Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Cops declare war...

An article in today's Sydney Morning Herald that sounds the drums of war.

"Police chief call for war on drunks" it is headlined.

Yes, it is another "campaign to combat binge drinking".

Yet again those of us who enjoy the odd binge drink are being blamed for a wide array of societies ills.

This moral hysteria is being pushed by cynical politicians looking for a cheap populist card to play. The story goes that all of a sudden, out of the blue, binge drinking has become a problem in Australian society.

Just read that last sentence again, if you can, without laughing.

I mean for fuck's sake, Australia's first colony, in NSW, had prime minister whose biggest claim to fame was his breaking of the record for time taken to consume a yard glass of beer.

Australia. Binge drinking. A new phenomena?

Jesus fucking christ.

TO get a sense of perspective, and some actual *facts*, check out this article from the Age that I blogged a while back.

This happens every half a dozen years or so. Suddenly the media start reporting that — shock horror! — teenagers are getting drunk. From there, the rest of us fully grown adults become the problem too.

Yet again, it seems it is fashionable for politicians and pigs to beat the prohibitionist war drum and launch an assault on our right to use and abuse alcohol.

"Prohibitionist"? That is a bit extreme, you say.

Fuck off it is. First, they came for our alcopops...

That should have been the first warning, what ever our personal opinion is of the alcopop phenomena.

(And I personally find it appalling. Kid's today don't know how easy they have it. Alcopops is just plain cheating. Today's teenagers get to go straight from lemonade at their primary school parties to alcoholic lemonade at their high school gigs.

We didn't have alcopops in my day. We had to fucking force ourselves to drink beer. We had to develop a taste for it through hard struggle. It wasn't easy but it was character building.

But what do today's pampered youth know of that? They get binge drinking handed to them on a sugar-coated plate.)

The point is, an attack on any drinker is an attack on all.

And, sure enough, the attack grows.

Here we have the bloody NSW police attempting to extend the assault on booze.

However, the South Austraialian pigs, according to the article want to go *even further*, with the SA police commissioner even raising the spectre of... ending happy hour!

For christ sake! How have we sunk to this point where such a sacred institution could even be questioned?

And they want to take away 24-hour pubs. Shift workers, to say nothing of 24-hour alcoholics (who have rights too), would lose out badly.

What are they targeting here?

SMH writes: "The campaign, led by the NSW Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, addressed what he called a `drink to get drunk' culture..."

Holy shit. The bloke leading the charge doesn't even realise the *whole fucking point* of drinking is to get drunk.

Why else would you consume an alcoholic beverage? Water, after all, is free.

*This* is prohibitionist logic. You question the right to drink in order to enjoy the intoxicating properties of alcohol (ie: to get drunk) you question the very basis of alcohol consumption. Next thing you know it is fucking Saudi Arabia and women aren't allowed to drive cars and you lose a hand for stealing.

And their justification? God is it pathetic.

Here is Scipone: "Seventy-five per cent of all engagements that NSW police have are as a result of alcohol. That is a pretty telling statistic."

Right. "Engagements" with police. What does this even mean? Seventy-five percent of all marriage proposals? I know I'd have to be pretty blind drunk to accept one from a member of the NSW police force.

Or does he mean abuse and/or assault? In which case, stop blaming booze. Maybe NSW police officers are just fuckwits and just *maybe* it takes the average punter a couple of bevvies before they have the courage to point this out to a copper.

Here is another telling statistic: 100% of all incidents of police brutality occur at the hands of the police. That is a full 25% higher incident rate — so go fucking declare war on yourselves.

You declare war on me, Scipone? Well I declare war on you, motherfucker.

Don't even *think* of walking into the Shannon...

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