Should Alchohol be Illegal?

[Forster Keys]

So your optimal situation only revolves preventing minorities from controlling their own bodies and actions?

Exactly... =)

Pick a fight against a majority and you will almost always lose (ala Prohibition in the 30s). But convince, trick, manipulate, sell a deal to the majority and they buy it and get on your side... now you've just got to fight the occasional minorities. MUCH easier battles to win...

Well if it saves lives by reducing drunk driver accidents and alcohol-induced crime... then I think the price is well worth it.

Politics is always a trade-off between different evils. I think the preservation of human life, especially innocent human life from the threat of alcohol-induced crime and drunk driver incidents to a near complete level, in exchange for some sacrifices to society... is warranted and good stuff.

Drink driving? Just ban cars instead, enforce it with the hippie SS.

[Orham]

Mavorpen! Neo Art! Farnhamia! Gods of NSG, save me! Alcohol induced incidents? Kefka still, after all this time, insists that drunk driving and such are alcohol induced incidents rather than alcohol related incidents? How can I possibly communicate with one who will not listen, who will not learn, and who cares not about facts?

It's simple. I cannot. And yea, another member was added to the Ignore Brigade roster. I wash my hands of thee, Kefka.

[Gauthier]

Did someone actually believe Prohibition worked?

[Vitaphone Racing]

Mavorpen! Neo Art! Farnhamia! Gods of NSG, save me! Alcohol induced incidents? Kefka still, after all this time, insists that drunk driving and such are alcohol induced incidents rather than alcohol related incidents? How can I possibly communicate with one who will not listen, who will not learn, and who cares not about facts?

It's simple. I cannot. And yea, another member was added to the Ignore Brigade roster. I wash my hands of thee, Kefka.

Don't be too hard on yourself. People on here rarely admit when they're wrong.

[Vitaphone Racing]

Did someone actually believe Prohibition worked?

No, fortunately they didn't reach that degree of ignorance. Or insanity.

[Orham]

Don't be too hard on yourself. People on here rarely admit when they're wrong.

The thing is, I don't oppose Kefka in principle. Diminishing the number of deaths and injuries due to drunk driving is a completely noble goal. Rather, I disagree with Kefka's methods, believing them to be unnecessarily extreme.

[Distruzio]

Did someone actually believe Prohibition worked?

Many do. Drugs are bad, haven't you heard?

[Gauthier]

Did someone actually believe Prohibition worked?

Many do. Drugs are bad, haven't you heard?

Yeah, let's legalize PCP and bath salts.

[Distruzio]

Many do. Drugs are bad, haven't you heard?

Yeah, let's legalize PCP and bath salts.

Prohibition works. Didn't you know?

[Gauthier]

Yeah, let's legalize PCP and bath salts.

Prohibition works. Didn't you know?

Because clearly psychoactives and alcohol are the same thing.

[Distruzio]

Prohibition works. Didn't you know?

Because clearly psychoactives and alcohol are the same thing.

Apologies but i was under the impression you understood your own comment.

Do they become more valuable to those addicted once illegal?

If they do, then for the sake of this discussion, yes, they are the same thing.

[Wind in the Willows]

No, adults should have the right to drink if they so wish.

[Afanis]

Should alcohol be illegal? I'm inclined to say yes, but I'm hungover so I can't say I'm unbiased. I'll probably change my mind in a few hours.
But seriously, no, alcohol shouldn't be illegal. In fact, I think everything should be legalised, but that's another discussion.

[God Kefka]

Mavorpen! Neo Art! Farnhamia! Gods of NSG, save me! Alcohol induced incidents? Kefka still, after all this time, insists that drunk driving and such are alcohol induced incidents rather than alcohol related incidents? How can I possibly communicate with one who will not listen, who will not learn, and who cares not about facts?

It's simple. I cannot. And yea, another member was added to the Ignore Brigade roster. I wash my hands of thee, Kefka.

... insists that drunk driving and such are alcohol induced incidents rather than alcohol related incidents

See this doesn't even speak to me...

Cause I don't care either way. I am not interested in arguing about strict notions of causality (''did the alcohol ''cause'' it or strictly speaking, can you not say it ''caused'' it since it was only one of many factors and can only be said to be ''related''?'')

It's a critical element of the causal chain. No alcohol... no drunk driver accidents. If other types of accidents then pop out, we'll deal with the other types of mind-altering substances that are related to them. Right now... it's the drunk driver problem.

I don't care about such philosophical points (no one said this was about ''blaming the alcohol'' vs ''blaming the drivers''... this is a pointless technicality, we are still going to keep punishing anyone who drives stupidly ok?), that's all irrelevant to the fact that drunk-driver accidents kill/injure tens of thousands of people every single year. Without the alcohol, you can't have that. THAT to me establishes the rationale for working to get rid of it. If you want to be insist that we are ''blaming the wrong thing'' for the deaths than I don't care. This is not about assigning moral blame... it's about removing the drunk driver accidents.

How do you remove drunk driver accidents completely? Well there are two main things you can remove. Alcohol... or EVERYBODY. You clearly can't remove everybody because then we would have no society left... so you figure out a way to remove the alcohol.

Now being the promoter of the status quo that you are (and the hopeless compromising type) you are going to say... what about the middle ground? What about removing ''just the irresponsible drinkers''?

You can't identify all the irresponsible drinkers in advance not unless you have God's omniscience. Many a perfectly normal person with no criminal record has accidentally drunk too much at a party, and then gone on to hurt other people. You can identify SOME of them but many of these identifiable types are criminal types anyways and they won't care if you put out an injunction out there that doesn't let them drink or drive. They are rule-breaker types ANYWAYS and I'm sure you are not going to advocate we kill them/imprison them in advance as a deterrent?

Targetting and removing SPECIFIC people is problematic and unreliable with all of this alcohol floating around everywhere. Furthermore, if it is a choice of removing people (everyone or a large number) permanently or working to remove alcohol permanently, I'm sure you'd agree the former choice is a much greater violation of human rights?

This is not about ''blaming alcohol''... it's about completely getting rid of drunk driver accidents. And there is just no simpler way. You propose solutions to lower the rate but none of them move much further from the status quo and none of them can promise the elimination of all drunk driver accidents quite as much as my solution.

Move to create a public consensus on a large scale against alcohol, then enforce a strict ban. Then we will have no drunk driver accidents. If other types of accidents then crop up induced by other types of substances, we can repeat the same strategy with those. All the way until innocent people are no longer dying for other people's stupid choices.

Even though in the process we could be ''blaming alcohol'' this is not the end goal. And it doesn't bother me in the least bit that this blaming is on philosophical grounds right or wrong... just so long as in the end we get a strong tradition, culture, and social atmosphere that almost by pure instinct recoils away from alcohol and views it as repugnant.

In such a society he who wishes to drink shall be viewed in the same light as we presently view people who dodge taxes... someone who abhorrently violates a social norm that we have established for the benefit of society as a whole. There is nothing more powerful than a public consensus... social re-engineering in changing what people think on a cultural/traditional basis to allow for effective bans of substances. It's much easier to enforce laws when the majority's behind it...

It's all well and easy to say ''everyone should have the choice to drink and handle their own body...'' but when a given individual makes a mistake, his mistake often costs OTHER people who have not chosen to die death. Personal choices aren't so personal when they have implications for the innocent. Saving lives > personal liberty. This is why we have seatbelt rules, no smoking on plane rules etc...

[God Kefka]

With that said...

If someone wants to make a case that in the future we could come up with a device that car manufacturers are obligated to install in all cars that is heavily armored and invincible and on at all times...

That IMMEDIATELY incinerates anyone who enters a car with an alcohol blood level above a certain mark...

then that might be much easier than banning alcohol.

It's a sad thing we don't have such a machine though... it would completely eliminate drunk driver accidents.

Such a machine would actually instill personal accountability for one's own choices in a way that driver education, alcohol education, and public movements simply can't.

...

Until then, I don't want innocent people to keep paying the price for the choices of other people... that of stupid, unrestrained, arrogant people who get into cars and drive when they are drunk...

[Greed and Death]

If alcohol were a newly discovered substance it would be banned. It clearly harms society more than it provides a good, through higher healthcare cost and other factors. However because people will ignore the law and have been shown to ignore the law in means that would harm society more than alcohol banning it is just silly.

[Norstal]

With that said...

If someone wants to make a case that in the future we could come up with a device that car manufacturers are obligated to install in all cars that is heavily armored and invincible and on at all times...

That IMMEDIATELY incinerates anyone who enters a car with an alcohol blood level above a certain mark...

then that might be much easier than banning alcohol.

It's a sad thing we don't have such a machine though... it would completely eliminate drunk driver accidents.

Such a machine would actually instill personal accountability for one's own choices in a way that driver education, alcohol education, and public movements simply can't.

...

Until then, I don't want innocent people to keep paying the price for the choices of other people... that of stupid, unrestrained, arrogant people who get into cars and drive when they are drunk...

We have self-driving cars.

[Luveria]

With that said...

If someone wants to make a case that in the future we could come up with a device that car manufacturers are obligated to install in all cars that is heavily armored and invincible and on at all times...

That IMMEDIATELY incinerates anyone who enters a car with an alcohol blood level above a certain mark...

then that might be much easier than banning alcohol.

It's a sad thing we don't have such a machine though... it would completely eliminate drunk driver accidents.

Such a machine would actually instill personal accountability for one's own choices in a way that driver education, alcohol education, and public movements simply can't.

...

Until then, I don't want innocent people to keep paying the price for the choices of other people... that of stupid, unrestrained, arrogant people who get into cars and drive when they are drunk...

You could just have courts order to install breathalyzer ignition locks in the vehicles of people with a history of drunk driving or any other alcohol related crime. That would be far less invasive and much less expensive than subjecting everyone to such measures.

[Oogium]

I think after what happened the first time this was tried, everyone now knows banning booze is a really bad idea.

[Zottistan]

In my ideal world, nobody would drink.

In reality, making alcohol illegal would be a pointless, stupid waste of time and money. And nobody gives a shit about my ideal world.

So no, alcohol should not be made illegal.

[God Kefka]

With that said...

If someone wants to make a case that in the future we could come up with a device that car manufacturers are obligated to install in all cars that is heavily armored and invincible and on at all times...

That IMMEDIATELY incinerates anyone who enters a car with an alcohol blood level above a certain mark...

then that might be much easier than banning alcohol.

It's a sad thing we don't have such a machine though... it would completely eliminate drunk driver accidents.

Such a machine would actually instill personal accountability for one's own choices in a way that driver education, alcohol education, and public movements simply can't.

...

Until then, I don't want innocent people to keep paying the price for the choices of other people... that of stupid, unrestrained, arrogant people who get into cars and drive when they are drunk...

You could just have courts order to install breathalyzer ignition locks in the vehicles of people with a history of drunk driving or any other alcohol related crime. That would be far less invasive and much less expensive than subjecting everyone to such measures.

But what if someone without a prior history gets drunk and enters a car to drive (and hence would not have the device installed to preempt)?

There's always a first time for even the people who eventually become habitual drunk drivers?

But hey, the idea of this being a compulsory installation on all cars and vehicles throughout the country is not such a bad idea... if they are reliable that is.

[Norstal]

See this doesn't even speak to me...

Cause I don't care either way. I am not interested in arguing about strict notions of causality (''did the alcohol ''cause'' it or strictly speaking, can you not say it ''caused'' it since it was only one of many factors and can only be said to be ''related''?'')

It's a critical element of the causal chain. No alcohol... no drunk driver accidents. If other types of accidents then pop out, we'll deal with the other types of mind-altering substances that are related to them. Right now... it's the drunk driver problem.

Why just alcohol though? You can get "drunk" or close to it by ingesting medicine. You can get into an accident in a myriad of ways. So why alcohol?

It's inconsistent.

[God Kefka]

See this doesn't even speak to me...

Cause I don't care either way. I am not interested in arguing about strict notions of causality (''did the alcohol ''cause'' it or strictly speaking, can you not say it ''caused'' it since it was only one of many factors and can only be said to be ''related''?'')

It's a critical element of the causal chain. No alcohol... no drunk driver accidents. If other types of accidents then pop out, we'll deal with the other types of mind-altering substances that are related to them. Right now... it's the drunk driver problem.

Why just alcohol though? You can get "drunk" or close to it by ingesting medicine. You can get into an accident in a myriad of ways. So why alcohol?

It's inconsistent.

Well one suggested criteria to make it consistent with respect to mind-altering substances would be this... It can only be considered for banning if all 4 of these are met.

1) is a dangerous mind-altering substance
2) can cause measured addiction
3) has a relatively high correlation with crimes and accidents causing injury and or death
4) its removal would not create immediate dysfunction across all of society that outweighs the benefit of having it removed

Medicine's removal would violate ''4)'' and you probably cannot establish ''3).''

But I want to hear more about the breath analyzer ignition lock systems...

[Luveria]

You could just have courts order to install breathalyzer ignition locks in the vehicles of people with a history of drunk driving or any other alcohol related crime. That would be far less invasive and much less expensive than subjecting everyone to such measures.

But what if someone without a prior history gets drunk and enters a car to drive (and hence would not have the device installed to preempt)?

There's always a first time for even the people who eventually become habitual drunk drivers?

If it's installed in every vehicle it's a needlessly expensive measure to society using such preemptive prevention methods against everyone, whereas if someone is known to have a record of such things, then the cost is only at them.

And secondly, it doesn't stop people from driving while on commonly available highs such as cough syrup or weed, or benzodiazepines they have been prescribed for insomnia. Driving under the effects of an impairing drug is already illegal, and there is already a system to revoke drivers licenses if there is a history of violations.

[Yorkopolis]

Yeah, let's legalize PCP and bath salts.

Prohibition works. Didn't you know?

Al Capone wants to talk to you. He's waiting over there.