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In the video posted after the jump, Representative Alan Hale from Montana’s 77th district, gives a brief speech on the state house floor to argue in favor of repealing ALL of Montana’s D.U.I. laws. His argument is that bars (which he calls “small business” because of course) bring people together and that drunk driving is a Montana tradition. Haha, right. I mean, obviously, no, drunk driving is terrible and it should be illegal EVEN in a state whose population is 12 (give or take 8). And also enough with the small business fetishization please Republican Party and also Democratic Party. Small businesses are important to our economy, I am sure, I mean, I don’t know, I have no idea how our economy works or what it even is, but that sounds right, but sometimes when these politicians talk about small businesses I do not know if they want to fiscally support them or if they want to FUCK THEM. Am I right, you guys? The thing is though, and this goes out to ALL state representatives, not just congressman
Alan Hale: if you are going to make an argument like this, you NEED TO REST YOUR CASE!!!! How many times am I going to have to explain to legislators how to do their jobs? Probably a million times it seems like!
They should change the motto of Montana from Big Sky Country to Rest Your Case Country! A pony would never forget to rest his case. HAPPY PONY DAYYYY! (Thanks for the tip, jwormyk.)
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Wait, so today is Pony Day AND Jackass Day?
What are the laws on riding a pony drunk, ’cause we might have found our solution here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRo2WsH6TbE
My thought is that drunk-riding a pony would be much safer, in that a pony would not allow itself to be steered into oncoming traffic or into a tree. (Because of horse sense, obviously.)
Dude Al, can I call you Al (unintentional Paul Simon reference gum), if you’re gonna give a speech about how cool drunk driving is don’t do it sober
Don’t worry, he didn’t.
Wait, is he a hipster or “authentic”?
no difference anymore in this day and age
Mel Gibson is all over this guy. “Four more years! our more years!” – Mel Gibson, about this guy.
Yep, that is my state.
Ideas that have been defended/supported in the MT ledge this year: drunk driving, spear hunting, citizens bringing automatic weapons into capitol buildings, global warming is a good thing (it will be a boon for our economy, doy), returning to a gold standard, having a state-run militia just in case, declaring gay sex illegal and overturning citizen initiatives for tobacco prevention programs and medical marijuana and against cyanide heap leach mining,
Reading the newspaper here is fun!
What do you have against spear hunting? It’s just good, clean fun.
Wait a minute, cyanide heap leach mining is ILLEGAL?? Uh-oh [eyes heap of cyanide leaches in giant hole in floor of apartment]
I hunt cyanide leeches with a spear.
It’s the only way to be sure — #misappliedAliensquotes
Ugh, while I in no way support drunk driving at all, I could almost respect the ideology (as I understand it*) of Montana politics if it were consistently applied. But how do you legalize drunk driving and criminalize gay sex? What kind of crazy brain does that take?
*Just to be clear, I don’t support any laws to make drunk driving illegal. However, I used to know this great old dude who longed to move to Montana because he was reallllly libertarian, and he liked not having helmet laws and the such (it’s my body, I can destroy it if I want to). As he explained it to me, drunk driving is not legal in Montana, but drinking while driving is. If you are pulled over with an open container, you are golden, as long as you are not drunk. I can sort of respect this as an abstractly good idea, even though in practice it sounds like Nightmare Town. But if you are for those things, you have to be for letting consenting adults do whatever drugs they want and have sex with whatever other consenting adults they want to, in whatever way they choose, as long as it doesn’t infringe on your rights. So, no coming over to my house and getting freaky in front of my TV while I’m trying to watch The Good Wife, but otherwise, go with god, my friend.
(Hmm, I don’t think my footnote should be longer than my post proper. I must be doing this wrong.)
When I was a kid, my dad would sometimes want a beer on a hot day while driving. My job would be to make sure the beer didn’t spill, and hand it to him when he asked for it. I had to keep it down near my feet so no police could see it — I understood it was not 100 percent legal, but I had no idea it was 100 percent illegal. Anyway, it is hard to imagine any dad doing this in 2011, so it makes for a good story about how the world was different in the days of Ronald Reagan and pterodactyls.
I have the impression that maybe in Montana it is still those days, though. I can see how if my dad suddenly had to give up the stuff he loved in 1983, instead of gradually giving it up over three decades, this would be very resentment-making. He would have ended up accidentally on YouTube, giving ridiculous speeches while wearing an Old West Sheriff’s tie and an Ishmael beard.
The open-container “you can drink and drive as long as you are not drunk” law was overturned in 2005 (though if you spend any time on the highway here you’ll not much has changed). Similarly, the “reasonable and prudent” aka drive as fast as you want on the highway was overturned in 1999. So, in 6 short years the dream of pulling into the state via I-90, legally cracking a cold one and putting the pedal to the floor while you drive through 550 miles of Montana was shot down! In the eastern part of the state if you get pulled over for a speed violation you can often pay the officer $20 and be on your way though.
Anyhow, yea the Republican arm of the ledge this session pretty much lines up with “governments shouldn’t ever tell us what to do except when I think what my neighbor is doing is gross, then they should stop because I don’t like thinking about it.” For example, a few more liberal communities passed laws making it illegal for renters and businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community. One of the first big bills to come up this session was from someone 4 hours away from either place that passed said ordinances trying to negate them.
Aw, I sort of feel bad for my friend, then, who eventually fell in very sweet love and moved himself and all his cowboy hats to the big MT – probably right around 2005, actually. What a disappointment for him.
On the other hand, sometimes congressmen get it right:
“My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey:
If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”
A 1952 speech by Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat, Jr., a young lawmaker from the U.S. state of Mississippi, on the subject of whether Mississippi should continue to prohibit or finally legalize alcoholic beverages
This makes me proud to be an alcoholic. Colonel Sanders up there does not.
Note to self: read all of the comments before posting.
Now THIS MAN, he went to rest-your-case school. He majored in that shit. He graduated summa cum laude.
That is awesome. I love that he starts it off all “well, if you insist on getting into it, I guess I could make some off-the-cuff remarks” and then goes all Speechmaster 5000 on whomever’s behind. Way to go Soggy Sweat!
If the bars are at the center of your communities, why do you have to hitchhike to get to them?
Montana. Everything is a half an our from everything.
This post was half an hour from the nearest spellcheck.
I just really like the word “our,” okay?
Also, spellcheck wouldn’t have done a damn thing, since your typo was still a real word. I immediately regretted posting that comment. I hope you can find it in your soulless ginger heart to forgive me.
Sorry. No soul. I don’t feel emotions beyond hunger and sadness.
Nothing was misspelled. Dirty SpaceNews just types with a Montana twang.
Apparently no one in Montana has functioning legs and cannot walk or ride a bicycle.
The bicycles have engines and four doors in Montana and people’s legs are actually diesel fuelled ATV’s.
Sounds like a better solution might be if some SMALL BUSINESS OWNER started a friggin cab company
I like the Col. Sanders look. That’s hot.
“I’d hit that.” — thisismynightmare re: Alan Hale
“I’d hit that.” — Drunk Alan Hale re: telephone pole
I think he represents a district of only bars and bar owners.
… or what I imagine all of Montana to be like.
Don’t be offended. I am just really ignorant.
Why are you so ignorant? What are ya, from Montana or something?
I wish. Then Montana would be like 25% monsters.
I am one of the Grand Rapids monsters.
Need to fix the economy? Fuck TARP. We need DUI!
What about the bail bondsmen and skeevy lawyers? Who’s supporting THEIR small businesses, Mr. Congressman?!
To punctuate his point, he started smacking Gilligan with his sailor’s cap.
Because… see, hIs name is… ugh. Just forget it.
Next time you see a joke that looks like she might be funny, maybe you should just skipper.
The state with hardly any speed restrictions should definitely also be the state with lots of drunk driving. It’s just good sense.
“I love my beer. And I love my car. And I love America.” *CUE SLOW CLAP LAUNCHING INTO CHEERS AND PARADE* – An extract from the final scene of a script currently being written by Alan Hale (and a bottle of Jack Daniels)
Tie pro tip: If you are too drunk to tie a Half Windsor and too lazy to tie a Bow, treat it like your shoelaces. Dignity +1.
I bet this guy represents Booze-man Montana. I am I right or am I right?
Now I know why he lives in Big Sky (vodka) Country.
The thing he loves about Booze-man is that it’s great taste but less Billings.
And “Missoula” just sounds like drunk-speak already.
Could Montanna be the dark horse for the sloppiest drunk state in the Union?
If this guy succeeds, they’ll *almost* match my state: http://www.totaldui.com/news/articles/statistics/wisconsin-felony-dui-study.aspx
Notable excerpt: “Helnes had been convicted of drunk driving five times before that tragic day and had spent a combined total of less than 14 months in jail for all of those offenses.”
Of course, that’s not the record. In researching this comment (shh, this is SO a good use of my time), I started googling with “eighth dwi Wisconsin,” and continued on upward until I found this winner: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2010/12/30/wis-man-gets-12-years-for-10th-owi-offense/
At this point, they should just institute a punch(-drunk) card system.
His reasoning is pretty air tight. Plus all he wants to do is perpetuate a community that respects eachother so much that it would respectfully take their impaired deathmobiles to the roads without care or concern for anyone’s well being as long as we all got to have a game of darts and hear some Toby Keith. This is called PRIORITIES and RESPECT.
Pause it at 00:01 and check out Representative “Current Hairstyle” in the lower left hand corner and Representative “Get me to my bed now” in your upper right. I’m worried about crackpot laws passing in Montana you guys!
My favorite part is how flabbergasted he seems that these laws even exist.
(note: I just wanted to say the word flabbergasted)
I guess he could get Jesus to take the wheel.
Somebody tell Congressman Rotgut that living clientele are better for repeat business.