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I think the concept is consistent with pragmatic libertarianism. There are several factors at play.

1. Health care in the US is irrevocably socialized. The Overton Window is such that a free market will never happen in health care (a truly free market would entail leaving people to die outside ERs if they couldn't pay... it just will never be politically tenable to enact such policies). Ergo, the next best optimization is for the makers to pay less in health care for the takers. Healthier winos cost me less money.

2. What I am proposing is modifying an existing excise tax. Alcohol has been excise taxed since Washington (Whiskey Rebellion, anyone?). I'm not a fan of vice taxes in general, but in this case I am advocating for less vice tax on a form of alcohol that is likely to reduce public health care costs for the makers who are paying in to the system (the winos aren't, of course). The goal is to make the incentive for the cheapest forms of alcohol to be vitamin infused. No mandated inclusion, rather, altering the already-distorted market. Here are the present federal rates for reference.

3. The derelicts wouldn't take the vitamin pills even if you gave them away for free. You might be able to get them to accept a vitamin shot if you gave them money for booze (or just booze itself), but let's be reasonable: that's not politically tenable, either.

4. It's not like paying the present excise tax on the booze is making them an upstanding overall contributor to society. If it really matters, I guess I could support an increase in excise tax on *non-vitamin infused* forms of alcohol, but my predilection is to reduce overall taxation.

Dude, I was going to go into how I can't stand your points, but I think the thing that bothers me most is the level of your rhetoric. "police" "extreme" "invasive" "utopian liberal fantasy". Tone it down some and you might make some decent points. Currently, you just sound like a Fox News sound bite.

Damn, as much as I tried, I can't stop myself.

By your examples of CA and NY and the "liberal" at the end, you seemed to be under the impression that conservatives don't want to do the exact same thing. Which party is the one that keeps trying to pass laws about what you can and can't do in your bedroom again?

Ahh cigarettes. That was a hard fought battle. Fortunately, public decency won. I currently live in a country where there's no regulation in restaurants. Some do have separate rooms, some have the "invisible wall", others don't even have that. If people want to smoke, have at it. If people want to smoke while I try to eat, I hope they don't mind if I shit on their plate while they try to eat. See, smoking isn't a right, it is a privilege. If you want to buy pre-packaged ready to smoke cigarettes, you pay for it. But you know what? There is no regulations on growing your own.

As to the concealed thing? Let me just say good. It makes me happy to know not just any moron can carry a gun.

In the US distillation of liquor is harder to get a license for than an automatic weapon.

http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s3

"Under Federal rules administered by TTB, it depends on how you use the still. You may not produce alcohol with these stills unless you qualify as a distilled spirits plant."

Have fun filling out paperwork!

http://www.ttb.gov/applications/dsp_beverage_packet.shtml

In the US distillation of liquor is harder to get a license for than an automatic weapon.

http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s3

"Under Federal rules administered by TTB, it depends on how you use the still. You may not produce alcohol with these stills unless you qualify as a distilled spirits plant."

Have fun filling out paperwork!

http://www.ttb.gov/applications/dsp_beverage_packet.shtml

You cannot produce spirits for beverage purposes without paying taxes and without prior approval of paperwork to operate a distilled spirits plant. [See 26 U.S.C. 5601 & 5602 for some of the criminal penalties.] There are numerous requirements that must be met that make it impractical to produce spirits for personal or beverage use. Some of these requirements are paying excise tax, filing an extensive application, filing a bond, providing adequate equipment to measure spirits, providing suitable tanks and pipelines, providing a separate building (other than a dwelling) and maintaining detailed records, and filing reports. All of these requirements are listed in 27 CFR Part 19.

Spirits may be produced for non-beverage purposes for fuel use only without payment of tax, but you also must file an application, receive TTB's approval, and follow requirements, such as construction, use, records and reports.

Fuel taxes are owed to the state, not to the federal government. Of course, the power to tax being the power to destroy (as it is) how many people actually go through the steps needed to apply for the necessary permits and pay the taxes to do this? What about the farmer making fuel for his farm equipment- equipment that will never see a public road?

It's time to stop taxing the American 'can do' spirit.

"Now if they could just apply the same reasoning to bootlegged booze"

What "same reasoning?" It's still considered copyright violation if you distributed the recording free of charge (say, on a P2P network), but federal law is pretty explicit that you don't need to pay alchohol taxes on homemade beer or wine intended for personal/family/household use, up to 200 gallons per year. Heck, you can legally brew the stuff even if you're not legally old enough to purchase it.

Don't like bootleg laws? Remember: beer wants to be free (as in speech as in beer as in speech)!

"Now if they could just apply the same reasoning to bootlegged booze"

What "same reasoning?" It's still considered copyright violation if you distributed the recording free of charge (say, on a P2P network), but federal law is pretty explicit that you don't need to pay alchohol taxes on homemade beer or wine intended for personal/family/household use, up to 200 gallons per year. Heck, you can legally brew the stuff even if you're not legally old enough to purchase it.

Don't like bootleg laws? Remember: beer wants to be free (as in speech as in beer as in speech)!

You can set up your own still and run your car off of ethanol

You'd get in trouble with the revenuers if you did that...and telling them "it's not for me, it's for my car" most likely won't get you off the hook.

Well, someone could post this address from their website on some IRC channel and a couple of newsgroups: webmaster@ttb.treas.gov. Or is a /. comment sufficient?

BTW, I guess this is the webmaster's picture, since "he" says on the front page: "The input you provide can help TTB better serve you and our other customers. Please feel free to email your ideas to us "?

Note that their TTB Job Postings do NOT include a Perl programmer.

Well, someone could post this address from their website on some IRC channel and a couple of newsgroups: webmaster@ttb.treas.gov. Or is a /. comment sufficient?

BTW, I guess this is the webmaster's picture, since "he" says on the front page: "The input you provide can help TTB better serve you and our other customers. Please feel free to email your ideas to us "?

Note that their TTB Job Postings do NOT include a Perl programmer.

Well, someone could post this address from their website on some IRC channel and a couple of newsgroups: webmaster@ttb.treas.gov. Or is a /. comment sufficient?

BTW, I guess this is the webmaster's picture, since "he" says on the front page: "The input you provide can help TTB better serve you and our other customers. Please feel free to email your ideas to us "?

Note that their TTB Job Postings do NOT include a Perl programmer.

Look, it was crappy that they went back on their word but this isn't the beginning of some totalitarian state. The TTB normally receives around 20 comments for something like this and this time they received close to 15,000. They got slahdoted.

The TTB announced their plans to publish the full content of the emails and letters on Dec 2, 2003. They gave everyone who contacted them a way to prevent their addresses from being published. Granted, not many people read the Federal register but given the budgetary constraints that the TTB has this was the best way.

actually, I did a little research on this, and I *believe* (which is to say, I read it somewhere) that you can distill for personal use.

Only place in the world it's actually legal to distill alcohol for personal use is in New Zealand. Lucky bastards... maybe that's why they have a reputation with the sheep, though.