Executioner, this Bud shouldnt be for you

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Executioner, this Bud shouldnt be for you
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1042804&format=text

Executioner, this Bud shouldnt be for you
By Michael Graham  |   Tuesday, November 6, 2007  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Op-Ed

Did you know that the commonwealth has the death penalty - for beer?

A crazed cannibal could eat an entire elementary school and the Massachusetts justice system would give him three hots and a cot until he died of old age. But if a six-pack of Sam Adams ends up with the wrong crowd? Its the rope.

Actually the vat.

This weekend, according to the MetroWest Daily News, the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission loaded 250 cases of beer and 155 bottles of liquor on a conveyor belt and dropped them to their doom in a government-sanctioned execution.

Hangin, it seems, was too good for em.

In all, approximately $7,500 worth of hooch. Its crime? Being in the possession of underaged drinkers caught up in various sting operations.

Setting aside the idiocy of arresting a 20-year-old adult for buying a Bud Light, whats the point of dumping the stuff into a vat? Why destroy 250 cases of perfectly good brew?

OK, its college beer, so perfectly good may be a stretch. More likely its stacks and stacks of Milwaukees Beast and Natty Lite, but still. What are we - barbarians?

According to Treasurer Tim Cahills press secretary, the booze was destroyed because some of the containers might have been opened. This is a copout. College beer, as any broke student will tell you, comes in cans. Theres no danger here. And who cant tell if the cap has been popped on a bottle of Boones Farm?

I am willing to take that risk. On the eve of the execution, I begged Gov. Deval Patrick to issue an order of clemency. In exchange, I agreed to incarcerate these fermented felons in my secure refrigerator and/or liquor cabinet, at no expense to the taxpayers.

No deal.

If punishing the Pabst strikes you as an odd approach to crime fighting, consider this comment from Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley.

Regarding a Dorchester thug who fatally shot a shopkeeper for $60, Conley said, Once again, an illegal gun has struck down an innocent family man, and once again a young man may pay for his actions for the rest of his life.

Im sorry - who was it that struck down an innocent family man? What did the gun want with $60?

There are such things as illegal guns, of course. A bazooka is an extreme example of an illegal gun. And a gun that, when properly loaded, fails to pop a cap in the aspirations of the hoodlum at which it is pointed can properly be defined as a bad one.

But the gun allegedly used by 18-year-old Gary Johnson was a run-of-the-mill pistol that I could legally buy at almost any gun shop.

So what did the gun do wrong?

This desire to condemn inanimate objects is a bit, well, weird. Naughty beer, illegal guns, bottles of alcohol with bad attitudes - perhaps its time to open the Massachusetts Home For Guns Gone Wrong. Maybe a local priest could start Beer Town, modeled after Boys Town, where the motto is There are no bad beers. Just warm ones.

Once again, I am willing to do my part. I will take every illegal gun the DA can find and store them in my home. I pledge to keep them out of trouble, off the streets and to have them in bed by 8 p.m. sharp. Maybe I just have a way with feisty firearms, but I guarantee that the criminal careers of these illegal guns will come to an end.

In fact, Id feel safer with 100 illegal guns under my roof than with a single gangbanger armed with nothing more dangerous than a spork. But maybe thats just me.

I may be naive, Mr. Conley, but I honestly believe guns arent bad. You just have to know how to handle them.

[Manedwolf]

Boston has two papers. The Herald is actually a fun read, and has articles like this. They call the governor "Deville Deval" for his luxuriant tastes, like replacing the state Crown Vic with a custom $40K Cadillac DTS for his personal use...at taxpayer cost.

The Globe is a leftist rag that cries about guns, cries for more socialism, and blames neighboring states for all of MA's inability to deal with criminals and the unpleasant results of its own statist policies.

[Thor]

Ya know...... an intelligently run police department would look for permission to sell the unopened beer. Hmmm, freely obtained beer and sell it for it's retail value?? Nahhh, that'd make some sort of sense and we couldn't expect a government run agency to exhibit any of that.........

[The Viking]

Ya know...... an intelligently run police department would look for permission to sell the unopened beer. Hmmm, freely obtained beer and sell it for it's retail value?? Nahhh, that'd make some sort of sense and we couldn't expect a government run agency to exhibit any of that.........

Wasn't there a story some time ago about how the government managed to not turn a profit running a well-established brothel in Nevada?

[Brad Johnson]

I used to work upstairs from the TABC (TX Alcoholic Beverage Comission) office here in Lubbock.  If they confiscated any unopened cases of beer or sealed bottles of hard liquor, they would sell it back to the local distributors.  Opened cases of beer and unsealed liquor were poured down the drain.  It was pretty obvious because they were carting up all the confiscated items in the elevator, which always reeked of beer on Mondays.

Of course, I never saw a bottle of Johnny, Quervo Especial, or Crown in that box of seized items.  It was usually bottom-shelf dreck like Old Overholt, McCormick, and MD20/20.  Seems the people they busted at all these parties always drank only the cheap stuff. 

Brad

[Tallpine]

Of course, I never saw a bottle of Johnny, Quervo Especial, or Crown in that box of seized items.  It was usually bottom-shelf dreck like Old Overholt, McCormick, and MD20/20.  Seems the people they busted at all these parties always drank only the cheap stuff.

The "good stuff" knows better than to hang around with people like that.  More likely it will be found with good people like agents of the TXABC.