Prohibition: Forever a lost cause? - 75 years later, Women's Temperance Union not giving up

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | December 5, 2008 | Kara Spak

[Larry Lucido]

No, I fear he is not kidding.

[CSM]

I agree. I would also add that in the courts all of those ills are generally blamed on substance abuse. If you pass all drug tests, then you will still be on the hook for alcohol counseling or treatment. Alcohol is blamed for everything and it has ended up being a financail boon to the court system.

[CSM]

Another example that my theory is correct that the righteous right (not religeous right) is as dangerous as the loony left. Both groups would love to use the force of government to enforce their morals on my life.

[Inappropriate Laughter]

"Alcohol is related to 40% of all violent crime and 40% of all automobile accidents."

From Wikipedia:

Alcohol-related traffic crashes are defined by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to include any and all vehicular (including bicycle and motorcycle) accidents in which any alcohol has been consumed, or believed to have been consumed, by the driver, a passenger or a pedestrian associated with the accident. Thus, if a person who has consumed alcohol and has stopped for a red light is rear-ended by a completely sober but inattentive driver, the accident is listed as alcohol-related, although alcohol had nothing to do with causing the accident.

Also, alcohol alone does not seem to cause violence, associations of violence with alcohol may come from social and individual biochemical co-variables; see National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism No. 38 October 1997 Alcohol, Violence, and Aggression

[Badeye]

They need to get a life. JMHO.

[M203M4]

Agreed - “positive liberties” is a sexed up term for “entitlements”. I refer to the language used by Isaiah Berlin in his work, “Two Concepts of Liberty”, in which he outlines that the “positive liberty” view of “rights” is susceptible to totalitarian abuses.

[NeoCaveman]

And not to mention this

[dilvish]

Just because somebody THINKS they’re doing the work of the Lord doesn’t mean they are or should be respected. Prohibitionists are busy bodies who laid the ground work for both organized crime and massive governmental abuse. The evils they’ve helped foster on this country are at least as bad as the ones they’re against.

[Mad Dawgg]

"Women's Temperance Union not giving up..."

They can have my 5th of Jack Daniels when they pry it from my cold drunk fingers!

[wolfcreek]

Well, the Goldmans can get back to living their lives.

I don't like the *enhanced* penalties for the use/display of a gun. Would a bomb, knife or a baseball bat be any different?

[JamesP81]

The evils they’ve helped foster on this country are at least as bad as the ones they’re against.

At a bare minimum. I would suggest they're worse. How many innocent people have been killed by the mob since the 18th Amendment was ratified?

How about the loss of liberties under the 5th Amendment that Prohibition, and the later the WoD has caused? The real problem I have with all these busybodies is that they are opening the door to totalitarianism down the road and are completely blinded to that fact. Of course, when the tyranny finally takes power, none of these people are going to admit even a shred of responsibility for it.

[henkster]

You would be interested to know that the “War on Drugs” basically started in 1935. Hmmm....was pot such a pandemic in 1935? No, not really. So, why start a WOD then?

Well, let’s see...from 1919 to 1933, we employ all these government agents (”Revenuers”) to go track down illegal stills, interdict liquor from abroad, and bust up speak easys. But after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, what are they going to do? It’s the height of the Depression and they can’t find work, in addition to being the unwritten law that government employees are NEVER laid off.

So the government created a new bogeyman, and we had the WOD. All the Revenuers kept their jobs and had a new mission; stamp out illegal drugs that really weren’t a problem. In fact, there is some belief that the illegal nature of pot and acid fueled their popularity in the “revolutionary” 1960s.

Thanks, Big Brother.

[nina0113]

And thanks to them we got the mobster era, and the Kennedys.

Better the Mafia than the Kennedys.

[mysterio]

There’s still plenty of prohibition to go around. People are commonly thrown in jail for possession of a plant.

[marajade]

Which isn’t really Biblical. Jesus Christ drank fermented wine.

[Paleo Conservative]

Lips that touch liquor shall not touch ours

Is that a promise?

I'll drink to that.

[dilvish]

And of course the WOD has been used to shred the 1st, 2nd, 9th and 10th too, not to mention the occasionally ignored election result. Prohibition in all its forms is the great tool for acquiring government power.

[RJR_fan]

Mamma Mia, these people would strip the hills of Piedmont and Burgundy, kill the pride of Bavaria!

Thousands of acres of apple orchards were axed in the name of fighting hard cider. How many varieties of apples are now gone forever?

[elcid1970]

Actually it was the head steward (caterer in today’s lingo) at the Cana wedding feast who questioned the bridegroom’s keeping the best wine after serving the inferior wine first (he was of course unaware of the miracle of Christ performed moments earlier).

This brings up a question: the bridegroom had erred in underestimating how much wine to provide, but he surely would have first set out such of the best wine as there was on hand, following the usual practice.

To the head steward’s taste, the miraculous wine must have made the wine first served seem inferior indeed.

It can therefore be concluded, IMO, that Jesus transformed water into wine of the very finest.

No, it wasn’t grape juice, and if it was, the partygoers who had already partaken freely would have been up in arms and the head steward would have stormed out in protest.

[JamesP81]

Prohibition in all its forms is the great tool for acquiring government power.

It's *always* been about government power. If the busy bodies think the deaths caused by drunk drivers is bad. Just wait until we get a little Stalin running the government. They haven't the ability to even imagine what "bad" can really be like.

In the 20th Century, 170 million people were murdered by their own governments. Consider the implications of that for a moment.