"You got a license to drive that barstool, buddy?"

Seems too ludicrous question to even ask, but tell that to the good folks at the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission:

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission sent a message to bar patrons last week.

TABC agents and Irving police swept through 36 Irving bars and arrested about 30 people on charges of public intoxication. Agency representatives say the move came as a proactive measure to curtail drunken driving.

North Texans interviewed by NBC 5, however, worried that the sweep went too far.

At one location, for example, agents and police arrested patrons of a hotel bar. Some of the suspects said they were registered at the hotel and had no intention of driving. Arresting authorities said the patrons were a danger to themselves and others.

"Going to a bar is not an opportunity to go get drunk," TABC Capt. David Alexander said. "It's to have a good time but not to get drunk."

Dallas comedian Steve Harvey agreed with the Texas residents who said the arrests infringed on individual rights.

"If a guy's got a designated driver, go ahead and let him get toasted," Harvey told NBC 5.

Texas law states that inebriated individuals could be subjected to arrest anywhere for public intoxication. Harvey and other North Texans called the measure extreme.

"That seems to be an extreme case," one man said. "You are self-contained, in the hotel, you're not going in the streets, it seems a little ridiculous."

TABC officials said the sweep concerned saving lives, not individual rights. Harvey and others interviewed by NBC 5 said they believe drunken driving to be unacceptable, although Harvey wanted to confirm that the United States remains a free country.

"Freedom of drinking should always be allowed, and it is only American to let a guy get drunk where he wants to get drunk," Harvey said.

A more accurate assesment of the message the TABC is sending bar patrons is "we at the TABC have entirely too much time on our hands because we have to waste the taxpayers money and our time by arresting drunks in bars."

Isn't this a little bit like arresting NASCAR drivers for speeding at the Daytona 500? If there is one place you would expect to find drunks, it would be in a bar, and it's a damn fine thing they are there and not someplace else where they can do some real damage.

Last time I checked we lived in a free country and just like liberals have a perfect right to be ignorant fools, drunks have a right to get shitfaced in bars so long as all they are doing is pickling their own livers. Being proactive in preventing drunk driving is a pretty lame excuse for arresting people in bars.

Another thing that was true about this country last time I checked is that you actually had to be suspected of doing something illegal before you were arrested. That means, if you are a TABC agent or cop, you wait outside the bar and pull people over after you have reason to suspect that they are driving drunk, not before you can even prove they were driving a car in the first place. I'm probably as big a law and order guy as you are going to find, but this is a blatant abuse of TABC authority.