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George F. Will: Another round of Prohibition, anyone?
Washington Post ^ | July 8, 2010 | George F. Will

Posted on 07/08/2010 2:16:11 PM PDT by neverdem

The evening of Jan. 16, 1920, hours before Prohibition descended on America, while the young assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt, drank champagne in Washington with other members of Harvard's Class of 1904, evangelist Billy Sunday preached to 10,000 celebrants in Norfolk, Va., : "The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. . . ." Not exactly.

Daniel Okrent's darkly hilarious "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" recounts how Americans abolished a widely exercised private right -- and condemned the nation's fifth-largest industry -- in order to make the nation more heavenly. Then all hell broke loose. Now that ambitious government is again hell-bent on improving Americans -- from how they use salt to what light bulbs they use -- Okrent's book is a timely tutorial on the law of unintended consequences.

The ship that carried John Winthrop to Massachusetts in 1630 also carried, Okrent reports, 10,000 gallons of wine and three times more beer than water. John Adams's morning eye-opener was a tankard of hard cider; James Madison drank a pint of whiskey daily; by 1830, adult per capita consumption was the equivalent of 90 bottles of 80-proof liquor annually.

Although whiskey often was a safer drink than water, Americans, particularly men, drank too much. Women's Prohibition sentiments fueled the movement for women's rights -- rights to hold property independent of drunken husbands; to divorce those husbands; to vote for politicians who...

--snip--

Women campaigning for sobriety did not intend to give rise to the income tax, plea bargaining, a nationwide crime syndicate, Las Vegas, NASCAR (country boys outrunning government agents), a redefined role for the federal government and a privacy right -- the "right to be let alone" -- that eventually was extended to abortion rights. But they did...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: lping; madd; nannystate; neoprohibition; prohibition; womenvote
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To: dljordan
The generation of Prohibition males all knew how to make moonshine (white lightening) and bathtub gin...Add some fine home made wines and other liquor, only the metro sexuals of the day paid for their liquor in some fancy blind pig..My father, brother and now my son's make their own beer or have at some point in their lives...Daddy also made hard cider in a big jug with a handful of raisins to ferment and a glass thingy that let the gases escape...

My husband use to make his own Kalula. Men know such things by instinct I think...:O) and dad was a policeman, he also had a still on Sugar Island where he and the sheriff of the island made shine... Long after prohibition ended...

41 posted on 07/08/2010 6:11:51 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: Cardhu

“Okay, ladies, if you insist...”


42 posted on 07/08/2010 6:13:11 PM PDT by dinodino
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To: lentulusgracchus

Actually, PBS does mention Joe’s affair with Swanson, his shady financial dealings, and the rumors of his rum-running in the 3-hour “The Kennedys” documentary.

Transcript, plus link to watch entire film online:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/kennedys-transcript/


43 posted on 07/08/2010 7:26:34 PM PDT by LibFreeOrDie (Obama promised a gold mine, but will give us the shaft.)
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To: Cardhu

Fugly women ! I wouldn’t touch their lips with my worst enemy’s lips !


44 posted on 07/08/2010 7:54:21 PM PDT by CORedneck
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To: neverdem

I want to add, a lot of these do-gooders are prevalent especially in the liberal democrat camp. What are the recent micromanagement intrusions have they done ?

1. The 55 mph speed limit, fortunately repealed but for how long ?
2. The National drinking age of 21
3. Seatbelt and helmet laws
4. Food
5. Fast cars and motorcycles
6. Overall - political correctness !


45 posted on 07/08/2010 7:56:48 PM PDT by CORedneck
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To: moodyskeptic

Not only that, voting should be reserved for property owners as originally done. Looking over women in politics, except for a rare occasion, most women are liberal democrats and vote to control pleasures especially enjoyed by men. they vote for traffic laws that have no constitutional basis but imposes more micromanagement on driving especially common sense.

> In old movies there were men who said horrible things like: “women should NEVER vote”, but after reading history, they (and Ann Coulter!) may have been right. I may get flamed here, but women tend to: vote emotionally, do shallow research when they have an agenda, project their faults on mankind, and play the victim.


46 posted on 07/08/2010 8:04:00 PM PDT by CORedneck
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To: WinOne4TheGipper
And there was thunder, thunder, over Thunder Road. Thunder was his engine, white lightning was his load. There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the devil's thirst. The law they swore they'd get him but the devil got him first.
47 posted on 07/08/2010 8:11:02 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: lentulusgracchus
"The bigger message here is: Beware the do-gooders women voters."

That actually reminds me of a scene from Marshal Rooster Cogburn with John Wayne.

The young indian scout and Rooster stopped on the hill and Rooster needed a sip and a "corn dodger". When Katherine Hepburn (I don't know her character's name) noticed him drinking she rode up at a gallop, EXCORIATED HIM for his sinful ways and then rode away again.

Rooster smiled, turn to the young scout and said: "God help us if we ever give 'em the vote".

That said, I trust my wife to vote sanely...

48 posted on 07/08/2010 8:45:50 PM PDT by Mariner (USS Tarawa, VQ3, USS Benjamin Stoddert, NAVCAMS WestPac, 7th Fleet, Navcommsta Puget Sound)
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To: Utah Binger

Does that sign say “BOOSE”? LOL!


49 posted on 07/08/2010 9:26:11 PM PDT by T Minus Four (If evolution is true, why do we still have reptiles, amoeba and worms?)
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To: Rebelbase
A good peach moonshine is a tasty distraction

Yeah maybe, but it doesn't taste nearly as good coming back up a few hours later (/bitter experience)

50 posted on 07/08/2010 9:31:11 PM PDT by T Minus Four (If evolution is true, why do we still have reptiles, amoeba and worms?)
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To: lentulusgracchus

LoL! I hate agreeing with you on some level :-)


51 posted on 07/08/2010 9:32:46 PM PDT by T Minus Four (If evolution is true, why do we still have reptiles, amoeba and worms?)
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To: goat granny
My husband use to make his own Kalula. Men know such things by instinct I think...:O) and dad was a policeman, he also had a still on Sugar Island where he and the sheriff of the island made shine...

It is perfectly legal to make beer and spirits, wine and brandy for one's own consumption -- even to entertain with it. You just cant bottle it up and sell it.

Alexander Hamilton invented the first alcohol tax in the 1790's as his contribution to the "tax that fellow behind the tree" tradition of crapweasel-taxes. The smartass factor was that the tax would fall almost exclusively on farmers beyond the Appalachians who were not very effectively represented in the Congress. He promptly got a tax revolt, and President Washington was troubled to go out to western Pennsylvania at the head of a column of militiamen to restore order. (It was the only time in American history that a president appeared at the head of a column of troops.) Hamilton went with him, no doubt under armed guard!

And then the tax was quietly repealed. Way to go, Alex.

52 posted on 07/08/2010 9:41:49 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: LibFreeOrDie
Transcript, plus link to watch entire film online:

Yes, that's what I was referring to. Perhaps I overdid it with the irony shaker. One needs to be careful with irony and now, apparently, as Will is saying, with salt.

53 posted on 07/08/2010 9:43:40 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: saganite
Watched a good documentary on Nascar and the running of shine...It is true that that was the start of Nascar. The drivers of shine got together to see who was the best driver in their cars, and that race and track were the starting of doing it every year.. Then it was named Nascar....really interesting...The shine drivers could go from pick up to delivery and knew the back roads so well, they sometimes had to do it in the dark without lights to avoid getting caught...Took guts..

Hate to say it because I am a woman, with the exception of most of the women on Free Republic, and the females in my family lots of females are stupid...:O)

54 posted on 07/08/2010 10:07:50 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: lentulusgracchus

That would be old man Joe. The first of the sucky Kennedy clan...I think Rose Kennedy got her revenge in life for all his affairs....Watch while he had a stoke that left him unable to do lots of things and then outlived him by a decade or two....


55 posted on 07/08/2010 10:13:21 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: ridesthemiles

Cutty Sark....wonder what Teddy drank...


56 posted on 07/08/2010 10:17:47 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: BfloGuy
***It’s sole purpose it to get you drunk. Not that there's anything wrong with that.***

My father would sip good shine he made himself just like he sipped his scotch...Died at the age of 85 saw him drunk only once in my life....after a big fight with my mother. She went into the bedroom to read and he downed a lot of liquor and went outside put up targets and shot for quite a while.. It was the only time he let me shoot his big old service revolver...(cop, just retired from the police force) Circa 1950's....

57 posted on 07/08/2010 10:26:50 PM PDT by goat granny
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To: T Minus Four
Don't know why it dropped out but here it is again and they could really spell well back then too.


58 posted on 07/09/2010 4:41:40 AM PDT by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, where Mr. Milquetoast lives with his "Persecution Complex")
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To: neverdem; KoRn; Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; akatel; albertp; AlexandriaDuke; ...



Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
View past Libertarian pings here
59 posted on 07/09/2010 7:08:15 AM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: ridesthemiles; LearnsFromMistakes
These are the modern Modifieds. Only exterior that is 'stock' is the roof.

Years ago they were souped up Coupes

First sanctioned NASCAR race were the Modifieds, in 1948.

60 posted on 07/09/2010 7:56:34 AM PDT by libertarian27 (Ingsoc: Department of Life, Department of Liberty, Department of Happiness)
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