Cato Daily Dispatch for October 22, 2004
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Boston Mayor Considers Alcohol Sales Ban during World SeriesSinclair Will Not Air Controversial Documentary
Bush, Kerry Squabble over Health Care
Boston Mayor Considers Alcohol Sales Ban during World Series
"Mayor Thomas M. Menino, blaming `knuckleheads' for the disorder that led to a death and several injuries after Wednesday's Red Sox victory, said the city is considering `drastic measures,' including banning liquor sales, to ensure that World Series crowds do not turn violent," reports The Boston Globe.
"Menino said he may invoke a state law, never before used in Boston, allowing him to ban the sale or distribution of alcohol `in cases of riot or great public excitement.' Menino also said that he will ask bar and restaurant operators today to ban live television coverage during games, because it incites fans."
In "A Toast to the Holiday?" Radley Balko, Cato policy analyst writes: "This is a country that will drink with the blessing of the law, or will drink in spite of it. As America reflects on 70 years of freedom of libation, we should also remember that it isn't the `environment of alcohol' that needs to be held responsible for alcohol abuse, it's the individuals who abuse alcohol."
Balko is the author of "Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking," which reads: "Policymakers should be wary of attempts to restrict choice when it comes to alcohol. Such policies place the external costs attributable to a small number of alcohol abusers on the large percentage of people who consume alcohol responsibly. Those efforts didn't work when enacted as a wide-scale, federal prohibition, and they are also ineffective and counterproductive when implemented incrementally."
Sinclair Will Not Air Controversial Documentary
"Sinclair Broadcast Group's decision this week not to air `Stolen Honor,' a documentary on John Kerry's post-Vietnam antiwar activities, is being cheered by liberals as a victory for truth, honor and the Democratic Party," according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.
"One of the most important protections that a free press has is independent corporate ownership, but what if the Nixon Administration had unleashed its lawyer friends and government pension funds on the Times Company when it was publishing the Pentagon Papers, or The Washington Post when it was digging into Watergate?"
In "First Amendment on Sinclair's Side," John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government, writes: "Free speech is in the public interest. Voters benefit from having more information rather than less in the weeks prior to an election. Candidates and political parties see free speech in a more self-interested light. Free speech can cost them the presidency or control of Congress. Everyone -- Democrats, Republicans, and third parties -- striving for power at one time or another wants to suppress free speech.
Bush, Kerry Squabble over Health Care
"President Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry vied for advantage Thursday on the closely watched issue of health care, with the challenger demanding an end to Bush's restrictions on federal embryonic stem cell research and the president calling for new restrictions on medical malpractice awards," reports The Washington Post.
"As they delivered their dueling themes in adjacent battleground states -- Kerry in Ohio and Bush here in Pennsylvania -- the two gave decidedly different views of the American health care system and proposals for fixing it. Kerry emphasized the growing number of uninsured Americans during Bush's presidency, and Bush said Kerry would push the nation toward government-run health care."
In a recent Cato study, "Health Care Regulation: A $169 Billion Hidden Tax," Christopher J. Conover, an assistant research professor at Duke University, writes that health care regulations cost Americans $169 billion a year and have led to more than 7 million Americans without health care coverage. He suggests achieving savings through medical liability reform and reform of the Food and Drug Administration drug approval process.
Gina Verticchio, editor, gverticchio@cato.org
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