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America has a drinking problem

theatlantic.com

921–930 of 938 posts

Re: America has a drinking problem

#921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because Americans (generally) respect the freedoms of others much more than Australians do. Oh that’s rich. A certain political party’s primary goal seems to control and reduce freedoms. Also what evidence do you have that “brown” people are targeted more than others?

> Also what evidence do you have that “brown” people are targeted more than others? I tried to engage with you upthread assuming positive intent. This comment seems like deliberate baiting and I don’t think it’s the least bit authentic. I don’t think there’s any question that non-white people in America are selectively policed more than white people except by those arguing in bad faith.

No it’s the truth and you likely don’t want to hear it. Americans do not respect each other’s liberties. Prove me wrong.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#922

People have the cause and effect backwards in my opinion. You know why "binge drinking" isn't a problem in Germany, except for when the Australians turn up for Oktoberfest? It's because you can just buy a beer on the side of the road with your currywurst, and drink it without being hassled. If you act up, you get arrested for acting up. Try openly having a few beers in the park in Australia or the US, you'll be run o…

Binge drinking is a problem in germany. You can allmost call it youth culture, most kids go through, before becoming adults. In my late teenage years, it was common and expected on parties to drink, until you have fun, who can drink the most (and puke afterwards), etc. Most people, like myself, had enough of this after some time and matured - but I know too many people, where the booze and beer stayed with them.

Yes, there is some level of binge drinking in Germany, but it's not the same as the binge drinking that is common in the anglosphere, and especially in British culture, which is quite a bit more extreme.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#923
post #507
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common refrain but at the same time it seems to be the one substance commonly used across most of the world since ancient times. None of the other supposedly less harmful, banned drugs are so ubiquitous. Perhaps there's a good reason for this (besides varying availability of other substances)?

> None of the other supposedly less harmful, banned drugs are so ubiquitous You get alcohol when fruit spoils. Our experience with it is quite literally as old as foraging. This doesn't tell us anything about how harmful or not harmful alcohol is. As far as ubiquity, plant-based substances had to follow migration or trade routes to gain use outside of their native habitats. Alcohol was coextensive with any food .

The fact that alcohol has been a part of human existence for so long might support my hypothesis, if you believe that humans physiology is at least partly shaped by human dietary habits over many thousands of years.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many laws like this that attempt to prevent an uncommon Bad Thing™ from happening at the expense of individual freedom. Some are created as a response to some event. Some are the result of some group pushing their moral values in law. I think we have seen that in most cases these types of laws that conflate correlation and causation are harmful and often abused to the detriment of specific groups.

Like gun control! Chicago, with its restrictive gun control, hasn’t fixed gun crime at all, just continued to restrict law abiding citizens rights.

Chicago gun laws aren’t the problem. 60% of the crimes in Chicago involving firearms are committed with a gun purchased out of state, specifically Indiana, which has some of the laxest gun legislation in the country. Downtown Chicago is closer to the Indiana state line than the suburbs of Chicago.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#925

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia allows drinking in parks unless it's a designated no-drinking area (usually any area outside an alcohol store). That being said different states in Aus handle alcohol differently and some are very strict. The major states of NSW and Vic are pretty chill though.

In Australia, all alcohol (yes, even beer and wine) can only be bought at designated liquor stores. The vast majority of which are only open 10AM~10PM, with a handful in Sydney and Melbourne open after midnight. Further, public drinking is all but restricted to destitutes outside of NYE and Aus day. Contrast that with Germany. Every two blocks there's a Späti, many open 20–24h daily, each selling beer, wine, and spir…

Saying Australian culture demonise alcohol is a laughable claim. Australian summers are about BBQs and beers on the beach.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. Poor communities? Really? People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? Where’s your evidence for any of this? In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach.

>> There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. > Poor communities? Really? People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? Where’s your evidence for any of this? In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach. I often trick myself into thinking that things that I have le…

Yea and once I was driving a sports car at exactly the speed limit. Cop paced me, ran my tag, ultimately found nothing and didn't couldn't me. Sometimes things look odd to a cop, like a sports car not speeding or a junker in a rich neighborhood. Assuming it's race related and others don't experience the same "profiling" is wrong.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a whole different side of this your comment isn't really addressing, which is how these laws apply to poor communities. Poor communities? Really? People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? Where’s your evidence for any of this? In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach.

> People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? I didn't say that. I said it's a law applied unevenly, as I see it. > Where’s your evidence for any of this? I stated an observation based on my own experience, and why I believe it. The evidence for my belief is my own observations, which were explained. > In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach.…

> I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for?

What I'm going for is a stop to the race baiting. You have no evidence, just "feels", and we're now supposed to change society as a result. Racism has started increasing because people like you are going around expressing opinions with no facts. Where's the science? Or are you not interested in actually solving problems just creating more?

Re: America has a drinking problem

#928

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are oppressing others “right” to drink now? I didn't say that. I said it's a law applied unevenly, as I see it. > Where’s your evidence for any of this? I stated an observation based on my own experience, and why I believe it. The evidence for my belief is my own observations, which were explained. > In my “rich” neighborhood cops stop people all the time for drinks in the park or glass bottles on the beach.…

> I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for? What I'm going for is a stop to the race baiting. You have no evidence, just "feels", and we're now supposed to change society as a result. Racism has started increasing because people like you are going around expressing o…

That would sound a lot more sincere if it made any sense.

Let me spell it out for you, since apparently the actual content of my original comment and my note about how you seemed to be viewing it as "another topic that you want this to stand in for" were not clear enough:

I said nothing about race. I wasn't intending to say anything about race. I wasn't using poor as a stand in for some minority. I was making a case for poor communities, of any color. Honestly, your response makes no sense. Given I expressed how I thought I would be treated differently based on the area I was in (that was the only difference in my comparison), no matter what race you assume I am, I clearly wasn't basing the comparison on race. Because I wasn't making a case about race, but about class.

> Where's the science? Or are you not interested in actually solving problems just creating more?

I wasn't presenting facts. I was presenting experiential testimony, very clearly as opinion, in case that made people think about the issue in a bit more depth. If I was presenting factual evidence, I would have looked up and presented that evident as references. I stand by my track record of doing this, and requesting it when people make factual assertions.

> Racism has started increasing because people like you are going around expressing opinions with no facts.

Really? That's an interesting observation coming from someone that just took a discussion that wasn't about race and decided to not only assume it was about race, but then inject their opinion about how that makes it wrong because there's no evidence that racism is the problem, and how in fact racism isn't on the rise, people assuming that about racism are. That's very meta.

Re: America has a drinking problem

#929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like gun control! Chicago, with its restrictive gun control, hasn’t fixed gun crime at all, just continued to restrict law abiding citizens rights.

Chicago gun laws aren’t the problem. 60% of the crimes in Chicago involving firearms are committed with a gun purchased out of state, specifically Indiana, which has some of the laxest gun legislation in the country. Downtown Chicago is closer to the Indiana state line than the suburbs of Chicago.

Are you missing the point where there’s a law on the books but some people don’t care? Say you get rid of the Indiana, then they’ll get there guns elsewhere. The problem is not the guns

Re: America has a drinking problem

#930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've done my best to ignore the aggressive tone and re-framing of my point, but perhaps that approach isn't a useful strategy for productive discussion, if that's what you're actually going for? What I'm going for is a stop to the race baiting. You have no evidence, just "feels", and we're now supposed to change society as a result. Racism has started increasing because people like you are going around expressing o…

That would sound a lot more sincere if it made any sense. Let me spell it out for you, since apparently the actual content of my original comment and my note about how you seemed to be viewing it as "another topic that you want this to stand in for" were not clear enough: I said nothing about race. I wasn't intending to say anything about race. I wasn't using poor as a stand in for some minority. I was making a case…

> I wasn't using poor as a stand in for some minority.

Good. That’s clear now.

> Really? That's an interesting observation coming from someone that just took a discussion that wasn't about race and decided to not only assume it was about race, but then inject their opinion about how that makes it wrong because there's no evidence that racism is the problem, and how in fact racism isn't on the rise, people assuming that about racism are.

Yes finding racism (or insinuating like you’ve done here) where there is none is turning non racist people racist. And that’s not opinion, you can go learn that in on your own!

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