Down to the pub to drink St Patrick's health. This may be my last sober post of the day. In fact, possibly my last sober anything of the day.
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Down to the pub to drink St Patrick's health. This may be my last sober post of the day. In fact, possibly my last sober anything of the day.
Good luck M8. let us know what pokey you end up in so we can come down and laugh.
I told the guys down the pub that I was just going home for a nap, and would be back later. It might be quite a bit later. I am not sure that I could find my way back at the moment.
All kidding aside if I had my way all alcohol would be banned. It's the most dangerous and insidious drug on the planet and the fact that it's legal boggles the mind given the number of deaths and lives it destroys every day. Money is more important than lives. What a pity.
I'm an EMT with a local fire department and almost every motor vehicle accident I get called to is alcohol related. The countless bars I get called to to tend people injured in fights or alcohol related injuries is staggering.
Sorry I don't find your post amusing.
There is much in what you say, Roban. I read your post several times, to try to picture what you have seen in your work, and it was not pleasant. (BTW We don't have EMT's in the UK where I live. I had to Google it to find you are an Emergency Medical Technician.)Quote:
Originally Posted by roban
At the moment I am feeling quite ill, and reflecting that poisoning myself with alcohol is not very sensible. Next year, I intend to honour St Patrick by visiting the church rather than the pub.
There is a big problem with using the power of the law to ban alcohol. The 18th Amendment to the US Constitution established Prohibition in 1919. Many citizens felt that Congress had no moral right to pass such a law. Such citizens disobeyed the law with a clear conscience, and developed complete contempt for the people who passed the law, and also the people who enforced it.
It is a big danger to a society when a large section of the citizens believe that a law that directly affects them has no moral validity. They will happily break that law, and they despise the people who enforce it. They then lose respect for the law as an institution. We live in democracies, where nearly 50% of the citizens did not vote for the current legislature, and logically 50% of the citizens do not agree with any particular law. An orderly society nonetheless depends upon citizens obeying laws with which they disagree, for the sake of harmony and out of respect for the law. Once a general respect for the law has evaporated, a citizen feels morally entitled to disobey any law with which he disagrees.
This is what happened during Prohibition. Lawlessness in general increased. It also proved impossible to prevent bootlegging, because it was so lucrative. The bootleg liquor was sometimes poisonous, and contained methanol which caused blindness.
The 21st Amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th Amendment, was quite possibly essential from the point of view of social harmony.
The lasting effect of Prohibition was the creation of huge crime syndicates, who grew wealthy and powerful on bootleg booze. When alcohol was re-legalised, these gangsters did not fade away. They shifted their attention to drugs, prostitution, and protection rackets.
Prohibition did not last, but the crime syndicates which it created did.
(Thanks for mentioning banning alcohol, Roban. These thoughts about laws that misfire have been on my mind for ages, and at last I have put them in order.)
Thank you for an incredibly mature reply. To put the record straight I am an EMT with a volunteer fire department. It's not a full time job although sometimes it appears to be.
Of course I know banning alcohol is not an option. I have been in recovery for 23 years and I know how difficult it can be for one person to control to say nothing of a complete society. No, it will never happen but awareness can and must. Too bad people especially young ones must die or be maimed to prove a point.
Yes, Roban, I know what you mean. Booze has caused me tremendous pain, but I still drink occasionally. Sometimes it is to get some instant comfort, and often it is to fit in with other people.
Once upon a time, I met this really nice girl in chapel. She didn't smoke or drink, and seemed quite wonderful. We started a relationship, and I moved in with her. Then, one awful day, I found out why she didn't drink. She had been an alcoholic. Just one drink would trigger a desperate and uncontrollable need to keep on drinking, until her exhausted body could not take one more drop of poison, and she collapsed. While drunk, she would do quite terrible things, like trying to stab a neighbour who asked her to be quiet.
I found out the hard way that alcohol is a temptress, a deceiver, and a bringer of madness. (And I still drink occasionally? Am I crazy? Just like most of the world, I suppose!)
No not crazy bud. Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic and not every alcoholic drinks.
Hope it will be the last of the day not last on this forum at all
i really enjoy your posts here
:) Thanks, but did you look at the date? It was St Patrick's Day, in March. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Garchiaaa
A lot has happened since then... Roban has retired as Super Moderator, and I am trying to fill his place.