Posted on 04/12/2010 9:43:31 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
America's experiment with banning alcohol created problems that persist to this day.
BY THOMAS FLEMING
On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans liberated themselves from a legal nightmare called Prohibition by repealing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Today most people think Prohibition was fueled by puritanical Protestants who believed drinking alcohol was a sin. But the vocal minority who made Prohibition law believed they were marching in the footsteps of the abolitionists who sponsored a civil war to end another moral evil—slavery.
At least as important was the belief that Prohibition would produce health and wealth. Yale economist Irving Fisher, the best-known economist in the nation in the early 20th century, predicted that a ban on alcohol would guarantee a 20% rise in industrial productivity. He cited "scientific" tests that proved alcohol diminished a worker's efficiency by as much as 30%.
Fisher and many other anti-alcohol proponents were fervent believers in eugenics, the science that preached humans could and should control the evolution of the race. His book, "How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science," was a best seller. Removing alcohol from the national diet was central to many eugenicists' belief that an invigorated America would eventually create a race of supermen and women.
(snip)
...Prohibition corrupted and tormented Americans from coast to coast. A disrespect, even contempt for law and due process infected the American psyche. Rather than discouraging liquor consumption, Prohibition increased it. Taking a drink became a sign of defiance against the arrogant minority who had deprived people of their "right" to enjoy themselves.
(snip)
In 2010, with talk of restructuring large swaths of our economy back in vogue, Prohibition should also remind us that Congress, scientists and economists seized by the noble desire to achieve some great moral goal may be abysmally wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Suppose CA votes to legalize. Do you support CA's authority to enact such a program under the Tenth Amendment? Or do you think fedgov has legitimate authority under the Commerce Clause to shut it down?
....FisCons understand the folly in creating a limited market like illicit drugs.
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But, but, but. The Libertarians keep telling us that taxing dope would solve California’s fiscal problems. They can’t be wrong, now can they???
/sarc
Good point. There are many variations of conservatives, which is what makes FR so interesting!
For hundreds of years prohibition was a local option issue. It should have stayed that way.
Prohibition always had its WCTU types who believed in nationalizing it. They alone did not have the power to make it happen.
But a coalition was formed with pragmatic politicians who had another agenda. Those pragmatic politicians wanted to distract populist and ideological groups from politicians self-dealing on economic issues. The ideologues were seduced to ignore corruption in a quid-pro-quo.
This happens in one way or another on many issues. During the Rove-Hastert years in DC they did not want grassroots Republicans to notice Republican corruption. So they tacitly allowed the grassroots to build around the illegal immigrant issue thinking that was a harmless distraction on people who don’t vote. They did not forsee that the illegal immigration issue would quickly rise to become a major issue. The establishment thought it would just be a minor and conveneient distraction.
As with the carnie magician, politicians want the audience wowed and distracted by the cute little bunnty or the terrifying flames while they get their pockets picked.
Oh great, just ducky.....who is it that's trying to lower the BAC in MA?
In a perverse way, I hope California does legalize the crap.
Then I will LMAO at the complete and utter failure of this stupidity.
Much like how I’m laughing now at Arnold (Liberaltarian) and at the exodus of the wealthy as the immigrants keep pouring in.
I disdain the land of fruits and nuts.
I do not remember the gentleman’s name. It was around the middle of last year, and he’s probably gonna keep reintroducing the legislation....he was very honest on the radio, admitted he wanted to essentially do away with most public drinking and privately also, by tax.
“Hang around here a while.
You may conclude you are wrong.”
There are many who think that they are “conservatives”, but the only thing they want to conserve is their party and their party’s version of big government.
SoCon’s believe in making us better people through government regulation, at least that’s my view. I take the FisCon approach of using money as a weapon against undesirable activities rather than brute force of making laws.
God, libertarians are a pain. Proverbial cranks walking around nude with a doobie. Thankfully, only 1% of the population.
Well then, they do in fact have quite a bit common with progressives.
Having known a woman who was nationally involved in the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) all of her life, I’d like to note that a MAJOR opposition to alcohol is the bad effect a drinking man has on his wife and kids.
Men were getting their Friday wages and drinking them up, leaving family destitute. There was abuse associated with the drunkenness (murder, assault, rape). Men were spending all their time in bars leaving wife and kids on their own most of the time. Men were losing jobs, not working, barely working, because they were drunks. Their dependents would go hungry, go cold, go without medical care.
While I am not a WCTU adherent, I can understand why they hoped that banning alcohol would address some of these social evils. The evils were very real and it caused a lot of despair to see families suffering like that. “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt, written by a total lush (!) is a good illustration of what alcohol abuse was doing to families at the time.
Well, now we have women’s suffrage and they all work while the kids are warehoused, divorce is easier, we have welfare of all types and indigent medical care, I suppose folks think that is a better than a sober man providing for his family.
A free man can decide what to spend his wages on.
A slave to the government will accept their dictates that he cannot go to the bar on Friday night and ‘drink up his wages’.
A free woman can decide to leave the drunken lout, or better yet, not marry a drunkard who doesn't care much for her or their potential children in the first place.
It was a tiny minority that passed it in all those states. lol
“A free woman can decide to leave the drunken lout, or better yet, not marry a drunkard who doesn’t care much for her or their potential children in the first place. “
No, the free woman is not very free. Back in Prohibition day, even far less so. Divorce was very difficult and expensive, you were tarred for life, you could barely get an education, you could barely getting a job, let alone one that paid decently - sorry, that is not freedom.
As for the children, they still have no freedom at all.
And as for not marrying a drunken lout, what do you think? The guys showed up drunk for dates and had the woman pay for dinner? Of course not. That is very naive of you. The drunkenness, abuse and abandonment happen AFTER the marriage, not BEFORE.
Prohibition made Joe Kennedy wealthy, beginning the Kennedy dynasty.
Should the bartender be a licensed government official that cuts you off after you spend an appropriate % of your wage on alcohol?
Or do you more go for complete prohibition?
Which begs the question: if libertarians are such a small part of the population, why such hatred and fear of them from big government “conservatives?” To read some of the anti-libertarian posts on this forum, you would think that libertarians were winning elections all throughout the nation, and had a true force of power at the national level...
We no longer pass constitutional amendments, now we just enact legislation change by Supreme Court decree and executive order.
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