Wait until they hear about how town fires are extinguished.
Or how roads they drive on are built.
I love how they think they know what’s best for a city that’s thousands of miles away that they think is so crime riddled that they’ll never visit.
I have close family in NYC, and visit often. I love NYC.
I know MAGAs that can’t believe I go there. They literally think that there are random shootings everywhere, all the time, like we’re constantly dodging bullets. They they think EVERY trip on the subway means getting mugged or assaulted. I’ve NEVER had a problem, and I’m not particularly cautious.
I try to explain to them that far worse crime happens in our area than in NYC. It seems like once a week, somebody murders a BABY in my town, but I never here about that kind of stuff in NYC. The worst in NYC tends to be some random lunatic who starts whacking random strangers with a hammer, or some such nonsense. That’s the kind of shit that worries New Yorkers.
They cannot and will not understand the concept of “per capita”. Only ever being in their town they have no concept of how many people live there, and then watch news that instills “it’s scary” there. I’ve tried every way I can, both for NYC and my city, and they will not understand. I’ve even said “The island of Manhattan has more people than your entire state” and they still don’t get it. Combine all of the people from your rural state, double it, then take all of the crime from your state and compare it against a single borough of that city. They can’t comprehend it.
So one violent crime out of 10x their state’s population and they shit their pants. It’s insanity.
In Canada, we have provinces with government-run liquor stores and provinces without.
I live in a province with government-run liquor stores and frequently visit two that have privately-run ones. The privately-run ones are typically dingier, have less selection, and the selection they have is lower-quality. So far I have visited only one privately-run liquor store that I actually like. Out of ten.
Yes, that could just be bad luck, but I’ve only visited one government-run liquor store that felt depressing and where I disliked the selection… Out of dozens.
Draw whatever conclusions make you happy.
Plus the private ones charge more than the government stores.
Pennsylvania has a similar setup and while other states’ liquor stores can occasionally be nicer, they are on average less nice, especially when the area isn’t as rich.
Indeed. Unsurprisingly, the one privately-run liquor store I have loved is in an upscale (but not wealthy) plaza in un upscale part of the city. It’s very clean and has a loooooong fine wines fridge. The rest are underwhelming, frequently dimly-lit, and even difficult to walk around in (very narrow aisles).
One is serving addicts, the other connoisseurs
There is certainly a feedback loop there.
I’m confused. Why does the government have to run the booze shops? I’m Australian and I cannot imagine what need there is for public ownership. Are you talking about very very remote or rural places?
At least here in Finland we have government monopoly stores selling alcohol above 8% abv. I don’t mind it, I think it makes sense that the government is the one profiting off of harmful substances. I do wish I could buy wine in grocery stores, but then again most of the government liquor stores are right next to grocery stores anyway.
Why? I don’t know. Very very remote or rural places? Not exclusively.
Need? I don’t know, but it would seem to avoid the things we’ve been talking about: race to the bottom with cost cutting, catering primarily to addicts, wide disparity in quality between affluent areas and low-income areas.
I’m just imagining a Federal Govt bottlo. Crazy. Do your Medicare and get a six-pack.
I grew up in a state with government run liquor stores (Pennsylvania), can confirm that they always seemed clean, safe and well run. (The annoying thing was beer being sold at entirely separate businesses)
Aa to why? I think they wanted to micromanage alcohol sales, presumably prohibition era thinking.
Yeah, it is socialism. Socialism is when the people own the means of production. In a democracy, the people own the government, hence why government services are referred to as “publicly owned”.
Any and all problems with this, either present or past, have nothing to do with socialism, and everything to do with a lack of democracy. The well being of the working class is inextricably tied to the amount and quality of democracy in their country.
Every single country they’re referencing - Venezuela, USSR, China, North Korea - the problems with these countries aren’t because they were socialist or communist. It’s because they were dictatorships. Absolute power always corrupts.
And the same dictatorships currently branding themselves as “socialist” don’t want western leftists to recognize the fact that Europe is actually doing socialism for the working class, and they try to discredit it by claiming they are only enriching their working class off the backs of the global south. But you can’t claim that for countries like Ireland or Finland. They’re examples of socialism working, examples of socialism we should follow.
And it’s for the exact same reasons the American Republicans don’t want you to think of Europe when you think of socialism. Because it threatens hypercapitalism, whether in the form of America, or China.
Oh neat, Ontario and Alabama have something in common.
Alabama ranked at the near bottom of best states to live in
