>Why, though, shouldn’t we just double-down on orthodox prohibitionist remedies? Because you wind up punishing a vastly larger number of innocent people, that’s why. [...] When you ban intoxicants, you conceivably reduce abuse, but you definitely end up punishing an enormous number of innocent hobbyists - as well as the professionals who supply them.
I linked that page because, when I was an alcoholic, I was also an asshole to the people around me. I mooched off my parents, deeply worried my brothers, and refused to pull my own weight even a little bit in the household economy.
But there are plenty of people who drink alcohol who are not assholes because of it. They should not be thrown under the bus because I personally become an asshole when exposed to the substance.
The war on drugs has been a failure, but giving addicts the death penalty (as opposed to helping them stop being addicts) isn't very good either.
If libertarianism was all of the world's beaches, a thimbleful of sand would be those who actually care about liberty.
That this approach doesn’t scale seems to be lost on them.
The linked post implies that most drinkers should continue drinking, and maybe even drink more precisely because they aren't the kinds of drinkers that give alcohol a bad name. If you feel like being edgy, try taking that as your soapbox instead. Much more interesting than saying "the optimal amount of X'ing is nonzero" given a large enough group of people X'ing.
Sorry for the confusion.
Sorry, TB. I can't give you a magic pass on being wrong just because you are also an asshole. That wouldn't be fair to all the correct assholes out there who suffer for their art.