation." Sandy Kaufman, former MADD chapter President.]
["One of the worst performance records (on spending inordinately to raise money, then spending below-average amounts on their stated mission) goes to Mothers Against Drunk Driving." Daniel Puzzo describing MADD's low grade by the independent American Institute on Philanthropy]
[Non-profit organizations typically permit their chapters to keep most of the money they raise. For example, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID) chapters get to keep 90% of all funds they raise. But MADD claims ownership of every penny raised by all its many chapters. Thus, after raising $129,000 locally and turning it all over as MADD demands, the Las Vegas chapter received a check from the national office for $1.29 (one dollar and twenty nine cents) as its share. MADD's "focus is on greed," said the chapter President, who reported "I've never seen such bloodsuckers!"MADD Money. Investigative report., K5 News, Seattle, Wa]
Yes, I think its ridiculous that a soilder can die for his/her country, but cant have a beer.
I think its absurd that an American citizen may buy a home and raise a family, but not be allowed an alcoholic beverage.
That being said, given MADD’s tactics, money and political influence, my moneys on MADD.