Moderation in the U.K.

Let’s do some thought experiments.  Imagine that tomorrow in America fireworks were made legal in every state, and you could by them at the 7/11, CVS, or your local grocery store.  How would we react?  I think we’d go fireworks crazy, and by the end of the day we’d have a lot of limbless and eyeless people staggering around.

Or imagine that gambling was legal everywhere in the U.S., and you could find an off-track-betting site in every strip mall and on every main street.  What would happen?  My guess is there'd be a bunch of fathers who would have to tell their kids they had to go to the community college instead.

What if, again in the U.S., we dropped the drinking age down to 18, and universities their own pub in the student union.  Students could even drink between classes if they wanted.  How would that go?  Safe to say we’d have fewer people studying for those midterms.

But here in the U.K., I could do the following in a five minute walk down one street in Sheffield:  buy some fireworks at a grocery story, stroll down a block or two and put a bet on the Bears-Packers game at an OTB, and then get a pint at the pub housed at the local university's student union.

And none of this is a problem.

Even though gambling is legal everywhere in England, there’s no Las Vegas seediness built up around it.  No one is throwing away their savings.

I’ve walked into the university pub at 10 am in the morning where students have pints in hand, but they're talking calmly, shooting pool, and maintaining complete control.

And I’ve never even seen someone buy fireworks at the grocery story.

This is because defining characteristics of English culture are moderation, restraint, and reasonableness. 

Until they go to the soccer game.