A Liberal Riposte to Hudak's LCBO Gambit

Earlier this year the leader of the Progressive Conservatives, Tim Hudak, proposed privatizing the LCBO. The LCBO is short for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. The LCBO is a government run liquor retailer. If you want hard liquor this is the only place to get it. Mr. Hudak decried the government monopoly on liquor sales, as I suppose a great injustice to and a burden on the citizens of Ontario.

The very notion of a government run business, much less a monopoly is anathema to the roiling conservative spirit; What can be subject to the free market, should be subject to the free market. After we move past the basic ideology the details of his complaint come into focus; the LCBO leads to higher cost, reduced variety and fewer retail locations. It about competition and Hudak maybe right on those points. It would take little time for Free Market entrepreneurs to erect a multitude of Liquor Outlets; where the vast forces unleashed by competition would work wonders on the price of alcohol; market forces directing the price of spirits to its natural level; which I imagine would be lower. While I accept more locations and lower prices, I think greater product variety might lag or not come to pass. 

My opposition is not primarily ideological, though it's that is there too; it comes from on a number reasons. I consider alcohol a drug. It is used for recreational purposes; medicinally and by some to drown in. In moderation it has few harmful effects health wise and may even be beneficial. If used to excess it will kill you, destroy your relationships and damage your community. So in my opinion it's not in anyone's best interest to have alcohol widely available and at the cheapest possible price. So if alcohol is that bad why sell it? Prohibition perhaps? That is a strategy that has been tried and with complete failure. I believe that in an adult society the Government should not be telling you what to do for fun, like conservatives,sort of; (though conservatives dislike government standing between a citizen and their booze, they are quite happy to oppose reforming the law in regards to our other drugs and sex.) What I don't accept is the notion that any Government should place so dangerous a substance like alcohol in the hands of the Free Market, especially if it doesn't have to.

Among the benefits of State owned liquor retailers in quick succession, LCBO profits go to us, the citizen, good paying jobs for our neighbours. Importantly the ability of the government to forgo the frantic product promotion that a private business can't afford to do or doesn't at their peril. The LCBO doesn't really compete, except for The Beer Store; which by the way is a privately owned monopoly of a completely different stripe and wine retailers. It does not need to push liquor on Ontario Citizens, for that I'm glad. Liquor is dangerous and has a creeping cost, a cost that a government retailer can keep in mind because the it is part of a larger entity whose job it is to look after the interests of its citizens. I understand that is an ideal that is met less often in practice, but it is a concern that private businesses don't even have theoretically.

It is always important to ensure that ideology is a guide but not a barrier to good sense.

This brings me back to the Liberal Riposte. The McGuinty government announced it will look into expanding  LCBO retail locations. They will look into placing LCBO outlets in super markets and such. This would answer at least one Tory complaint, that of limited locations their attendant difficulties. It is a riposte, not a scoring point. Hudak conservatives will snarl and moan "that it does nothing" for the problems they claim to exist. I can live with that since I'm not in favour of bigger changes. It will make buying liquor more convenient, that's handy, without being harmful. It won't lower the prices. It will keep the monopoly intact. More importantly it is a measured response to Hudak's free market charge. It suggests a government that is responding to a perceived need, at least some of them. For a government that has disappointed and even outraged us in a wide variety of ways, it is refreshing change. Give and take is much better than bulldozers.

If I was inclined to give advise to the Progressive Conservatives it might go like this, put down the "The Road to Serfdom" and start asking yourselves one question "how can I help improve the lot of my neighbours". Being Conservative doesn't have to be as harsh as you people see to make it.

No Smoking in Doorways

Toronto Smokers are looking at a reduction in available spaces to light one up. The Toronto Board of Health is looking increase smoke free zones to include uncovered restaurant patios, public sports fields, bus stops; pretty much any public space where people gather. Public consultations will be held, and from that a new bylaw expanding areas where smoking won't be tolerated. I can't wait.

Smoking is a terrible habit or rather addiction. I know, i used to be a smoker. I'm celebrating 16 years smoke free next month, and I'll do it with a leisurely 12 or 15 km run. I am quite sure that if I was still smoking I wouldn't be running that or any other distance. 

I won't get into how I started smoking, it's a sordid affair, but I'll tell you how I quit. Five years before my final success, I has managed to stop smoking  for about a  year. I did not take. Almost a year quit, I did the unthinkable, I bummed a smoke. I figured it wouldn't matter, I was quit. Big mistake. Within two months I was back to a pack a day. I'd have to wait five more years, for my last cigarette. 

It was my, a very large number, attempt and it was the one that took. One Christmas I decided enough was enough, I threw a half smoked pack into the trash. I had done that a few times before but this time I hoped it would be different. 

Picking Christmas was important; it gave me an important date to hang my story on. Never underestimate the power of a good "quit smoking story" to help keep you clean. I quit cold turkey; the same as when I lasted a year. I have nothing against smoke cessation products but I rally hate to chew gum and I though cold turkey sounded better. Quitting is all mental. Moving past the withdrawal requires the right state of mind. So I built one.

The first thing I did, was admit that I was addicted to nicotine. Your first cigarette is a choice; all the rest are not. At the least it is a choice very much impaired by your bodies need for nicotine. When the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night is have a smoke, your body, in some small measure isn't your own. I remember taking painful puffs, during what was a really bad cold and thinking I had to be nuts. 

What I did next was to tabulate the relative cost of a pack-a-day habit. I tried to look at smoking in terms of what it cost me, monetarily and contrast it to other things. I translated cigarettes into car payments, rent, trips, clothes or savings and investments. Buying smokes meant giving up other things. I might as well have been smoking my cash and cut out the middle man. 

I considered what smoking was costing me physically in the present and what future I could look forward to. Physically, my performance was degraded; I liked to hike and bike; I still could but it always took more out of me than it should have. It would only get worse. I could look forward to lung damage, heart disease, cancer; on a pure point of vanity, early onset of the signs of aging, stained teeth and fingers, reeking of tobacco smoke. All of which I purchased on a daily basis.

My last act in building a frame of mind was to personify my cigarettes. I created an opponent; a well to do man, taking his ease at the beach. He was a Tobacco company CEO, perhaps an Investor. He was someone who profited from my addiction. He was a Non-Smoker. I pictured him lecturing his children about the dangers of smoking; making them promise never to smoke. I seems a bit silly but it did help.

So sixteen years smoke free, without ever a bummed smoke or a look back. I feel for smokers because I know what it's like to be addicted to nicotine. Just the same I support higher taxes in cigarettes and laws restricting tobacco use. It's good for non-smokers and in the end good for smokers too.

Sports-Doping and Competition

A few months ago Lance Armstrong quit fighting the USADA. He  has been at the center of a doping scandal for a number of years. Teammates claiming he was doping his way to 7 Tour de France wins. Now it's October and Lance Armstrong is still popular, still has his fans. This respect is a carryover from his cancer fighting foundation as much as an unwillingness of supporters to give up on a hero.

We are entering a phase of the Armstrong saga where some ask "how does this effect his legacy". This is not a question I want to address. Armstrong will be judge on what he did; by the knowledgeable and the ignorant. I'm more interested in the notion being raised on the periphery, if everyone is doping what is the problem. The wide spread belief that competitions are rigged, either through doping or match fixing. Match fixing and doping are not the same kind of cheating. The former requires one or more players to lose a match or perhaps not to win by too wide a margin; money is involved, bribes or illegal betting; the latter, doping is performance entrancement, often dedicated to personal enrichment, better stats mean bigger paychecks, or in a team environment more wins. 

I approach doping in sports from the perspective of what competition means. What are the expectations of participants and spectators? Fairness, is at the core of any competition, the idea that what we are seeing is a true account of effort, and not a rigged show. Fairness does not mean equal, nature gives us talent, training hones that ability, and competition is where that hard in skill is measured against our fellows. 

In the long history of recorded competition, fairness has a role to play, not always as I define it. Two warriors in single combat, status is gained from fighting an opponent. The notion of fairness is tied to worth, a strong adversary is preferable to a weaker one. Winning is good but beating a clear inferior has little honour to it. This maybe an idealized version, expressed more in theory than in fact, but it had an impact in literature and so probably in life. Fairness, in a life death circumstances is likely to be observed more often in the failure to be applied than its observance. 

We enter the modern era and the rise of the sporting world, where competition is less costly, socially or physically. The idea of Fairness is able to find fuller expression through a life of sport. Two people or teams compete, only there skill and training will determine the outcome. My notion of fairness are human beings competing without biological enhancement. Coaching, training and dedication to the chosen sport provided the edge that gave victory. It's not perfect, the United States has an edge over most countries in sports technology. This may not seem fair, but money and equipment does not reach the level of cheating, implied by doping. 

So our expectation for any competition is that it be between humans without external chemical aids, anything else is fraud. That is my answer to "why not doping". Doping undermines our idea of fair competition, because it involves a lie. The non doping participants and the audience are being fooled into believing that what they are engaging in and seeing is authentic, fair competition. Nobody likes a cheater. 

So what are we to do about doping? Should we openly accept it, by placing it in the realm of training tools, just another piece of equipment? Probably not a workable solution, because chemical enhancement provides more of a boost than coaching or training facilities can to performance. Anyone person competing drug free will be at a disadvantage, save for the most talented people. 

We can split competitions into drug free and drug enhanced athletes. This gives us the transparency. Everyone involved knows that what they are witnessing is enhanced humans competing. There can be no outrage or fraud if everyone knows what is going on. Whether it is workable to create parallel competitions or even desirable is hard to know. Do we want to begin going down the path of legitimizing Human Enhancement? At a minimum the notion of what is fair remains somewhat intact, though greatly diminished in meaning.

I think we are left needing to maintain an Idea, however romantic, of what fair competition means.I support continued efforts to find cheaters where and when we can, and suspending them from competing. 

I Finally Bought a Bike Helmet

Last month I bought a bike helmet. It is the first bike helmet I have owned. This is unusual because I have cause to acknowledge that helmets reduce the potential for severe damage. I can credit the helmet I was wearing at the time of my motorcycle accident with protecting my head from impact with unyielding pavement and steel. 

So why so long the long delay? I can't say I was uninformed. I have read the reports and studies on bike helmets. In fact their is quite a lot of data out there, a casual search will bring you to proponents and opponents. Bike helmets laws have taken what appears to be a simple safety issue and turned it into a towering controversy. Read as much as you can, as much as is necessary to come to a decision you can be comfortable with. 

I had plenty of excuses for not buying a helmet, none of them credible. They are uncomfortable, they look silly, I will get helmet head, vanity can be dangerous. I thought I'd never get into an accident because I'm a safe cyclist. What finally brought me around to helmet wearing? I credit the Chief Corner with recommending Ontario enact a helmet law. (Though as the article states other jurisdictions are rethinking or removing their own helmet laws.) This had me thinking about my safety and head injuries. The more I thought about traumatic brain injury, the easier it was to dismiss previous excuses against wearing a helmet. When it comes down to it I'll take messy hair over brain damage. 

If i stop here I might get a smattering of applause for deciding to be safe, making a personal decision to be responsible for my own safety. 

I will instead go one more step and say I support mandatory helmet laws, with all the benefits and harms attached o such legislation. 

Helmet Laws are decried as nanny state legislation. It is considered an unwarranted intrusion into the life of the citizen. The citizen is responsible for their own safety and should be allowed to choose whether or not to wear a helmet. While this is primarily a Conservative/Libertarian view it probably has wider support. An entire piece could be written on the theory of personal responsibility, choice and government. I may do that in the future.

The level of intrusion does need to be balanced against the harm. For now i will just submit that a Government, has an interest in the safety of its' citizen. It can be indirect as with mountain climbing sports, ensuring that the equipment used meets a standard necessary for the safe enjoyment of the sport. It can be direct by mandating speed limits and seat belts. 

I don't recommend diving into legislation. Laws made in haste may be repented at leisure to paraphrase poorly a well know proverb. Any proposed Helmet Law needs to be studied and a decision arrived at free of ideology or special interests. 

In the mean time more Ontario should undertake to educate her citizens on the importance of Helmets as necessary biking equipment. Opponents may not like money spent trying to sway citizen to that point of view, but you can't take a position of personal choice without ensuring that choice be fully informed. 

I am left thinking that many will curse the government for making them wear a helmet. On the other hand those saved from permanent brain damage as a result of such legislation will not be among that group.