Our Unhealthy Fear of Vacant Land

[bemildred]

3. Hmm, interesting. A few thoughts:

1.) Drunks get rolled because they are easy targets, and even if they have no money, you can still beat them up, humiliate them, and take their booze. Plus, you know where to look for them.

2.) Booze certainly is a health hazard, but we all know what happens when you try to prohibit things. Booze is the classic example of that too: Prohibition. Which points out the very important fact that there are limits to our ability to shape the world, our societies, and ourselves to suit our wishes. "Loss of control" indeed.

3.) Which leads to my final point that, when considering pernicious thing like drugs, booze, diseases, and bad behavior of all sorts, one must first be very sure what sort of thing it really is before deciding how best to mitigate, tolerate, or eliminate it, it all depends. Knee-jerk reactions can make things worse.