"Drunken Comportment"

Over at Hit and Run, this morning, Jacob Sullum has a few words to say regarding the alcohol defense.  You know the one, “It’s not my fault because I’m addicted to the demon alcohol.” Why is it, Sullum wonders, that this defense seems to immediately negate culpability, or a least ameliorate culpability, for acts committed outside the bounds of decency.

From Sullum’s piece.

Even if some people are predisposed to drink heavily, that tendency does not explain how they act when they drink. Does anyone really believe that alcohol made Mel Gibson temporarily anti-Semitic, causing him to rail against the Jews when he was pulled over in Malibu for drunk driving? Or that Bob Ney, the Republican congressman from Ohio who mentioned “a dependence on alcohol” when he pleaded guilty to corruption charges, was driven by demon rum to accept lobbyists’ goodies in exchange for official favors?

Drunken Power. The piece is subtitled How alcohol became the all-purpose excuse for bad behavior.

Posted by on 10/11 at 06:24 AM

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