For a guy who rails against the gubmint and its intrustion into your business and life, this is a radical departure.
Radical but needed.
We've attempted this exercise before and no one has been able to provide an answer that met the standard.
What benefits does alcohol provide (regardless what size container it comes in) that offset its negative effects?
What legitimate purpose does beer serve?
Nutrition? No.
Improve health? No.
Improve mental clarity? No.
But we need to make sure we can get it in 40 oz bottles.
I don't like smoking either, but I can't remember the last time somebody had a few too many cigarettes and smacked his wife and kids around. Don't recall anybody finishing off a pack of Marlboros and drove his car into somebody else and killed them. So smoke up, just don't do it around me.
Alcohol is the refuge of the weak.
I have an occasional drink because it's almost societally mandated (which I honestly find offensive). It pisses me off to be in a business situation and have other feeble-minded yahoos deride me because I don't care to have a beer with them. And there are occasional times I'll have a drink or three at home or with friends.
For the idiotic and absurd arguments about "somebody had a heart attack from McDonalds" or "movies are just for entertainment" please stop being obtuse. Those sham arguments are beneath you.
When McDonald's addiction puts 10,000 people in the ground (number killed in drunk driving crashes in 2009 -- three times the number of soldiers killed in the Gulf wars since 2003), when going to a movie kills 1400 children under the age of 12 (the number of kids killed by drunk drivers in 2009) then I'll call for those things to be ended too.
If you eat too many Big Macs you kill yourself. You don't take others out with you. So I don't give a shit. I do give a shit about 10,000 people and 1500 kids killed. I give a shit about the lives, marriages and careers that are destroyed, stats that don't show up on the sheet.
My position on government's intrusion is so long as it doesn't hurt me, I don't care. Alcohol DOES hurt me so I do. It destroyed my business partner's ability to function to the point that he lost everything, it killed my first wife, it fucked up my own career path early on, it ruined several of my family members and helped squander the legacy my great grandfather left.
It would be 1000000% fine with me if alcohol no longer existed. I don't need it. It serves no constructive purpose.