The entire drinking age population of Madison has been exploited by the unholy alliance of the chancellor's office and the tavern league, which have conspired to take away our weekend drink specials. This denial is both unconstitutional and un-American, and it should not be allowed to stand.
America is founded on two principle: free speech and free markets; our fair city's weekend drink special ban violates both. To suggest that a group of businesses can be compelled to change their pricing policies violates their free speech rights.
The state of Rhode Island, in a somewhat analogous situation, tried to ban liquor advertising in the state on the grounds that since it could legally ban drinking, it could thus ban mere liquor advertising. However, the Supreme Court held that advertising was a form of speech, and that so long as the advertising was not \false or misleading"" the state could not prohibit it without showing a substantial interest and a narrowly tailored law to combat that interest. It was decided that Rhode Island's attempted ban did not meet these requirements.
Now it will be pointed out that Madison's ban has not come about through legislation, but rather at the behest of Wiley and similarly temperance-minded concerned citizens. Therefore, free speech is not an issue because the bar owners agreed amongst themselves not to offer weekend specials. At first glance, it appears that the bars were forced to bend to the unrelenting will of Wiley and his crusade against intoxication, when in fact they were really acting in their own best interest. The bars were presented a situation in which they could raise their prices without fear that they would drive away business because every bar in town was doing the same thing. As a result of this scheme the bars got richer, Wiley got his symbolic victory and the already impoverished student body got even poorer.
When the bars joined together to raise prices they violated the central tenet of capitalism: the market place as the ultimate determiner of prices. When the market works as it is supposed to, consumers and suppliers come together to determine an item's true worth. Under the current system of supply the bars are allowed to set an unnaturally high price, because competition has been removed from the equation.
The taverns of Madison are what Standard Oil was to the early 20th century or Microsoft to the late '80s, and we the students are the victims.
