Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: re_tail20

They could be coming back, particularly with socialized medicine.

Under a socialized system, government will have a pecuniary interest in reducing or even eliminating alcohol.

I can see common interests between the prohibitionists and folks like Edwards that want to mandate medical treatment, anti-smoking, and anti-transfat people.


16 posted on 12/05/2008 11:06:48 AM PST by I_Like_Spam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: I_Like_Spam
Not at first, but as it becomes increasingly difficult to provide the promised benefits, certain measures will be adopted to "reduce health risks" (and thus delivery costs). Drinking, smoking, certain driving habits, eating fatty foods, too much sodium, refined sugars, corn syrups, cholesterol, etc etc etc. First inhibited (additional taxes, "zoning", consumption "credits", mandatory reeducation) and then prohibited (forced pharmaceutical therapies, import and manufacturing bans, random searches, health screenings, jail time).

Such policies may even be hailed by tomorrow's "economic conservatives" for their ability to keep taxes lower, and by "social conservatives" in the spirit of the prohibition ladies here (or in the context of gluttony, etc). They might get creative and declare "war on illness", or tie it somehow into national security and get the neo diaper-wetting cons to sign on. Leftists of all stripes will sign on obviously to protect their precious "right" to medical care.

The major theme faced in these battles is the difference between positive and negative liberties. Health care (a "positive liberty") will be declared a fundamental human right, while production, purchase, or consumption of consumer products ("negative liberties") will move from right first to privilege, and then to crime. Compulsory collectivism is the natural enemy of liberty; new generations of "rights" never augment - they only supplant. The long-term battles faced tomorrow will not have battle lines drawn along today's normally accepted political dichotomy.

40 posted on 12/05/2008 11:29:54 AM PST by M203M4 (GOP problem: failed to deliver on promises. Solution: promise instead what was already delivered?!?!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies ]

To: I_Like_Spam
They could be coming back, particularly with socialized medicine.

Yes, that's the main problem with socialized healthcare; if government is paying for something it has the right to control it. While an outright ban of all alcohol is unlikely, increasingly burdensome restrictions on the consumption is highly probable. Not that these restrictions will do much of anything to deter problem drinkers - Prohibition certainly didn't - but it doesn't mean the State won't try.

93 posted on 12/05/2008 1:10:28 PM PST by eclecticEel (In short, I want Obama given the same respect and deference that Democrats have given George Bush)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson