Ari Armstrong writing about the Colorado Senate bill allowing full strength alcoholic beverage sales on Sunday:
Following is a list of the senators who voted against the measure, along with their party affiliation:Bill Cadman, Republican
Jim Isgar, Democrat
Andrew McElhany, Republican
Shawn Mitchell, Republican
Scott Renfroe, Republican
David Schultheis, Republican
Jack Taylor, Republican
Tom Wiens, RepublicanAre you noticing any trends here?
It's not like this is an ambiguous issue. Business owners and their customers have a moral right to do business on mutually beneficial terms, on any day that they like. The (partial) ban on Sunday liquor sales violates free markets and freedom of association (and also the separation of church and state, given that the Blue Laws are rooted in religious restrictions).
So the next time that a Republican lies to you and tell you that Republicans are for free markets, remind the Republican that it took a Democratic legislature to move seriously to repeal to the Sunday booze ban, and seven of the eight senate votes to maintain the ban were cast by Republicans.
Ari is exactly right. I'll note one little irony here, that Bill Cadman and I spent a few hours together drinking moderate amounts of beer, about a year and a half ago (it wasn't a Sunday). I don't know what Bill's motivation was in voting against the measure, but I will assume it's not because he has some moral reservation about alcohol.
Posted by Walter at March 1, 2008 11:17 PMChurch and state is one and the same thing. Both are the organized restrictions and moralizing of the individuals in the society. There is a reason for the close work relationship that the government had with the church in Europe in the dark ages.
Posted by: Nicki Brřchner at March 2, 2008 02:04 AMStatism is a religion, of sorts, but not all religion is allied with statism.
Posted by: Walter at March 2, 2008 01:39 PM