[lbo-talk] is law enforcement a way to raise money for local economies?

[Alan P. Rudy]

On Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 11:58 PM, Eubulides wrote:
> 
> How inexpensive do you think cleaning up a multi-vehicle drunk driving
> accident should be? Let's start with 3 cars, 2 dead and 4 injured.
> With major traffic delays. At 10:30 in the morning. With bongs and
> Oxycontin in one of the cars.
> 
> Should the cops be in a union? How about the public works crews and
> the firefighters? How about all the admin. assist. who'll crunch the
> numbers? How about the construction workers who will be contracted to
> fix the busted infrastructure?
> 
> Who will notify the spouses and parents? Who will pay if the so-called
> responsible agent had no insurance and worked at Wal-Mart on the night
> shift and the survivors decide to sue?
> 
> The answers you seek may be found by filing *lots* of requests for
> public records.
> 
> 

 
For a left list this kind of response - while accurately considering the real public expenditures associated with a multi-vehicle drunk driving accident - serves simply to bracket any and all social, political, economic and cultural  issues associated with the production of the rate of drunk driving, the politics and unevenness of enforcement, and the economics, politics and culture of alcohol and drug policy in the US.  It, additionally, brackets the politics of the changing "scientific" definition of "drunk."

This kind of response encourages a reactive politics: "This thing exists, what are we going to do about it?!" rather than a critical or radical politics: "Why does this thing exist, how did it come to exist and how do we attack its social roots?"