Different issue, same boogeyman!

This time, it's the liquor lobby in Lubbock!

...While many areas (in Texas -- ed.) to this day remain “dry,” on Saturday the biggest teetotaling town in Texas may be going wet.
Voters in Lubbock will decide whether beer, wine and liquor will be available in stores around this town of about 210,000. For decades Texas Tech University students and anybody else looking to buy their own beer, wine or spirits had to make their way to a quarter-mile patch of pavement that serves a handful of stores on the southeastern edge of town.
...
...Brant O’Hair, co-chairman of the group Truth About Alcohol Sales that opposes the measure, said he believes most liquor “package stores” will go in poorer neighborhoods.
“The people who are most vulnerable in our society will be affected the most,” he said. “Follow the money. It’s the liquor lobby.”

The liquor lobby. As Dave Barry would say, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Apparently the liquor lobby has hired guns ready to go out and threaten people at gunpoint to go to the newly established liquor stores and buy their wares even if the people can't afford them. It's not their fault, really, what would you rather have, Johnnie Walker Black Label in your hand or a Speer Gold Dot in your head?
Seriously though, I don't understand it. Not only does this modern-day American Temperance Society absolve the lower-income people of their proper personal responsibility for their own bad choices, but they also think the rest of Lubbock should effectively have to pay the penalty for the bad choices those few MIGHT make. To paraphrase L. Neil Smith, these people are lecturing about the bad choices some people might make, but what does that have to do with the vast majority of Lubbockites who will continue to spend their money wisely? They shouldn't be penalized for bad choices they don't make, and that's exactly what those who oppose Lubbock alcohol sales are doing. I think it would be interesting to see in what other aspects of life those people think the lower-income demographic should be absolved of personal responsibility.

Heyyy, my favorite Joan Jett tune, at the Boneyard, Sirius Ch. 19:" I think of you every night and day, you took my heart, and you took my pride, a-waaaayaaayayayayay...."