Agreed (quite a bit better phrased than my argument, if I may say so) I go back to my father. He knows that when he drinks he gets violent. Yet, he continued to drink. As far as I’m concerned he might as well have planned to beat her because that was inevitably the result of him getting drunk.
You mention ‘black and white’ approach. Is it too much to expect that people will act responsibly? I’m all for legalizing most drugs. But it should be assumed that as you are an adult you’ll use them in a responsible manner. If you commit acts because of what you’ve taken, knowing full well beforehand that such acts could occur because you’ve taken a drug, then you should be responsible fully for your actions.
This is not exactly what I said, but yes, they should know not to play with guns while impaired. But this is addressed later in the thread, so I suppose I’m typing this up because I like the sound of my keyboard clacking.
Based on my experiences, I’d say this is about right. There are some people I know who drink socially and will go to a dry party. Hell, a friend of mine who I met at the bar is attending a party for another friend’s one year old this weekend. Yes, this party is dry. For the most part, I ain’t goin’ to no dry party, but there are exceptions.
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Or stop doing stupid shit. I drink. I drive. Not at the same time. If I had any power tools, I’d imagine a similar rule would apply.
Right, people who behave assholishly while drunk are assholes sober, but I’m not saying they behave exactly the same in either case (though for some people with very high alcohol tolerance and lots of practice, there are essentially zero changes in behavior, and you’d never know they’d been imbibing for hours, but this digression has little to do with my point, and I’ll end it now). I’m saying they don’t pick up new personality traits. You bring up your dad a lot. He’s clearly a guy with a lot of issues, and a lot of anger, who abused alcohol, using it as an outlet to take out his frustration. To say it’s unfortunate that he released those frustrations in the form of beating your mother is an understatement. I have never known anyone (and doubt I ever will) who is happy, has no suppressed rage or anything of the sort, turn into a wife-beating maniac after drinking, whether it’s four glasses of rye, or damn near killing the whole bottle. Sure, I’ve seen them get annoying, but that’s mainly because they’re slurring their speech or need help standing. Hey, if we can agree on anything in this thread, it’s that excessive consumption of alcohol will impair your motor skills. I don’t want to deal with a clumsy drunk, so yes, there may be behavioral changes in that regard, but there’s no lights-on/lights-off transition from loving husband to Ike Turner. If there’s any wife-beating involved, there is already underlying assholery.
I fully support “You’re a grown up - Don’t do stupid shit” law.
Yet that may be argued is precisely a sign of illness of the mental variety too. Which is the cause and which is the effect is not clear, neither is it clear that there is intent.
100% of the time, yes it is. “Responsbly” is a societal construction and we are not robots, we are human beings.
Again, a societal construction, and your father’s experience, while not unheard of or even uncommon, is far far far from the norm.
Think about it this way - of all the alcohol consumed in this country, what actual percentage of it is consumed by people who commit crimes while they are still under the influence? Very minuscule I would posit.
My understanding is the law already covers that situation (and more).
I’m not just talking about you–I’m addressing all the people who are saying that not only do they not drink alcohol, but not drinking alcohol somehow makes them superior to people who do.
Is there a particular person in this thread you’re accusing of doing that, or are you impugning a hypothetical? If the former–back it up. If the latter–why bother?
As other posts have made clear, I don’t think you’ll get any disagreement here.
When it comes to alcohol, its not so simple. Depending on the jurisdiction the laws vary, but in general Dutch courage is not enough to skate, but zombie drunk is sometimes enough to permit the defence of lack of mens rea to succeed – e.g. that Canadian wheelchair rape I mentioned upthread: http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1994/1994canlii61/1994canlii61.pdf Bricker might have some very helpful insights in how this sort of thing is handled in American courts.
Right, and it is not so simple for a very good reason. Otherwise, it would be so simple, as Uzi suggested. Both alcohol and laws have been around together a very very long time. If their relationship were simple (even trivial) it would already be reflected thusly.
I like a drink, and I’ve been drunk many times. I have also dabbled with pot. Those are the only two recreational drugs I’ve ever done though!
I’ve never driven a car (I’m 26), and never ski’d (or never went skiing, or how do you say).
MeanOldLady, are you MOL from the MDM chat board? I’m lanternchikk - and no, I haven’t been stalking you!
(Crap, editing time is up!)
What I’d like to add is, I guess the skiing thing would make me even “weirder” if I had grown up in Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Finland) or in or near a mountainous region (Alps etc). But that’s not the case; It’s just that many people I know have at least once gone skiing or snowboarding on their “winter holidays”.
Have too! 
Never skied? You poor thing! I hope you get the opportunity to take up the sport.
If I ever have the opportunity, I’ll try! Is it hard to learn?
(Sorry for the slight hijack.)
Muffin encouraged me to try skiing, so I’d like to encourage you to try pizza.
In any semi-decent Italian restaurant, you should get the real thing: thin crust, real mozzarella cheese*, decent tomato sauce, baked in a traditional stone oven. And it doesn’t need 2347344 different toppings to be a good pizza! It’s also not that expensive, or at least it shouldn’t be.
*I’m generally not a huge fan of cheese, so that’s saying something!
Nope. Quite easy to learn if you have a good instructor, and the learning curve is enjoyable and exciting rather than frustrating.
This raises the question of which is more appropriate for an apres-ski pizza: beer or wine?
From what I’ve seen (not being a drinker myself), beer goes with pizza, pizza goes with apres-ski, and apres-ski goes with wine. What’s a decent chalet host to do?
I’m not even a skier, and I know the answer to that! You order a beer to drink while you’re deciding which pizza and wine to have. Duh! :p:D
I once saw a Norwegian skier place a glass of wine on his forehead while his team mates went about the restaurant making wagers that without using his hands or tools or another person’s assistance, the fellow could drink the wine without spilling any.
The Norwegians won a lot of money that evening. Fortunately, I’m not a betting man.
so what was the secret? (or skill)
Unfortunately, I’m alcohol-intolerant: Even the smallest sip is enough to make me sick. So that’s been pretty good incentive to never get drunk.
Schnapps!
(Cinnamon or peppermint in Hot chocolate)
The secret was to wait before making the wagers until after dinner when most of the skiers in the restaurant were several drinks in. That led to a lot of folks pulling out whatever they had in cash and betting against the Norwegian, who was sort of teetering about as if he were drunk. Of course he was not at all drunk, and was just trying to land as many suckers as he could.
Once the bets were made, the fellow’s team mates cleared away a few tables (we had rented the entire restaurant for the evening). The fellow sat on the floor, with the glass of wine still on his forehead. Then he lay back flat on the floor. Then he reached with his knees up to the glass and picked it up off his forehead between his knees. Then he placed the glass down beside his head. The crowd went wild at that point. After a few minutes of walking about the restaurant shaking hands, the fellow went back to the wine glass that was on the floor, knelt down and grasped its rim in his teeth, lifted his head back, and drank it dry, without spilling a drop, while being showered with cash.
The Norwegians also won the ski races.