Iowa is finally standing up to the man. Our state legislature is waving its middle finger at Congress, and while they’re doing that, we’re losing highway funds. All because of a measly issue of state sovereignty.

That issue, of course, is the decreased legal level of .08 percent blood alcohol that Congress is holding like a shotgun to the head of Iowa Legislators.

Meanwhile, our legislators are doing their best to be John C. Calhoun, ignoring the potential loss of millions of dollars of highway funds.There is a reason for this, and it’s not just self-congratulatory Republicans fighting the lobby of groups like MADD.

The reason is that if the state of Iowa can’t even set basic rules for its own citizens, it will cease to have any meaning whatsoever. At this rate, all of us are paying Iowa income tax so that we can have Iowa implement federal policies on education, crime and how much we drink.

The Supreme Court struck down the Brady Bill’s provisions to have states implement the policy, and this situation is only moderately different. However, the Supreme Court has absolutely no problem with blackmailing states into accepting policies, as long as you give them the choice to commit legislative suicide in the process.

This explains Iowa’s rejection of motorcycle helmet laws and the .08 blood alcohol legal limit, but does it justify it? Probably not.

The important question then becomes whether there is a significant reason for lowering the legal limit. So, at this point, I’ would like to pretend to be a lobbyist.

Drunken driving is terrible. People should not drive drunk and shouldn’t be driving when there’s any sort of impairment of their ability to drive, ranging from being piss-drunk to being a total moron. A .08 legal limit will save people’s lives, plain and simple. If that’s not enough reason to lower the limit, what is?

Good point, except that the crucial answer, stating that the limit will save anyone’s life, is completely false. This is entirely apparent from anyone who’s even taken a cursory glance at Iowa’s OWI (Operating While Intoxicated) law, or the laws of virtually any other state in the country. The law states three characteristics while driving that will result in an arrest for OWI:

1. Being under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or other drug combination of such substances.

2. Having an alcohol concentration of .10 or more.

3. Having any amount of a controlled substance in ones body.

The problem is that lobbyists are so concerned about No. 2 that they flat-out ignore the first section, which I’ll summarize now.

The key phrase is “under the influence,” a truly deceptive phrase that means “under the influence.” In other words, if alcohol is affecting your driving, it doesn’t matter what your blood alcohol level is. This combined with Iowa’s implied consent law means that if you refuse an Intoxilyzer (breathalyzer) test, they can convict you of OWI, no matter how much alcohol is actually in your system.

Essentially, changing our law from .10 to .08 would do this: Absolutely nothing. Unless Iowa begins to institute widespread alcohol stop-and-check points, there probably won’t be a single conviction for OWI that wouldn’t have occurred before the change.

So drunks, fear not. Even if we institute the change, you’ll still have to be driving erratically to get pulled over. Sadly, there’s no magical way that police can tell you’re at .08, .09, or .10 just by the color of your car. You still have to be driving like a moron before they can tell, no matter how many Jagermeisters you’ve thrown down.

So, to be honest, I don’t see any reason why Iowa should change the law, except for the blackmail issue. The only question is whether it’s better to give in to peer pressure or resist it and take a couple million dollar hit in the pants pocket.

Sadly, this is not a question. No matter how stupid the Congressional act may be – since it accomplished virtually nothing, – Iowa needs the highway dollars, just because Iowans are paying for them.

We might as well get our money back in some form, even if it is just a visitor center outside of Coralville or someone clearing off dead animals off the side of Interstate 80 a few hours faster than now.

Nonetheless, our legislature is too concerned with its own fake sovereignty to realize that the blackmail won’t end.

They are basically saying “Take that, Congress. You don’t have to share now!”

The state legislators aren’t going to convince Congress how terrible it is to withhold funds from them until every Iowan starts to refuse to pay their federal income taxes.

Even that wouldn’t be much of a problem.

After all, Iowa is not that large, and there are plenty of federal prisons in this country.

On the plus side, turning the entire state of Iowa into a federal prison would bring a population increase to the state for the first time in about 50 years.

When we’re all making license plates for the cars we can’t drive, because of the highways that don’t exist anymore, because of us standing up to federal blackmail, I’m sure we’ll all feel like it was worth it.

Tim Kearns is a senior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.