///Alcohol is among the major killer of Malaysians each year./// So are cigarettes, Internet (porn) cars (accidents non alcohol-related) Genting casinos, swimming pools where people drown – are we to ban them? There are those who use these moderately/responsibly, and those who don’t. Alcohol is the lubricant of social conversation – and social and business interaction after work. The latter can’t be let to 1 hour lunch time during which one cannot drink and go back to work. After work do people gather to relax drinking Coffee (Caffeine) or Coke (corrosive of stomach lining) ??? Alcohol puts cheer in spirit, foster good fellows camadarie enables some men to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s weariness, heartaches, and sorrows. Escapism? Whats wrong with that if it’s a little while with no permanent bad effect? Many like Winston Churchill thought better after a peck!

One can of course choose to live in “clinical” society where all perceived harm and vices are eliminated. That’s not heaven, it could be hell. The test of an individual – and every one is entitled to it – is to be given a choice to choose between what’s good and what’s bad with both available – it is not everyone is good because there are no vices available for temptation. Its freedom of choice and the responsibility to take the consequences good or bad from one’s choice. For the Religious, how would God know who’s good to qualify for admission to heaven when all are on earth are good – not because they choose good from bad but because bad is just not available as a choice because its banned???

As humans we shouldn’t try to be angels. If Alcohol were to be banned we’d look for other intoxicants – sniffling RON 95! When US in 1930s imposed prohibition, a fraternity of criminals (bootleggers) flourished – (see the film ‘Untouchables’). Ask the stewardesses what happens when certain passengers from parts of India or Middle East where Alcohol is banned get on board? They go into a binge on flight and end up loud/high! When one represses “human weakness” too much you get Newton’s law of strong reaction the reverse! What about economic effect of this not-insignificant sector? Anchor & Guinness Breweries, distilleries, liquor stores, restaurants Karaoke and bars… All those businesses are completely done for (think of the tax revenues lost), what about their workers – and cosmopolitan expatriate crowd working here? Costs and benefits have to be balanced. Eg S’pore is one of most paternalistic clinical nanny state, yet it legalized Sands and Genting Casino in Marina Bay Sands. Obviously it weighs and take an abuolute position!

Fair enough but I think what DAP/Karpal is fighting for – is the principle of why for example non Muslims (whether as consumers or owners workers of entertainment establishments serving alcohol) have to suffer or be deprived of a pre-existing right for even one day of a month which according to their tradition and religion is not especially holy. It is the worry in principle of ‘creeping islamisation’ – small inch by inch enroachment that overtime aggregate to major concession of something unnecessary) that has to be weighed against the benefits of Pakatan unity/risks of discord. Anyway Kedah’s dropping the ban (for Non Muslim) is a reasonable concession/compromise on PAS’s part of a position that it ought initially not have asserted against Non Muslims (and in my personal opinion) or everyone else as well for reasons that they ought to have the freedom of choice to elect between good and bad and not have virtue foisted top down by law on them.

I don’t think Entertainment or wellbeing of the Rakyat is necessarily an ‘either-or’ choice. However your take that “the leaders in Pakatan Rakyat just demonstrated hypocrisy of the highest order” is an interesting angle that perhaps you may want to bring up the thread “PAS: MCA, Gerakan approved nightspot ban in 1997” in which PAS instead called MCA and Gerakan hypocrites for criticising the Kedah ban on entertainment outlets.