This Country Is Gone…. Way Gone

This story is not – repeat, NOT – from The Onion. The Oakland, CA police department cancelled DUI checkpoints on Cinco de Mayo because a bunch of ninnies on Facebook cried: “rayyyyycism!”

And, apologized.

Here’s the depressing news story about it…

Criticism about the warning prompted the Oakland Police Department to issue an apology and then cancel the checkpoints.

“The Oakland Police Department would like to apologize for the recent press release addressing traffic safety enforcement during the Cinco de Mayo holiday,” the department said in a statement, “We acknowledge that the language in the message sent was completely insensitive to the cultural holiday.”

The decision to cancel the checkpoints came after a backlash on social media.

“Oakland Police has posted on their Twitter account they’re going to put out Extra Patrols for you drunk Mexicans on Cinco de Mayo,” said a post on the Facebook page Oakland Latinos United. “How does it feel. As a Mexican Chicano I wonder if OPD will be posting DUI PSAs for every ethnic & culturally based holiday?”

But others say the decision by Oakland police was absurd.

“Police departments conduct these things on a lot of holidays, such as the Fourth of July, where they think people may have drinks and get behind the wheel,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, who lived in California for many years. “This is what are police are supposed to be doing. Just because a few hyper-sensitive people get their feelings hurt shouldn’t be cause to put every motorist’s safety at risk. It’s the height of absurdity in political correctness.”

Indeed it is. Yet the drumbeat of stupid continues. Someday, I’d like to live in a country where a limp Facebook complaint like this causes the cops to DOUBLE their checkpoints, and do so with sombreros on their heads.