Full disclosure: it’s my birthday, I’m 5 glasses of champagne in and I’m about to go to sleep. This can’t wait. From the BBC:

Thousands are ‘at risk of alcohol death’ say doctors.

I don’t know what makes me more sick, the state sponsored “liver disease specialists”, The Lancet for publishing their shite, the “coalition government” or the BBC for “reporting” this nonsense without even a knowing hint towards the utter lunacy of the proposals.

After Daniel took apart the BBC just a few days ago for publishing the kind of biased drivel that makes Fox News look impartial, they’re at it again, reminding us once again why they, and only they, are given the exclusive right to force us all to pay for their broadcasting: because they promote consistently and enthusiastically an expansion of the nanny-state; the hand that feeds them. While our spoilt generation sneer at the likes of China, Egypt and North Korea for their dictators it’s easy to forget that the UK is one of the only countries in the entire world (and that includes North Korea) where it’s illegal to watch television without a license from the state.

Poor alcohol regulation could cost up to 250,000 lives in England and Wales over the next 20 years, doctors warn.

The role of doctors is to help cure, heal and patch up those who wish for such services if and when they need them. It has never been to advocate the use of force against peaceful people on the off-chance that their actions might, in the future, cause them some personal negative side-effects. Doctors are supposed to live by the code “first, do no harm” not “first, advocate a totalitarian government”. But I am being harsh on doctors. These doctors are not doctors at all, but rather politicians by another name, furthering their own careers way past the well known glass ceiling of the NHS by advocating political solutions to medical problems. By calling for expansions of state power they position themselves favorably with any administration they happen to serve under–a mutually beneficial and bloodthirsty symbiotic relationship that spells publicity, prestige and power for these “doctors” and their political masters but further strain, heartache and devastation for the poor and the working class.

Let me explain:

Writing in The Lancet, leading liver disease specialists say measures including a minimum price of 50p per unit are urgently needed.

I have written before about the follies of minimum pricing but I don’t think I stated things clearly enough. I’m 26 years old today, and if my mind hasn’t yet fully succumbed to its inevitable decline, reading articles like this sure ain’t helping. In the following paragraph bold type will be playing the part of furious and righteous rage:

Not only is minimum pricing totally fucking retarded I am willing to go further than that: ANYBODY who doesn’t immediately realize it’s fucking retarded within seconds of thinking about it are THEMSELVES fucking retarded.

There aren’t two ways about this. I really am running out of sympathy. I’m sick of hearing “news stories” like this on the radio without the anchor stopping halfway through and exclaiming, outraged, “I won’t read this turgid drivel. I won’t sell my soul.”

Shame on the newsreaders, shame on the newspapers and shame on anybody who continues to take this propaganda seriously. You all have access to the Internet and your own common sense. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. When you hear the BBC “reporting” on things like this and you are in company you need to LAUGH like you’re watching a badly written comedy. Taking things like this seriously is not acceptable anymore. It’s gone too far. The bullshit is just too obvious.

  • Minimum pricing does not tackle liver disease, it simply raises the price of alcohol.
  • Raising the price of alcohol will only punish those of little means, namely: poor people.
  • Middle class and wealthy people will not be affected by higher prices. They will continue to fund their taste for liquor but perhaps with a little less money left over to invest in new jobs (last I checked the government is claiming to be concerned for the unemployed, though I do not take such claims seriously).
  • Poor people who do not have an alcohol problem will be punished with higher prices on the alcohol they do drink. By some miracle of statist logic raising the price for everybody–including those on the lowest rungs of the employment ladder, many struggling to raise children on small pay cheques already hit by a government caused recession–is a just solution to the “problem” of some people making free choices to damage their own bodies; voluntarily trading their future health for present happiness. We may not agree with their decisions but those decisions are theirs to make, lest we cease pretending to oppose totalitarianism and admit to the self-evident motives of our dictators in disguise.
  • And so the result of such legislation will simply be to put alcohol addicts in a position where they are struggling to fund their habit. A cursory glance to the effects of this predicament on addicts of other illegal drugs quickly shows its folly. Far from persuading heroin addicts to go cold turkey, the high prices of H simply encourages them to resort to crime to fuel their habit. If you think walking past tramps on park benches is uncomfortable now, picture a future where they’re no longer sure they can fund their next drink without the help of your wallet or handbag.

To write all this again feels completely redundant. The state proposes nonsense like this every day and yet hearing this again has, for whatever reason, trigged anger in me I haven’t felt for several months. Let’s look at the fucktardedness from another angle:

  1. Driving recklessly endangers yourself and others
  2. Therefore raising the price of cars will help save lives and should be advocated!

This is the identical logic to which the alcohol minimum-pricing proponents appeal to and yet when put in this form becomes so self-evidently stupid that to back such a proposal would be an admittance to either insanity or special interest. If “Leading car crash specialists” were to publicly advocate such a position with the explicit request that the government violently enforce such a proposal even the most gullible of marks would surely ask themselves whether this organisation might be friends with Ford, BMW or General Motors.

This stuff boggles my mind. And at my newly advanced age this much boggling is taking its toll!

These are my thoughts after the first 50 words of the article. It continues in ever-increasing ineptude, the bias not even attempting to conceal itself, the “journalist” content to parrot quotes from the government, the “doctors” and the “drinks industry” without ever once thinking of the consumer or of justice. Philosophy, it seems, is dead to these people. Principles do not exist. Only vague, Orwellian bullshit, wrapped up as if it’s something other than totalitarianism.

But the Department of Health said it was taking “tough action”, while the drinks industry said it was “playing its part in tackling alcohol misuse”.

It should not be the job of the department of health to take any action against anybody pre-emptively, just as it should not be the job of a military to pre-emptively attack a third-world country in the name of peace. The drinks industry should have no obligation to “play its part” in “alchol misuse”, anymore than car manufacturers should play a part in preventing people from speeding. Only the individuals directly involved should be responsible for their “misuse” and even then, only if they directly harm a third party. Will you hear a position like this on the BBC? Even as a footnote that such a view is in the spectrum of opinion? Of course not.

The scientists predicted UK deaths from liver disease in four different scenarios.

The best case was based on the UK following the example of France, which had a deep-seated problem in the 1960s, with high liver disease deaths linked to the consumption of cheap alcohol.

Drinking levels there were reduced by imposing strict marketing restrictions.

France is apparently the home of responsible drinkers.  Even if we accept this assessment as true, which I’m sure it is not, they completely fail to take notice of the costs of such “restrictions”: THAT INNOCENT DRINKERS WERE FORCED TO PAY MORE FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

Ignoring the unseen costs of regulations is a mistake an 8 year old who’d spent a week learning econ 101 would not make and yet to ask a professional BBC journalist to even mention such things in passing is a futile thought I’m almost embarrassed to be entertain.

Following that example, the doctors predict the UK could reduce the current level of deaths from liver disease of 11 per 100,000 by a third.

But they warn if nothing is done, deaths from all alcohol-related causes – including cancers and road accidents – could claim the lives of 250,000 people in England and Wales over the coming two decades.

Whenever you hear things like you should always wonder who the doctors are. Why are they so concerned by such things? Why are they so eager to lobby for government controls? Does it make sense to you that doctors would be anxiously attempting to lobby for regulations that would put a many of them out of work? Look at the vague language: “could claim the lives”, “the doctors predict” … how do they make such confident assessments? By pulling figures out of their asses, that’s how. If you doubt this is true go speak to the same 8 year old who knows a week of econ 101 and see if he also knows what happens when you artificially push up the prices of addictive substances.

The medics, led by Professor Sir Ian Gilmore who has long campaigned for action on alcohol misuse, welcomed the coalition government’s plans to keep duty rises on alcohol at 2% above inflation.

But they say plans to ban the sale of alcohol at below cost price, and to increase duty on beer stronger than 7.5% proof, are “inconsequential” because only a tiny percentage of sales fall into that category.

Sir Ian told the BBC there had been a “very close link” between the falling prices in real terms over the last 20 years and the amount Britons drank.

“Alcohol is not an ordinary commodity like soap powder,” said Sir Ian.

“It is a drug, it happens to be legal, but it is a drug and there are more than 1.5 million people addicted to alcohol. We think, like other areas of public health, like smoking, like seatbelts, there is a strong case for tougher regulation and the most effective regulation would be around price.”

Remember the name Ian Gilmore, in the coming future, when the nation begins to collapse we will need to know who our friends are. This man is not one of them. He is not a doctor first (if at all) but rather an authoritarian.

He is also wishy-washy. The most effective regulation would not be “around price” but rather to advocate making the drug entirely illegal just like crack or heroin. If he WON’T advocate such a thing, and yet he’s not also openly advocating making those drugs LEGAL (but priced high) you KNOW that his motives are not based on philosophy, consistency or genuine concern for health, but rather politics. BEWARE people who advocate government regulation, they are ALWAYS after something this is not in your interests (unless you happen to be buddies with said person).

He added the claim that the government was “too close” to the drinks industry had come from the health select committee, who said ministers listened too much to the drinks industry and not enough to their own health experts.

Government should play no part in regulating the drinks industry, period, But to suggest they don’t already regulate it to death is nonsense. The government currently taxes all forms of beer and liquor far more than regular foods and drinks, as to the regulations of pubs, bars and nightclubs, anybody who has ever attempted to run such an establishment knows full well that regulations are both crippling, retarded and written only in the interest of the regulators and their special interests.

I won’t quote the whole article because the garbage contained within may leave a putrid mould on my blog so fowl it somehow spills out and gets into other people’s internets, but it closes with the following:

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “The government has wasted no time in taking tough action to tackle problem drinking, including plans to stop supermarkets selling below-cost alcohol and working to introduce a tougher licensing regime.”

She claimed the government was “taking a bold new approach” to public health.

Whenever you hear that the government is taking “a bold new approach” or “tough new measures” or “radical new steps” or “neccessary action” or any number of absurd euphemisms you can always be sure of one thing: the new idea is identical to every other idea they’ve been trying since the dawn of time:

FORCE PEACEFUL PEOPLE TO DO WHAT THEY WANT.

This never works, of course, government always claim they just need a little more regulation and it will solve X problem and yet mysteriously it never does. Libertarians all know why this is, but for those who don’t I’ll spell it out and go to sleep:

You cannot use guns, violence and coercion to make people behave well. The cure is worse than the disease. By using aggression to bend autonomous humans to your will you have already lost the moral high ground. What’s worse than being a drunk who is damaging your own liver? Putting guns to peaceful people and telling them to behave “or else”. That is the reality of regulation. It is the reality of how the BBC is funded and it’s the reality behind all government proposals you’ll ever hear. Learn to spot them, and then laugh. Perhaps then I’ll be able to go to sleep.

CORRECTION 23/02/2011:

Somebody corrected me in the comments below. Turns out lots of European countries are worse than North Korea in terms of forced television licenses to pay for their propaganda stations.

Here’s the comment:

“it’s easy to forget that the UK is one of the only countries in the entire world (and that includes North Korea) where it’s illegal to watch television without a license from the state.”

I suggest you try doing a little research before making a fool of yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence (See the map top right)

Plus; (O.K. BBC, but easily provable).

XXX The UK is not the only country which has a TV licence fee – about two-thirds of European countries have one, or use an indirect charge to fund their public TV stations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6241013.stm
XXX