In a recent post on the Wicomico County Liquor Control Board I was amazed to see this comment posted on Salisbury News:
If you are an employee of the WCLCB (or your pockets are being filled in some other manner) I can understand why you want to keep dispensaries. I'm sure criminals have a justification for their chosen occupation, so why not someone working for a legal entity regardless of the legitimacy of that entity.
If you believe the FALSE rhetoric coming from the WCLCB about a liquor store on every corner, or the Wicomico taxpayer losing $400,000 a year in revenue, I can understand your concern. It is the job of the proponents of privatization (like myself) to present the facts rather than to promulgate fear and falsehood using taxpayer money as Messrs. Haemel and Alessi are doing.
Let's assume for a moment that "two cents" is truly just a concerned Wicomico citizen. Let's also assume that he/she is sincere in their belief. This is cause for great concern.
How can a person honestly believe that it is a moral action to use taxpayer funds to buy political advertisement? Do you wish Gov. Martin O'Malley to use your tax dollars to buy billboards saying "VOTE MARTIN"? How about County Executive Rick Pollitt using your money to buy a weekly radio show whose sole purpose is to provide propaganda for his re-election in 2010? Of course you wouldn't, unless you are so partisan that ANY action by your favorite politician is acceptable. Yet, we are expected to believe that regular citizens like you or I are supposed to accept the WCLCB using taxpayer money to buy newspaper ads, or fancy postcards to be distributed at the dispensaries and COUNTY OFFICES.
People like "two cents" argue that this is not taxpayer money. "two cents" is WRONG. Political propaganda IS NOT a LEGITIMATE EXPENSE! Therefore, that money should have gone to the profit of the WCLCB. Therefore, that money should have gone to us as taxpayers.
The fact that this current board is using taxpayer funds for political propaganda infers their corruption, if not the innate corruption of the dispensary system. Some could argue that the best action would then be to replace the WCLCB with those more competent and worthy of the taxpayers' trust (the old baby / bath water argument). However, we still come back to "two cents" quote at the beginning of this post:
Privatization is almost always beneficial. Government-owned business is a classic example of socialism. It's hard enough to fight the creeping form that we see every day in our federal and state governments; but how many people are going to make an honest argument that our government should be in the retail business?
If you wish to argue that we need dispensaries to adequately regulate distribution of the devil rum - fine. Be careful for what you wish for.
Those arguments, if valid, apply far more to the distribution of prescription drugs than to alcohol. Therefore, using the same logic, we need to put Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS, Giant, and myriad other locally-owned and chain pharmacies out of the prescription business. Only the government can do that job, right?
If this were so, why are these companies trying to build a drug store on every other corner? At least with liquor distribution the Liquor Licensing Board will have a say as to how many liquor stores we will have in Wicomico County and where.
Read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
. Socialism leads (at best) to a reduction in our individual liberty. Usually, it makes us SLAVES.
Note -
for those shills of the WCLCB that will attempt to counter by claiming that my argument means that we would (or should) have liquor stores with at least the same frequency that we have pharmacies, PLEASE DON'T TRY. I'm an American conservative, not a libertarian. There are valid reasons for zoning laws and the regulation in the awarding of liquor licenses (just as there are valid laws to regulate pharmacies).
cross posted at Delmarva Dealings
I'm not hearing any reasons or logic in your post as to why privitization (sic) would be beneficial ...just a lot of rethortic (sic). Nice try though G.A.The commenter, "two cents", has been a recent shill for Haemel, Alessi & Co. over at the WCLB (while claiming that he's NOT Haemal). I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with me, but some of the arguments coming from the pro-dispensary people are actually frightening.
If you are an employee of the WCLCB (or your pockets are being filled in some other manner) I can understand why you want to keep dispensaries. I'm sure criminals have a justification for their chosen occupation, so why not someone working for a legal entity regardless of the legitimacy of that entity.
If you believe the FALSE rhetoric coming from the WCLCB about a liquor store on every corner, or the Wicomico taxpayer losing $400,000 a year in revenue, I can understand your concern. It is the job of the proponents of privatization (like myself) to present the facts rather than to promulgate fear and falsehood using taxpayer money as Messrs. Haemel and Alessi are doing.
Let's assume for a moment that "two cents" is truly just a concerned Wicomico citizen. Let's also assume that he/she is sincere in their belief. This is cause for great concern.
How can a person honestly believe that it is a moral action to use taxpayer funds to buy political advertisement? Do you wish Gov. Martin O'Malley to use your tax dollars to buy billboards saying "VOTE MARTIN"? How about County Executive Rick Pollitt using your money to buy a weekly radio show whose sole purpose is to provide propaganda for his re-election in 2010? Of course you wouldn't, unless you are so partisan that ANY action by your favorite politician is acceptable. Yet, we are expected to believe that regular citizens like you or I are supposed to accept the WCLCB using taxpayer money to buy newspaper ads, or fancy postcards to be distributed at the dispensaries and COUNTY OFFICES.
People like "two cents" argue that this is not taxpayer money. "two cents" is WRONG. Political propaganda IS NOT a LEGITIMATE EXPENSE! Therefore, that money should have gone to the profit of the WCLCB. Therefore, that money should have gone to us as taxpayers.
The fact that this current board is using taxpayer funds for political propaganda infers their corruption, if not the innate corruption of the dispensary system. Some could argue that the best action would then be to replace the WCLCB with those more competent and worthy of the taxpayers' trust (the old baby / bath water argument). However, we still come back to "two cents" quote at the beginning of this post:
I'm not hearing any reasons or logic in your post as to why privitization (sic) would be beneficial...
Privatization is almost always beneficial. Government-owned business is a classic example of socialism. It's hard enough to fight the creeping form that we see every day in our federal and state governments; but how many people are going to make an honest argument that our government should be in the retail business?
If you wish to argue that we need dispensaries to adequately regulate distribution of the devil rum - fine. Be careful for what you wish for.
Those arguments, if valid, apply far more to the distribution of prescription drugs than to alcohol. Therefore, using the same logic, we need to put Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS, Giant, and myriad other locally-owned and chain pharmacies out of the prescription business. Only the government can do that job, right?
If this were so, why are these companies trying to build a drug store on every other corner? At least with liquor distribution the Liquor Licensing Board will have a say as to how many liquor stores we will have in Wicomico County and where.
Read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
. Socialism leads (at best) to a reduction in our individual liberty. Usually, it makes us SLAVES.Note -
for those shills of the WCLCB that will attempt to counter by claiming that my argument means that we would (or should) have liquor stores with at least the same frequency that we have pharmacies, PLEASE DON'T TRY. I'm an American conservative, not a libertarian. There are valid reasons for zoning laws and the regulation in the awarding of liquor licenses (just as there are valid laws to regulate pharmacies).
cross posted at Delmarva Dealings
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Technorati Tags: Maryland, Wicomico, politics, Wicomico politics, WCLCB, Liquor Control Board, socialism, F. A. Hayek, Rick Pollitt, Martin O'Malley
9 comments:
Nice G.A. stay on their heels. county liquors run my the same person that is on the zoo board will run it down to a point that within time the dispensaries will serve no purpose at all.
The burden of defending the government liquor stores should really be on the proponents of the current system. They need to tell us why we are somehow different from almost every other county in the state. They make all these wild claims about what will happen if our system goes by the wayside, and yet there is no evidence from other counties that these claims have any merit. They must think that somehow our county is so much different than other Maryland counties that the people here cannot handle liquor sold by an entity other than the government.
Good reference to Hayek, btw. Our nation would be better off if more folks were familiar with his work.
All the lovely sheeple, where do they all come from?
And which sheep are you referring to?
Wow! I really didnt think I would have caused such a stir but apparently I have pushed someone's buttons! In the coming weeks, I will try to provide an analysis of this issue which will examine both the members of the Baord and those in the Council leading the fight against them. I will examine and rate the pros and cons of the current system and the affects of similar systems in other MD counties and possibly other states. This may take a while to pull together but I'll do my best. (And I will compose it in Word using a spell check before I paste it here because apparently this upsets some people.)
But for now, lets just start w/ Mr. G.A. If you would like to call me names, then I will call you a shill for Holloway, Sheilds, and Prettyman. If you would like to intimidate by using ALL CAPS(which in my opinion is somewhat childish), then I WILL TOO. GA IS WRONG. See, what does that prove?
And what is all this political propaganda you keep talking about? Is it their website? Are they not allowed to have a web presence? Thats just silly and not good business in 2008. Do you think it costs too much to update content? Unless you work for them, how would you even know? Are you saying they arent allowed to defend themselves from the attacks of like people you and the Council? Are we just supposed to believe only one side of the story? Your side? No, I dont think thats what you are saying.
I am glad you finally did try to list some actual reasons why we should privatize. Very interesting and some good points to consider. But, you do still need a prescription(more govt control right GA?:) to buy drugs at a phamracy. But keep trying.
The best part though was:
"I'm an American conservative" and "How can a person honestly believe that it is a moral action to use taxpayer funds to buy political advertisement?" Well, I have news for you, John McCain has accepted 83.1 million of our tax payer dollars for his campaign but I suppose you dont mind that since he's your boy. Maryland candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor are also entitled to receive public funds for their campaigns. I dont personally know if Erlich and Steele did, maybe you can check on that one. Anyway, thats all I have time for now, I look forward to continuing the dialog.
Two Cents
First off, I have to know. Who is this "Sheilds" that I'm supposed to be shilling for? As for Joe and Stevie, I'm not offended to be called a shill for them anymore than I've been called a shill for Rick Pollitt. When I agree with them, I say so. When I don't, I say so too.
Second, you don't have to use MS Word for spell checking (you're right, it does bug me). When you type your comments and a red line appears under a word, right click it and the correct spelling usually comes up.
Now for the meat of the matter -
You still beg the question; a classic fallacy.
It does not matter whether it cost them only $2.00 to update their website. Those $2.00 were the taxpayers', not the WCLCB's. The same applies to the cost of all of their other propaganda.
The federal government has a campaign finance system. It's wrong, but there you have it. Now, if I made the rules there would be no contribution limits. Individual contributions only; and they would have to be reported within 48 hours of deposit using a system like VPAP's. Admittedly, I did not know that Maryland had a public campaign financing system but I disagree with that as well.
It still comes back to - SO?
There isn't a system for Ron Alessi and Stew Haemel to use taxpayer dollars to promote their pet causes. This includes charitable contributions AND advertising for political purposes.
To quote you -
"Are you saying they arent allowed to defend themselves from the attacks of like people you and the Council?"
No, the First Amendment applies to them as well. They can raise money and buy all the ads they want. What they cannot do is use TAXPAYER MONEY (caps for emphasis, not intimidation) for their own political purposes.
It's also interesting that you somehow believe that the fact that you need a prescription to buy certain types of drugs means that having a dispensary is OK. It's not.
The law requires that you need the prescription. The law requires that you have to be 21 years old or older to buy liquor. Therefore, a private liquor store which sells to people of legal age IS analogous to a pharmacy; as is a government-run pharmacy and a dispensary. A privately run pharmacy IS NOT analogous to a dispensary.
If you are not able to understand the syllogism, I apologize.
Another really good post by GA. It may be too late to retrive our lost liberties in Salisbury, but I do hope not. Come the spring we definately need to insure there will be changes in a lot of positions in City hall.
A. Goetz
Just to echo G.A., I don't think anyone is saying that those who support retaining the system cannot defend it or explain the reasons it should be kept in place. I do have a problem with the WCLCB using its own funds to do so. It is a government entity and as G.A. points out, any money used for political purposes (which the recent efforts of the WCLCB appear to be) is taking money that would go to Wicomico County.
If those who support the WCLCB want to use their own money to buy ads, then great. More power to them. But to use WCLCB funds in this way is improper. These funds should not be used to advocate a political position.
You don't hear from any bar or restaurant owners on here crying about change, you don't even see any support from the employees of bars or restaurants objecting to this change.
It's the 21st century, and it's time to move forward. We really need to get this to referendum. I would suggest that every bar and restaurant owner start a petition for a referendum. It will be easy for you to do, you don't have to walk door to door, the petition signers come see you anyway. Get the ball rolling people and quit talking about it.
If restaurant owners don't get this petition for referendum, then they shouldn't whine about having to buy liquor from the government. I'm on your side people, however you have to do some of the work, it's not going to just disappear unless you take action.
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