Indy (Red) Star: Free Market Bad

Carrie Nation with a keyboard, the local catbox liner's recidivist editorialist Andrea Neal is worried not only about the scourge of rum[1] but another True Horror:

By law alcohol is a regulated product ... but the way we treat it in Indiana is coming close to laissez faire.

[Emphasis mine] Yes, the paper once again demonstrates the Authoritarian Control Bias of modern American mass media ("Government control is goooood") at the very least, with more than a pale-pink tinge of disapproval of free markets.

Boiled down, her notion is that it's just terrible that you can buy beer, wine and hard liquor at a wide variety of locations, not just "package stores," most of which still have that delightfully Soviet screw-you monopolist ambiance and convenience from the days when they were almost the only game in town[2]. She thinks it's a horrible, awful shame you can buy the Distilled Demon (or even beer and wine) at a nice, well-lit grocer's or drugstore and even trots out an old canard in support; the free market comes at a diresome price, she huffs:

Studies show an increase in violent crime -- assault, domestic battery and armed robbery -- in ZIP codes with high density of alcohol licenses. Property crimes are higher too.

A) Which studies would that be? Cite or shaddup. B) Correlation is not causation; it's a sad fact you find more stress, more crime and more liquor stores in poorer neighborhoods. But fear not, Poor Guy; a six-pack of Bud may be your only escape but Ms. Neal's here to make it even harder to get! --She also wants to know if you've stopped beating your wife. C) Freedom includes the freedom to be a screw-up, drunks will get their booze and I'd as soon it wasn't wood alcohol from Sterno fuel; on the other side of the counter, freedom darned well also should include the freedom to sell a legal product to legal buyers, legally, without having to go hat-in-hand to beg an artificially-scarce permission slip from a board of bureaucrats who've never bought and sold for a living, ever. D) I'm not even gonna touch on the covert racism in "Studies show...."

Then there's this nice bit of "don't know much about history...:

The words [the rationale for Indiana's alcohol laws] sound old-fashioned, but there's more than Prohibition-era thinking behind them. We limit access to alcohol to protect children and to reduce side effects such as drunken driving, alcoholism and domestic violence.

Um, no, dear; that was the Prohibition-era thinking. And, just so's y'know? It didn't work out that way. But hey, thanks for playing.

History: lather, rinse, repeat. And this one's a twofer!
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1. No word yet on her opinion of buggery or the lash.
2. If I recall, Indiana pharmacies have long been able get permits to sell alcohol; until the last decade or so, most only stocked a very limited selection behind the counter. Correct me if I am off-base.