Posted on 01/14/2020 6:57:27 PM PST by nickcarraway
Occasionally, Elizabeth Bruenig unleashes a tweet for which she knows she’s sure to get dragged: She admits that she doesn’t drink.
Bruenig, a columnist at The New York Times with a sizable social-media following, told me that it usually begins with her tweeting something mildly inflammatory and totally unrelated to alcohol—e.g., The Star Wars prequels are actually good. Someone will accuse her of being drunk. She, in turn, will clarify that she doesn’t drink, and that she’s never been drunk. Inevitably, people will criticize her. You’re really missing out, they might say. Why would you deny yourself?
As Bruenig sees it, however, there’s more to be gained than lost in abstaining. In fact, she supports stronger restrictions on alcohol sales. Alcohol’s effects on crime and violence, in her view, are cause to reconsider some cities’ and states’ permissive attitudes toward things such as open-container laws and where alcohol can be sold.
Breunig’s outlook harks back to a time when there was a robust public discussion about the role of alcohol in society. Today, warnings about the devil drink will win you few friends. Sure, it’s fine if you want to join Alcoholics Anonymous or cut back on drinking to help yourself, and people are happy to tell you not to drink and drive. But Americans tend to reject general anti-alcohol advocacy with a vociferousness typically reserved for IRS auditors and after-period double-spacers. Pushing for, say, higher alcohol taxes gets you treated like an uptight school marm. Or worse, a neo-prohibitionist.
Unlike in previous generations, hardly any formal organizations are pushing to reduce the amount that Americans drink. Some groups oppose marijuana (by many measures a much safer drug than alcohol), guns, porn, junk food, and virtually every other vice. Still, the main U.S. organizations
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I can’t recall anyone every being criticized for not drinking.
Didn’t read the piece, but want to chime in and remind everyone that our belove PDT is a tee-totaler. I think because his older brother basically died of drinking.
Not drinking is always OK.
And I can drink with the very best of ‘em.
Try living and working in the U.K.
I agree. Pot has been protected. We had an accident a year ago where a driver high on pot crashed and killed people. The second it came out he was on pot, there was never another article on it again.
Last drink was Feb. 17, 1991. Don’t miss it 99% of the time but knows what will happen when the 1% creeps up.
Could you please elaborate.
uh how look up prohibition and the american mafia. It is not credible that you don’t understand and i don’t take bait.
UH, NO!
I don’t drink anymore…but I don’t drink any LESS either !
I didn’t know you were talking about prohibition. I thought you were referring to marijuana.
Me too ! ( the DAMM part )
The anti alcohol movement is alive and well in Prohibition era state regulations and alcohol taxes. It took 160 years for Minnesota to allow Sunday liquor sales and Minnesota is now the only state with 3.2 beer, a Prohibition anachronism. Alcohol taxes are easy to pass as drinking is still considered a vice to be controlled. Ironically states that have since the end of Prohibition have tried to control drinking are now quickly embracing legalizing marijuana.
For me, I can't stand to be around drunk people either.
The few times I've crossed the drunk line, I didn't like myself at all......
The fact that Trump doesn't drink and speaks against it = Total news blackout on alcohol temperance.
My first thought, as well. Never seen such appalling public drunkenness in my life as when traveling there. I'll never forget one evening on a nightclub/restaurant street in Ireland -- all the bouncers were coming out the doors every so often with buckets of water to rinse the sidewalks.
I never understand the haranguers. Why do you care who does or doesn’t drink. I know people who drink. I know people who don’t. Your life, enjoy as you choose.
So can alcohol use - there are thousands of deaths every year from alcohol poisoning ... whereas there are at most a handful of deaths from THC concentrates, and none documented from marijuana.
We’re coming, we’re coming, our brave little band,
On the right side of temperance we do take our stand,
We don’t use tobacco because we do think
that people who use it are likely to drink!
Away, away with rum, by gum, rum, by gum, rum, by gum,
Away, away with rum, by gum,
the song of the temperance union!
One may enjoy a refreshing beer on a hot day, or a glass or two of wine with a meal, not seeking drunkenness. But the purpose of "recreational" Marijuana is to become "high".
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