Here's a Pretty Rant-Dee-Doo!

Surgeon General's Warning:

This rant may contain profanity, nudity, adult themes, drug use, and/or harsh comments.

Rants have been clinically proven in trial tests to produce angina pectoris in lab rats and certain types of squid.

20something Bloggers, an online blogging community of which I am a member (for another year and one month) frequently posts discussions started by members. Usually, they're pretty inconsequential, generally centering on such fascinating topics like, "Can you still have casual sex with someone you've broken up with?" and "What does no sex before marriage have to do with religion?" or my personal favorite "Hey girls in relationships-- What is your opinion on your guy looking at porn?"

Today, though, someone actually posted a topic question that was intellectually stimulating and had almost nothing to do with sex!

"Is it fair to charge a drunk driver who kills somebody with murder?"

Good for you for having a thought that originates from an area above your belly-button piercing!

(And they say guys are the only ones obsessed with sex. Please, girlfriend.)

Anyway, here we go:

Should some drunk fuck who kills somebody in a car wreck be charged with murder? You bet your sloshed, red ass he/she should! I would even go so far as to argue that it should be Murder 1.

Allow me to rantify:

To classify a homicide as Murder 1, one has to look at the definitions of Murder 1 as set up by the states. There are two different classifications of Murder 1 as I understand it. The first one is used by Pennsylvania and other states:

Murder 1: An intentional killing by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated action.

Then there's the New York and other states classification of Murder 1:

Murder 1: Murder involving special circumstances, such as murder of a police officer, judge, fireman or witness to a crime; multiple murders; and torture or especially heinous murders.

Defining a drunk-driving homicide as Murder 1 is easy using the Pennsylvania statute: consuming a sufficient quantity of alcohol to constitute intoxication and then making the decision to operate a motor vehicle resulting in someone else's death is a willful action, a deliberate action, and a premeditated action. While the intoxicated driver might not be intentionally ramming his car into the vehicle of a sober motorist, they did make a calculated series of judgements (or misjudgements) that lead up to that other person's untimely demise. It could successfully be argued by lawyers, who are far more articulate and better dressed than I that the decisions and actions leading up to the drunk driving fatality constitute premeditation. Any reasonable person would be able to deduce that getting behind the wheel of a car while drunk could easily result in a fatality, and therefore, because it is reasonable to assume that one's actions could result in death, it could be argued that the drunk driver went out onto the road knowing he or she could be committing murder.

Making a case for Murder 1 under the New York classification is tougher, because the special circumstances are absent, unless the drunk bastard slams into a police cruiser or the Pope-Mobile.

The fact remains that, for too long in this society, drunk drivers have gotten off relatively easy, even when they kill people. Sometimes they are only charged with DUI, public intoxication, reckless driving, reckless endangerment, speeding, evading. Oftentimes the best that drunk driving victims families can hope for is vehicular manslaughter, which is a pretty limp-wristed attempt at justice if you ask me and, if you're reading this blog, you are.

Accountability has eternally been the enemy of the drunk bastard:

"Yo, I didn't know what I was doin', y'alls-- I was drunk."

"I thought she wanted it-- I mean, I was drunk."

"I thought she was eighteen. You know, I was drunk."

"I didn't see that minivan full of Tabernacle singers. I was fucking drunk."

Yeah, well, you sure were drunk; and that was your decision, wasn't it, turdlick? I am so sick of hearing slurry bullshit about impaired judgement and altered states and shut the fuck up already, you pathetic losers. When you kill someone in a drunk driving collision, it ceases to be an "accident" and it should become murder. The act of getting into an automobile drunk is no different than picking up a gun and firing into the dark and blowing somebody's head off, sight unseen: your reckless, irresponsible, dangerous, motherfucking stupid and, yes, premeditated actions caused the death of somebody else.

And, guess what, Donny Drunko? That is fucking murder.