Listen. I know it makes you feel nice in you warm and gooey parts to think that all people are smart and given the choice, will make the smart, responsible choice over the dumb, ruin your life choice. But that's not how the human animal works, and we're reminded of this on an almost daily basis. Take for example Fox's latest sign of the apocalypse - The Moment of Truth. Last week, a woman won $250,000 for admitting that she still had feelings for her ex, didn't love her husband, and had an affair. Then, she lost it all by saying that she thought she was a good person. Absolutely stupid.
Anyway, there seems to be a problem in England with binge drinking and subsequent alcohol-fueled violence and riots. We have the same problem here in the US, but we stick all the binge drinkers in one place and call it a "university", and the riots are called "college football tailgating".
In the past, the law of the land in England was that all pubs shut down by midnight. The powers that be in England hypothesized that since there was a limited window to drink, people were drinking all they could in those few hours, and that was causing the binge mentality and riots. The solution? Allow 24-hour operating permits for the pubs. You see, if people have more time to drink, then they won't drink as much; thus no more binge drinking and no more alcohol-fueled riots. Or at least that's what the brainwave English lawmakers thought.
If they ascribed to the Bobby Sawyer Theory of Human Decision Making, they would know that if you give people the option of drinking 24-hours a day, they're going to drink 24-hours a day. Why do you think Vegas is called Sin City? It's not because people go out there and practice temperance. This is also an example of why reverse psychology is not a good starting point for laws.
I'll leave with the words of the great satirist Voltaire:
Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
