Simply Outrageous
Via Cato@liberty, comes this really outrageous incident:
The Gilpin County Sheriff's Office was
apologizing Monday after a weekend effort to help a research group led
to complaints about what appeared to be a DUI checkpoint - but wasn't....Sgt.
Bob Enney said deputies assisted the Pacific Institute for Research and
Evaluation in stopping motorists at five sites along Colorado 119 for
surveys on any drug and alcohol use. Surveyors then asked the motorists
to voluntarily submit to tests of their breath, blood and saliva. At
least 200 drivers were tested, Enney said....
They were greeted by "youthful, college" surveyors dressed in jumpsuits and blue generic caps.
"We
had a 10-year-old in the back who's tired, we tell them thanks but no
thanks, we have to get this child back home to bed," Sequeira said.He said a worker persisted, saying that the researchers would assist in driving the family home if they needed assistance.
When the Sequeiras again demurred, a supervisor offered them a $100 money order.
"We
say, 'No, thank you, we have to get our child home,"' Sequeira
recalled. "At this point, both clones start chortling at us and
ridiculing us."
The problem in this case is that many people don't take the time to even take a 5-minute survey over the phone, much less to pull over on the roadside and donate bodily fluids. Every market researcher understands this problem, and tries to deal with it. But the government has one tool in its bag that ordinary private firms do not have: The coercive power of the government. Whether they were tested or not, motorists who were in complete obedience to the law were forced to pull over by government law enforcement officials merely to increase their survey response rate. This is such a typical government solution that I think most people are desensitized to it.
