Charity

In a discussion of welfare and child nutrition a commenter makes this point about how people on welfare should live.

Ok I'll got for the program as long as the parents don't:
Have cable tv
smoke
drink
dine out
have a cell phone (Feeding Your Child Is More Important)
take vacations
and are LEGAL citizens or residents

To which another commenter responds:

It's a pretty strange form of charity when you want to make sure that the people you help are as miserable as possible

Welfare of course is not charity but I think the point still stands.

Similar sentiments are expressed about drug users: "Of course I have no objection to making alcohol legal as long as alcohol drinkers can't get any government benefits." Wrong era. Today we should be talking pot heads.

The question should be dealt with on its main merits. Not on secondary effects. i.e. Prohibition makes it easier for kids to get an illegal drug than a legal beer. So is prohibition a good idea or stupidity squared? And if government spending is the issue: will the savings from lower criminal justice and prison costs plus fewer fathers in prison out weigh any other effects or at least be a wash? No one knows for sure. What we do know for sure is that ending alcohol prohibition pretty much ended the public school's problems with kids coming to school drunk.