Here’s an open comments post, following reader responses to a recent poll.
The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings will be fine.
Although the template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.
I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon. A test last night showed that my replies may not appear in the precise order of all comments. No matter for now – comments and replies will post. I’ll sort out the issue before next week.
Binge drinking, planning, questions about libertarian ideas, whatever. I will try to moderate and move comments along as quickly as possible.
Hello, John I like reading your website, even if I don’t agree with all of your views. But something’s missing now, since you stopped writing about cats. Why did you stop? Could you put back the weekly pics of cats? (I hope you still like cats.) Thank you.
You are critical of Whitewater and many of the people who run the twon. Do you think that all towns are the same or is Whitewater different to you. I live close to Whitewater and once lived there a long time ago. The city I live in now isnt like what you write about. We have some problems but not like Whitewater. Why is Whitewater different?
Mr. Adams: It is nice to view this weekly posting feature made available to your readers. Rather than receiving random thoughts or coments, I suggest you ask for specific comments on specific topics, i.e., Topic(s) of the Week.
I believe the ban on “All You Can Drink” is a good thing. Setting a set price for beer, rail drinks, etc., is the way to go. Way back when, when I was a student at “WSUW,” the beer standard at the Downtown bars was a once- a- week Dime Beer Night, usually just Thursday night. Now that I think about it, perhaps the Dime Beer Night was merely that era’s “All You Can Drink” equivalent.
Two words — RON PAUL!!!!
For John Adams and others who talk about free markets or business: You should think about people before some abstraction based on profit. Alcohol kills people and it always has. There hasn’t been a time when it hasn’t made life worse for people or gotten people killed or families ruined. These bars are as bad as giant tobacco farms that make money while other people suffer and they don’t have to see the consequences.
Stopping alcohol at the source would be the best way to keep students from getting drunk and injuring people. If Whitewater had no alcohol sales, I guaranty that it would have fewer problems and would be safer. Add cars into that mix and its even MORE dangerous. People just can’t handle alcohol, and these kids just ruin their own lives without thinking about it until its too late.
If Whitewater closed all its bars there would be less problems and more safety. Banning cheap beer should be only the beginning. No bars and no alcohol sales would make Whitewater a better place to live.
Anonymous — about cats — It’s true that I have not posted about felines in a while. Rest assured, I still like cats. Cats have an admirable spirit of independence. I sometimes keep a feature for a bit, and then retire it for a while, with the implication that it’s not a permanent retirement. Cats were a Friday feature once, and will be again, I’m sure. Until then, here’s a photo to tide you over —
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3Cg9md2D7Rsg4LzRCgXfLw?feat=directlink
Phantom Stranger — You’re certainly right that this feature will need more focus. 🙂 It’s pretty darn free-form right now, but any cat question is a good one.
It’s an interesting question implicit in your comment — would minimum prices be a better restriction than a total ban? Something along the lines of price controls being better than complete prohibition. There was a low price per drink practice once, as you note.
I would have left sales as they were, with neither price controls nor prohibition. Price floors would allow some supply to subsist, and that’s better than none. I say this as someone who seldom drinks, and even then not very much!
I cannot see, however, how this restriction on public establishments will curtail levels of drinking (which will be driven underground, I think) in conditions less safe and monitored than taverns are.
If there’s proof that a ban will work, then the least I can say is that no one favoring the total ban made that case Tuesday night.
Best, as always —
Not from Whitewater — Well, I’m sorry that you’re not still living here. There is much to commend Whitewater, and I have been critical not of the many common people here, but only of a small class of people, out of the entire town.
Most people, in most places, are fundamentally good-hearted. In fact, that’s what libertarians believe deeply — that people left unrestricted and unregulated will make good decisions, most of the time (and better decisions than those of a narrow and vain bureaucratic class).
That a few insist that they should guide others simply condescends and patronizes people who need no such guidance. People in Whitewater make thousands of good, private decisions every day, of the most important kinds, that need no guiding hand of a few, imposing their will.
Why is Whitewater different? I agree that it is different. I don’t think all small Wisconsin, Midwestern, or American towns have the sort of problems that we do. I don’t even think that it’s merely a town-and-gown problem.
It’s a much bigger question why we’ve evolved differently, and one that I cannot answer easily in a comment (or easily at all, really).
I am convinced, though, that this is a place worth contending for, arguing about, and living in. I have never, at any time, recommended that residents leave, and I never will.
I wish more people, of all kinds, would move here, and become part of the community.
In time, those practices that have held Whitewater back will be discarded, and those who have defended these practices will be forgotten, or remembered as bad examples. That day will come — and it might come sooner if more people, of more kinds, moved here.
Something to consider, Not from Whitewater.
On Ron Paul — Isn’t that really four words, two dashes, and four exclamation points?
I see *your* point, though, that Paul generated considerable interest in libertarians. He had (and has) a devoted group of supporters. So much interest, that support for him shows up on a website about a small Wisconsin town.
Paul’s book (The Revolution: A Manifesto) was a best-seller, and generated a lot of attention for libertarians. Still, it was his longstanding newsletter, using his name, that raised concerns for some of us — as anyone who has followed that story knows. So, for me, Paul was a mixed-blessing.
I voted LP in 2008, by the way — for Bob Barr. He didn’t generate much excitement, didn’t do as well as hoped, but I think it was one of the most agreeable votes I have ever cast.
In response to For People Not Profit: No alcohol? I believe that Noble Experiment failed and was repealed in 1933.
It looks like comments are loading in the right order, after a change to a small bit of code to account for our time zone. (I tried to fix this last night during a test, but couldn’t.) I think it may be solved now. If it has been, then it’s because of someone’s helpful suggestion on the Web. Go Google!
Yes, that experiment didn’t work out so well. I wonder though — how many people would answer a poll in favor of something like Prohibition? I’ll search and see what I can find…
This ban’s a bad joke. No one thinks it will work. All they can say is that they need to do something, and say this is a “step in the right direction.” Any one can say something like that about anything.
It’s just an excuse for people who want to say they did something, without having to do any of the real work that people who really care would do to prevent alcoholism.
Can’t wait until they speak about their dedication to safety when they run their next campaign.
Just like tobacco companies, taverns lie about the effects of selling alcohol. It kills. It’s that simple. Even one of the bar owners in Whitewater ADMITS that alcohol can kill people although he says that he’s not one of those kind of owners. People should listen to someone who knows what alcohol does. For a long time tobacco companies lied about tobacco until a few peopel started to trll the truth and now we all know. If there were no bars in Whitewater there would be less injuries and deaths.
Welcome back, For People Not Profit. I saw and approved your comment, but I have no idea what bar owner is supposedly admitting that alcohol kills. You even contend that it’s an owner from Whitewater, and that’s too funny (and absurd, too, considering his line of work).
If the point is that alcohol has, at one time over another, lead to someone’s death, then my question would be how to allow for responsible, less dangerous consumption? Prohibition, or a ban like this, won’t get you what you, and ever other reasonable person, wants: public health where some don’t harm themselves or others.
A ban like this won’t stop consumption, but will instead drive it underground. This ordinance has demagogued around a serious issue, but I am convinced that it will either achieve nothing positive, or worse, drive behavior into more risky settings. Doing something for the sake of doing something was hardly what Whitewater needed.
I think there are real and clear concerns about legislating this way, and as policy, this ordinance began in an old-style, closed way. This was not, and never will be, the way a rational community should consider a public health matter.
One should note well that this ordinance did not originate through general public complaints. It did, though, begin in the way some would be expected to seek a competitive advantage over others, and then find an excuse to justify it all.