When Theory Doesn't Match Reality - Who Do You Believe?

Today we are going to look at some of the...um, what should I call it -- lies that the pro State Store community uses to try to show that science is on their side.

Remember things like Wendell Young telling us that privatization "...will put alcohol on every street corner and increase crime." (Watchdog.org May 2, 2013). Sounds pretty scary, but Pennsylvania alcohol consumption per capita is already about the same as New York, Ohio, and Maryland, higher than West Virginia and a little lower than New Jersey; Delaware is the highest.  In fact, PA consumption hasn't really changed that much over the years and is slightly higher now than in 1900. (NIAAA Surveillance Report #92 August 2011) Besides being a physical impossibility -- every corner? Really? Where do you put the gas stations and the Starbucks? -- there are local laws that would prevent it too. Still reality has never stopped Wendell before. Do we really need to talk about crime?  PA is dead in the middle for violent crime compared to the border states or the rest of the states for that matter, so it isn't like this is Eden to start with. (FBI UCR report 2012). If we are just average with all this supposed "control," why are all those other states doing better?

Wendell uses this made-up science again and again, but no one ever calls him on it: "The bottom line is we have the absolute lowest death rate associated with alcohol consumption of all 50 states."  Which I disproved not that long ago, so would some debater please call him out on it?

My favorite has to be that consumption will rise 48%.  We heard this in testimony from Dr. Stephen Herzenberg of Keystone Research.  All that effort only to be slammed for using bad science and then for having the gall to not follow his predictions.  It seems that Washington state consumption has only gone up about 9% when you include the increase in in-state sales and the increase in border bleed.  Gotta wonder where that other 39% went to.

Then there is organized labor's tame economist, Dr. Roland Zullo of the University of Michigan, who while working with the Keystone Research Center said that crime is lower in control states, which makes it hard to explain why PA is in the middle of the pack on crime, while being the most onerous control state. I wonder what his reasoning is that DUI fatalities (usually known as the felony of vehicular homicide) went down in Washington state since they privatized.

Both of the above declined to provide any new thoughts on this subject and didn't respond to my emails. Perhaps that was shrewd on their part in light of the fact they have been proven wrong.

Can't forget Dr. Mark Price, also of the Keystone Research Center (I'm beginning to see a pattern here), who agreed with Dr. Herzenberg by using the exact same bad science Dr Herzenberg used in his testimony. His bottom line was that "...privatization will increase negative social impacts, increasing excessive consumption of alcohol (hasn't happened) and traffic fatalities (they went down), alcohol-related violent crime (hasn't happened), and alcohol-related public health problems (the jury is still out on this since only preliminary date is available and mostly only for King County in Washington)

Now Oregon is next up for privatization by the ballot (which would have happened here decades ago if allowed) and their prohibitionists are  coming up with new science to further their cause. However, once again reality doesn't agree with the Power Point presentation (What?  You were expecting peer reviewed journals?) as the respected Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University pointed out.

They say the truth shall set you free so it seems you can pretty much ignore anything from the UFCW, Keystone Reasearch, or Wendel Young. whose only goal is to keep you enslaved to the state store system.

The PLCB's Swedish cousin

A reader (thanks, reader!) sent me a link to a post at Reason Magazine's Hit & Run blog about a poster, a real paper poster, done by Systembolaget, the Swedish state booze monopoly. See if you don't think that Systembolaget and the PLCB sound eerily similar:

"Why Can't You Guys Buy Wine at the Supermarket?"

Imagine that you suddenly get this question from a tourist.

Perhaps you know exactly how you should answer.

If not, it might be good to know what the results of a recent survey showed: The Swedish alcohol monopoly saves many lives each year.

If strong beer (Note: beer with more than 3.5% alchohol per volume; really, 3.5%), wine and spirits were sold in grocery stores consumption would increase by 30%, researchers believe. And they stress that this is a conservative estimation—the increase could be more.

They calculate that there will be approximately 1,600 more deaths each year, 14,000 more assaults and around 16 million more sick days.

So the monopoly makes a huge difference for a lot of Swedes.

And because it will only be around as long as people want it to be, we at Systembolaget have to do everything in our power to make sure our customers are satisfied.

This has resulted in our having perhaps the world's largest assortment of strong beer, wine and spirits.

(And an assortment one not finds in Stockholm and Gothenburg, but also in Jokkmokk and Töreboda.)

Wow. Separated at birth, or what?

Let me parse this my way. "We're saving you from booze. If we didn't, you'd drink yourself to death, you idiots; we know this, because of Science. That's why we sell you all the great booze you need, from the cities to the reindeer-herding stations in East Jebip. Tell your friends."

I mean, it doesn't even make sense. If booze really is as scary, uncontrollably bad as these guys say...why sell it at all? Prohibition would be the course of a truly caring state. Save us!

I put the full text of the poster up, but you should go read what Reason said...and check out the paternal-looking Swedish øldska fårtskë on the poster. Oh, man, the PLCB should just lift this!