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On June 17 2011 05:50 StarBrift wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2011 22:10 ZergOwaR wrote:On June 16 2011 21:51 zatic wrote:On June 16 2011 21:49 StarBrift wrote:
Now hard liquor is where the big problem is imo (Whiskey, Vodka etc). It does not taste good. Any pleasure you get from drinking hard liquor is if you are feeding an addiction. The only reasons people start drinking hard liquor is to be cool or manly. OK I would have liked to contruct a well thought out argument here, but I'll just say: You are flat out and completely wrong about this. agreed.. whiskey is the best shit ever.. tastes hellova lot better than beer... feeding an addiction am i? I drink perhaps 2 times a month max... but whiskey is still damn great  I'm more addicted to gaming if anything... totally invalid statement about hard liquor It's not invalid. Did you like whiskey the first time you drank it? Did you like it the second time? What about the third? No, you did it to be manly and cool. Somewhere along the line you started liking it and that's probably a mixture of you getting used to the taste and liking the "bite" of a strong alchoholic beverage. Of course there are things that taste worse than whiskey etc but in comparison to most other beverages I think it tastes really bad.
I have enjoyed whiskey since the first time I have consumed it. Maybe you should try Jameson whiskey mixed with root-beer. Make a rootbeer/whiskey float (trademark  ). You use the words " in comparison to most other beverages I think it tastes really bad.", but still insist anyone who enjoys the test is subconsciously deceiving themselves for some sort of ego buffer. You have simply made an invalid statement, as you yourself apply subjective reasoning/justification to an objective generalization. I am amazed at the amount of people in this thread who think they can make generalizations about all humans.
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On June 17 2011 05:54 StarBrift wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2011 22:31 Giggsy wrote:On June 16 2011 21:49 StarBrift wrote:
Now hard liquor is where the big problem is imo (Whiskey, Vodka etc). It does not taste good. Any pleasure you get from drinking hard liquor is if you are feeding an addiction. Really? Drink a nice single malt scotch and tell me it doesn't taste good. I have and I can tell you it does not taste good. When I talk about "addiction" I don't necessarily mean harmful addiction. Just that it gets to the point where the product tastes better than it would the first few times because your body has a certain craving for it. I challenge anyone to honestly tell me that the first time you tried whisky or vodka you loved it from the start. I do not believe that to be possible unless you're an alchoholic before trying it. Anything that you need to have a break in period to enjoy is not considered good in my opinion.
How did you drink it? Most people who say that just poured room temperature drinks and went eww. I am sure warm Petron tastes meh too, but on the rocks with a twist its delicious.
Also what you are describing is acquired taste, not addiction. Many foods with zero addictive properties work like this.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51481 Posts
Touchy subject as i would put it, in the sense of banning alcohol.
However, i for one am all for this, i think there are way too many cons to pros of alcohol and what effects it has on peoples state and state of mind in public situations.
To start with, drink driving is one very big con as you pointed out. Secondly the amount of money here in the UK we spend on NHS bills pumping stomachs for people who cant say "no" when they have had too much or "no" to stop drinking and continue on in a merry state, not a paraletic state.
However, the amount of Tax the goverment makes on Alcohol means it will never ever be banned or made illegal, theres just too much money to be lost.
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On June 17 2011 05:50 StarBrift wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2011 22:10 ZergOwaR wrote:On June 16 2011 21:51 zatic wrote:On June 16 2011 21:49 StarBrift wrote:
Now hard liquor is where the big problem is imo (Whiskey, Vodka etc). It does not taste good. Any pleasure you get from drinking hard liquor is if you are feeding an addiction. The only reasons people start drinking hard liquor is to be cool or manly. OK I would have liked to contruct a well thought out argument here, but I'll just say: You are flat out and completely wrong about this. agreed.. whiskey is the best shit ever.. tastes hellova lot better than beer... feeding an addiction am i? I drink perhaps 2 times a month max... but whiskey is still damn great I'm more addicted to gaming if anything... totally invalid statement about hard liquor It's not invalid. Did you like whiskey the first time you drank it? Did you like it the second time? What about the third? No, you did it to be manly and cool. Somewhere along the line you started liking it and that's probably a mixture of you getting used to the taste and liking the "bite" of a strong alchoholic beverage. Of course there are things that taste worse than whiskey etc but in comparison to most other beverages I think it tastes really bad.
I love Whiskey the first time I drank it, I drink roughly once maybe twice a year. Alcohol that is, feeding that addiction am I?
I don't know a single person that enjoyed their first beer, I still can't drink it because it tastes like horsepiss.
but then again most peoples first tries of any of the good stuff is some cheap semi-homebrewn piece of shit, no wonder they don't like it.
My first time was with high quality Whiskey and I loved it. And if I had cravings for it, how come there is a very limited ammount of alcoholic drinks I enjoy. It goes against everything that addiction is, since if I actually craved it then the body would want it regardless if it's 300 dollar bottle or 1 dollar bottle with no label.
Add to that, that I can only drink it pure. Wouldn't my body want to mask that horrible taste if I hated it so much? For example I can not force myself to drink coke + hard liqour simply because I hate the sugary mess it becomes.
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Don't drink alcohol anyways, so this was an easy decision. :p
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On June 16 2011 15:28 madcow305 wrote:General Point 2: I've been hearing the same arguments over and over even though I already addressed them, so here is the final response to them all: 1. Banning alcohol will cause more crime - Not if a large majority voluntarily gives it up and votes to ban it. Then, only a small minority will be on the black market looking for a drink, so there will only be a relatively small rise in crime funding. 2. I don't drink and drive, so I don't see why I should give up drinking - If you, and a large majority of your peers gives up responsible alcohol usage, you make it much, much harder for some dumbass on a weekend to get drunk and kill someone with his/her car. So, while not PERSONALLY saving lives, you are saving lives by not giving an idiot a tool to be more idiotic. From this point on, I will not be responding to any of the above arguments unless something new and compelling is brought up. I apologize if you made another point and it was lost in the sea of posts, just remind me again and I'll respond to it. Poll: Would you give up drinking if it meant less deaths?No, I wouldn't. (520) 66% Yes, I would. (262) 34% 782 total votes Your vote: Would you give up drinking if it meant less deaths? (Vote): Yes, I would.
(Vote): No, I wouldn't.
[/b]
Alright I will preface this by saying that I don't drink often but when I do I like to enjoy myself. I am against pretty much banning all drugs because banning it doesn't help a damn thing as seen by my experience as a peace officer. That being said, my opinion is free and worth just as much.
To your point 1.
If a large majority were to give it up and vote to ban it there wouldn't really need to be a ban in place to begin with. You're working on large assumptions here that rely totally on the good grace of human beings which...is just not going to happen.
However, let's look at your large majority thing and say that a large majority give up drinking and only a small minority fuel the black market. I'll be gracious and give you a fairly hefty majority...say 97%. That sounds really good right? 97% is a pretty much unheard of majority all clamoring for the same thing. So we have 3% fueling the black market. This number wouldn't be adequate to fund a criminal organization right?
You are completely wrong. In fact, there are real life and even more extreme examples that show you that you are completely wrong. Cocaine is used by roughly 3% of the population. Heroin is used by about 1.5% of the population. Both of them are multi billion dollar industries that fuel an ungodly amount of organized crime and accounts for by far the most gun seizures in my line of work. Prohibition just isn't going to work. To compound the above statement, both of those substances carry FELONY charges attached to them for any amount in possession. Obviously the threat of the police knocking down your door isn't a sufficient deterrent for these people and I highly doubt that Alcohol possession would be a felony in this case. If you do make it a felony to possess than it just drives up the cost that addicts are going to pay regardless. There will always be a demand for illicit drugs and you really aren't going to stop people from getting what they want. The only thing prohibition ever does is give money to people you do not want to make rich.
This all of course assumes you could get 97% on board for this and that will never happen.
Point 2.
My above counter to your first point works pretty well for this too. Regardless of that I just can't agree to give up something I use responsibly because some other asshole is irresponsible for it. This tactic may work on a teenager...but I drink because I make that decision for me...so that I can feel a good buzz in a manner that doesn't harm other people. Even if I'm in a group of thirty people and only the three of my close friends decide to have a drink I am totally comfortable with that.
So yea point two works for kids but that's about as far as it's going to go.
Banning Alcohol is just going to overload our already packed prisons, give more money to criminal cartels, and take choices out of the hands of responsible adults. Not a fan.
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On June 17 2011 06:44 AIL wrote:
Don't drink alcohol anyways, so this was an easy decision. :p
Then you are making decisions lightly. I don't own a handgun, but I am not opposed to legal and responsible ownership. I don't smoke pot, but I am not opposed to legal and responsible use. I do happen to drink, but that is not why I oppose the idea in the OP. I oppose it because legal and responsible use are consistent with and required for the pursuit of happiness.
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Just look what is going to happen to Steve Buscemi
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You can make all kinds of laws to try and cut down on senseless deaths like these, but in the end there is no substitute for personal responsibility and common sense.
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10387 Posts
if the world wasn't such a depressing place, then we wouldn't need alcohol
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TAKE MY ALCOHOL AND ILL TAKE YOUR LIFE!
But seriously though, I enjoy drinking. Me quitting drinking is not going to change anything. I dont drink and drive, I dont get in fights, I dont do stupid shit drunk. Theres always a minority of dipshits who ruin a good thing for everyone.
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Im drinking less and less alcohol as I grow up. One day I will simply stop at all.
This thread motivated me to do so more quickly
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Northern Ireland25081 Posts
It's a mentality thing, at least as I see it anecdotally. I quite frequently get pretty damn drunk, but I don't go around wrecking things, start fights, or even shout, I can at least handle the drink. A lot of people don't seem to be able to and abdicate personal responsibility by using alcohol as an excuse.
There's a lot of people over here who can't, and it's not just violence and whatnot from alcohol that is a problem, it's the fact 50% of bars are bloody unbearable with drunken idiots.
I also personally hate smoking weed, but I don't see why the hell it is criminalised and alcohol isn't, likewise with a lot of stimulants
Whole drug war is ridiculous really
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It worries me that so many people need to resort to substance abuse to have fun.
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Drugs need to be taught to be respected and understood.
Trying to "protect" society from drugs only makes the public just less able to deal with it when it comes into their lives.
Discipline and respect, it's the lack of these qualities is whats causing so much destruction through drugs.
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On June 16 2011 18:13 Thorakh wrote:
Alcohol is something disgusting. Somehow, weed is illegal, but the most dangerous drug of all is completely legal! Not only that, the majority of people on the planet even support drinking alcohol!
I will never touch alcohol. I'm not drinking a toxic that causes me to lose control over myself.
[sarcasm]Yeah, I can totally see how well 'drinking in moderation' is turning out![/sarcasm]
I'm drinking in moderation. Works out splendidly. Done some minor stupid / fun stuff drunk when I was younger, but nothing too serious.
I love being half drunk with a bunch of friends at a bar somewhere. It looses up your social skills, even more and it's easier to bond with people, as you get less critic.
Alcohol is toxic, but so is sugar.. Would you want to give that up as well?
Alcohol is FAR from the most dangerous drug. Herion is by far the most dangerous one, and it's immensly more addictive.
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I'll just go ahead and say it.
Alcohol doesn't kill people (consumed safely, but that applies to everything, hi water). People kill people.
On a side note: can we get off this notion of trying to find legislative solutions to common sense problems? Significantly more children die to drowning in pools than from shooting each other with guns. You have ten 9/11's every year from obesity alone, institute a ban on calories? You can't approach everything you don't like, or that kills, with legislation.
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Northern Ireland25081 Posts
I agree Nagano to an extent, but alcohol is so socially acceptable and can cause such drastic increases in violent behaviour that I don't see how else to regulate it other than legislatively?
Over here in the UK we've tried to change the whole image of over-drinking, but it's not having any sort of cultural impact, the drink-fuelled violence is still a big problem.
Over in the mainland of Europe, where drinking is generally treated differently, it's not such a massive problem, but in places lacking that culture of respectful moderate drinking, how else do you sort things?
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I'm fine with alcoholic beverages being banned. My dad was an alcoholic, and passed away when I was 12 due to his liver failing, which was a direct consequence of his drinking. Drinking alcohol causes many more problems in the community and has little, if any, pros.
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On June 16 2011 15:28 madcow305 wrote:
Travis, since you're reading this thread, could you wipe the poll, and make it a new one with the title as "Would you voluntarily give up drinking and vote to ban it, if it meant less drunk driving fatalities?"
Thanks.
I'm just going to ignore the other stuff for a moment...
Really OP?
You can't just create a second poll yourself and put where the old one was?
PS: the OP is horribly loaded, one in 14759 is roughly 0.0068% of people
I'm sure there are SO MANY other things that could be done to save lives than banning alcohol
For instance, why aren't you talking about banning smoking instead?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_preventable_causes_of_death
notice how alcohol isn't at the top?
Get this, if we pull a comparison of number of users vs number of health problems, it's much more stacked against smoking. And yet smoking is legal. Seriously bring up a list of the pros and cons of both, and tell me that you care about the alcohol related deaths when you could be convincing TL that smoking is terrible.
And no, I don't want smoking banned either, im just proving that the OP's point is moot.
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EPT
