Is it time to curtail the supply of alcohol

In my generation, pubs stopped serving alcohol at 10:00pm, and the only place alcohol was allowed to be served was at the disco's in the clubs on a Friday and Saturday nights, who had extended liquor licences until 12:00pm.

I'm not saying there were not some fights afterwards, but it didn't happen all the time, and people were not frightened to walk home or down the streets after the events closed out of fear of being abused or bashed.

I believe the lenient sentencing of these morons is also contributing to their obnoxious anti-social behaviour. They appear in court, tell lies about the situation, and end up with a smack on the wrist and a few weeks community service at a maximum. Meanwhile, the victims life has been shattered, and no one, including the court, ever seem to take this into consideration, when handing down these lenient sentences to these anti-social thugs.

 

Exactly...
The gradual moral decaying of society is increased by soft sentencing, and indeed soft laws.
I also find it disappointing that the average bloke in the street knows well before a politician
what is wrong with society. I often think that politicians, because of their incompetence, make
everything worse. Blind Freddie can see that there is too much alcohol in society, and it ruins
lives on the roads, in the streets and in the homes of countless thousands of people....
Yet it takes so long for action to be taken.......sad...

 

Politicians are so removed from what is happening within mainstream society, that it's ridiculous. They live in their Ivory towers, and only visit us underlings during election campaigns to kiss babies and pat animals, or show up for photo opportunities during natural disasters. Besides the above two circumstances, I don't think they could care less whether we lived or died really.

I have been saying this for years now, and it never seems to sink in. How the hell do people seriously expect politicians to understand and comprehend what is really happening within our general society, when politicians don't have to live within the same laws and boundaries everyone else has to live by?

Of course politicians are going to keep making incompetent mistake, because everything they legislate that will affect us, but will never effect them.

Remove all the politicians Parliamentary Privileges that have allowed them to become untouchable Gods, and make them work and live under the same legal system and conditions as you and me, and watch these politicians suddenly start making correct decisions for a change.

The people keep voting in the same clowns from the same circus every election with different face paint, and they seriously think things are going to change What the people are doing, is no different in allowing a rapist to sentence himself.

 

Hmm,

its like a pedophile is on the loose, lets build all fences around our schools another meter higher as they already are....As if the fences around schools (I witness) aren't already high enough.
Those fences won't erase the problem, although they might impact slightly.

I think we have a fundamental problem, and this has less to do with trading hours, but with a lack in education, values and principles.

Being pissed is regarded as cool, have some quite ones at home before you hit the streets is the way most follow, while in other countries its the opposite, being pissed is regarded as low.

The whole perception of our latest Aussie lifestyle (at least for our younger generation) is out of whack.

Regards

 

If the following list is anything to go by, I don't think we are too much different from other western countries! Many poor and communist countries or led by dictators seem to be below us. Hey, I could be wrong in how I'm reading it!
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

 

Australians simply don't have a clue how people in other countries view them as backward and puerile, because these people have moved beyond Australia's low mentality.

A decade ago, the Brits had something similar to "Aussie school week" whereby their youth invaded Spanish party towns for a week long p.i.s.s-up. The only British youth that go on these alcoholic jaunts now, are those considered to be the countries next generation of factory workers and welfare recipients. The new "big" thing with European kids after school ends, is to travel with a group of friends to classier places, not just drunken low-brow hives.

Where do the majority of Aussies go for their "schoolies week"? A week long p.i.s.s -up to the gold coast. The majority of Australians aged between 18 & 30 go on holidays to cheap low-brow places like Bali, where they indulge in frequent episodes of alcohol and drugs.

Sometimes trying to educate some young people is a similar parable used on a dog with the knife & fork. Logic suggests; no matter how many time you show a dog how to use a knife & fork, the dog will NEVER have the mental capability to use the knife & fork. Therefore, if "you" want the dog to eat, "you" have to show it another method.

If we want young Australians to stop abusing alcohol, then we have to show them there is something else besides alcohol. This is going to be very difficult, considering the generational symbiotic hand-in-hand hero status relationship between alcohol and sport.

How many of these so-called Australian sporting hero's have been named & shamed in the media for substance abuse within the past few years. These so-called hero's have been convicted numerous times on counts of physical assault; alcoholism; drug abuse; drug possessions, and all have been given fines and lenient sentences. When young Australians see their sporting hero's getting fines and lenient sentences for serious crimes, they think by living up to their hero's potential, they can do the same.

Maybe it's time that alcohol was demonised in the same way that cigarettes are, and sport and alcohol parted company. There are certainly more lives ruined by alcohol in Australia, than by cigarettes, but alcohol never gets the same demonization that cigarettes does.

 

Yes, come along to schoolies week, where any teenager can serve their "get
pissed" apprenticeship, go back home, and "get your old man another beer"
on tv...oh sorry in reality...
If our pisshead teenagers were not encouraged to drink by adults (including
their own parents) then maybe we would have a different society around us...
Walk through any shopping mall and hear the teenagers talking to one another
where every second word begins with 'f'.....ooh sorry, I'm on the wrong thread....

 

TV,
yeap, this is my experience with East European countries. Spot on!!!
However, also in my experience I haven't witnessed the same alcohol abuse in Central European countries.
I think we drink more in good old downunder as compared to French, Swiss, Spanish, Austrian, German and people from the Netherlands......
Or in other words, I didn't feel unsafe walking those streets at nighttime (Central Europe) compared to some districts in my beloved Perth.
regards

 

We have been fortunate in having travelled Europe extensively, and still travelling. I'm not suggesting that every area in every country is all Dom Perignon & roses, but we were never afraid to walk down streets with others during the night and days. Here in Australia, there are some streets I would simply refuse to walk down day or night, just like we would in the USA, as we consider then unsafe ghetto's that attract high level potential violence.

Close drinking establishments at 10:00pm, and allow families access to public streets once again, and watch the business revenue rise, and alcoholism among young people decrease - don't have to be a genius to understand that model will work.

Even in my generation, you would be surprised at many idiotic parents think it's cool to drink and get p.i.s.s.ed with their 18 years old kids. It's sad that some parents have reverted back to their own childhood, and want to be their kids friends. 18 year olds don't want their parents to be their friends, they want their parents to be their parents.

 

I once had a few beers with a school teacher after a game of golf and we talked about
amongst many things, teaching kids...he stated quite firmly that if you treated the kids
in the class as your friends, in an attempt to "get them to learn quicker", you would lose
them immediately, because it undermined your authority as a teacher...they just thought
of you as a mate...I think the same applies to parents....parents have to be parents, not
mates...there is a subtle difference...and parents these days I don't think understand the
difference, and they just give up....

 

Eh, where do you learn this stuff? It's incredibly misleading and out of touch with the youth.

1. Young pommies still do go to party towns/islands and get completely wasted for weeks on end. This never changed.

2. These people range from future factory workers to future medical surgeons. Your generalizations are baseless unless you can provide evidence (I know, not your strong point). The 18 - 30 year old demographic in almost every western country on Earth does something like this. Australia isn't special.

What are you trying to say? We aren't Europe. We don't have a large amount of Western countries in close proximity to us.

Wait, you think Europe doesn't have any sketchy streets that you wouldn't want to walk down day or night?

lolwut

I agree, but again your generalizations don't fit in with real observations. I've met quite a few people with young parents that love the fact that they don't have a huge distance in age.

 

Can I ask you if the pommie trips to get wasted for a week have been/are promoted and encouraged by the local
Chamber of Commerce as a means of stimulating the economy, whilst kids in their thousands...and I mean
thousands congregate together to "celebrate" schoolies week...the silly thing about it is apart from private residences and licensed premises, the entire state of Queensland is an alcohol free zone...but they turn
a blind eye just for schoolies....now what does that tell you......draw your own conclusions....

 

No, they aren't promoted by the local chamber of commerce as these trips take place out of the country. Thousands of people also attend.

 

[video=vimeo;68405552]http://vimeo.com/68405552[/video]

 

I get my knowledge through life experience and travel. Where do you get yours?

Yes. The Brit school leavers still got to Spain for week p.i.s.s-up's, but you won't find many individuals who are going to a university next term attending them. Only the next generation of factory workers and welfare recipiants are still going.

Only an outright moron thinks they can be drinking mates/friends with the kids. Teenagers don't want their parents as friends, they want them as parents. What can be more simplistic and logical than that!!

Countries like Spain are trying to get rid of the Brit p.i.s.s-heads, as these individuals are giving their country and regions a bad reputation for genuine tourists (who) spend real money on holidays.

 

Personally I think all alcohol should have Thiamine mixed in
http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/cl...rt-team/nutrition-articles/ThomsonArticle.pdf

Alcohol is incredibly damaging to the body and not just in terms of liver damage (although that is NASTY - solid liver banks up blood in the vessels in your food pipe which bleed so many die vomiting and ____ blood) but it also increases the risk of diabetes, heart failure pancreatitis and for men

However the problem of violence and alcohol is being fuelled by a very significant increase in steroid abuse