A lot of things that we took as immutable facts of life in the US are actually arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on free movement or trade that are designed to force you to pay for things unnecessarily or destroy free markets and unfairly protect incumbents/institutions.
Example: I’m low on contact lenses. Without being able to see, I can’t work.
In the US, contact lenses are for sale by prescription only(!). I had my office ship a few boxes I had left over in Germany, as it is both impossible to go to Germany as well as impossible to safely visit the local office in the US to which one must pay $150 to get the piece of paper to be allowed to purchase what is an uncontrolled item in almost every other country in the world.
FedEx has blocked the shipment, demanding a prescription, which does not exist.
Who is this benefitting? Who is being protected from which harms by these laws?
I don’t even drink alcohol and I think that liquor sales licensing is insane, especially when coupled with the OUTRAGEOUS list of additional restrictions they are allowed to place on businesses just because they serve alcohol some of the time (the restrictions the state gets to apply to the biz are 24/7). jwz’s extensive documentation on the CA ABC’s tyranny is an especially good example.