Does this happen anywhere else outside of Myanmar?
Here in our lovely State of Deseret, also known as Utah, the newly elected Senate Preseident Michael Waddoups has expressed his desire to, once again, change Utah's liquor laws...and not for the better (you can read about it here).
His brilliant idea is to move the bars in restaurants from where they are now (behind a glass or other type of partition) and put them into a backroom. Now, you may ask what for...as did I. So that people (children in particular) will not be exposed to the evils of seeing an alcoholic drink mixed. Which is good, because when I was a youngling, some hundred or so years ago, I saw this very thing done right in front of me. Yup, I saw someone mix a drink. And you know what I said to myself? I said, by god, flamingo, I need to get me one of them there drinks!
Now seriously, WTF?!? How many people out there have become raging alcoholics because they saw a drink mixed in front of them? I want to see studies and the cold hard facts on this. Or, did Mr. Waddoups just pull this idea straight out of his uptight, morally superior ass?
When did we become a society where no one takes responsibility for themselves or teaching their children? Just because YOU (Michael Waddoups and the majority of self-righteous the Utah State Legislature) find something to be against YOUR personal beliefs, why do the rest of us need to adhere to that? I have no problem with someone who chooses not to drink. Some of my best friends (one of which who so did not grow up in the State of Utah under an oppressive Mormon influence) chooses not to drink. But that is his personal choice, and he doesn't try to enforce his non-drinking stance on anyone else or lord over them with a smug moral superiority.
I grew up with both of my parents as well other family members having alcohol in the house. I never had the desire to drink just because I saw that there. They taught me well enough to know that it wasn't something I was going to do at the time. If you don't drink and you're at a restaurant and you see someone drinking or a drink being mixed, how hard is to to simple explain to your child that "while we don't drink, or don't believe you should, people have the right and the option to CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF whether to drink or not."
If you choose, as a legal adult, to drink or a multitude of other things that the Mormon majority CHOOSE not to do, that does not make you less. That does not make you a bad person. Sin, virtue, hell, even RELIGION for that matter is subjective to the day and age you live in, where you live, how you grow up, and ultimately, what you CHOOSE! You make your personal, not hurting anybody else, legal-as-of-this-moment that should-be-left-up-to-an-individual lifestyle choices, I'll make mine and we can just leave each other alone and not try to reign morally Superior...how about that for a law?
1 comment:
It is an interesting state. A few months back...I stocked up on flavored malt beverages. Came across a news article that they were soon to be considered distilled liquor, and only to be available through state liquor stores. They disappeared from the grocery store shelves in my town. Strange thing is...not much of a fan of bitch beer. Have a couple dozen still in the fridge.
Post a Comment