Posted on 02/12/2015 12:13:17 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
In my ever so humble opinion, the existing society is not very functional and change is inevitable. And though I'm not sure what you mean by "poison pill", I think society went off the rails long ago.
Why? When we can't be honest, when we must alter and/or omit contrary facts and experience in order to maintain our own personal wants and desires for how things ought to be, and then ignore the damage that results, we have a life, a relationship, a family, a business, a society or whatever, that cannot exist for long.
^^Welcome to our world^^
It's no wonder people in those situations often choose to self-medicate.
And, no amount of state control will keep people from doing so. Even in the former Soviet states. Or even in a prison. Attempts to do so in a society just causes worse problems.
Society will fail when you lose trust and make human nature illegal or worse, legal for some and illegal for others.
Jesus just had two commandments. In my opinion, we each should follow them and let God take care of the rest. After all, He's still the One in charge.
Or in Iran: "Drug abuse in Iran rising despite executions, police raids" - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3256793/posts
Replace “intoxicating liquors” with illegal aliens(I recognized the 18th amendment....it never prohibited private consumption or ownership of alcohol, by the way!), dropping the term “manufacture” and it would be a splendid amendment to the constitution!
You didn’t answer the question. I get that a lot from politicians.
The weakness of the 18th amendment was that it tried to remedy the problem of rampant alcoholism indirectly instead of crafting a legal frame work that has society directly “facing the bull”.
It’s something akin to how Dem’s pass all sorts of indirect antigun laws to try to nullify the second amendment without repealing it outright.(ie you can only have so many guns of a type, but you can’t conceal them but you can’t carry them openly for that would be considered ‘brandshing’, only certain types of ammunition, and you are limited to how many you can put in a clip....well you get the picture!)
It’s a sneaky dishonest way to legislate that insults the intelligence of reasonably intelligent voters. The 18th amendment was just such legislation and it needed to go away. Ironically, historians did note that there was a marked reduction in alcohol consumption generally as well as crime. Yet, for those who just had to have their drink, and for the criminals who saw an opportunity to make a quick buck, it set the stage for the growth of organized crime with it’s associated vicious gang wars. The Fed’s also realized eventually that they were losing out on all those excise taxes and fees they could charge on legally produced alcohol from those folks who “just had to have their drink!”
You came across like a snarky politician when you posted the 18th amendment the way you did...like a Democrat actually...so I treated you like one! See my post at 185.
Do you support alcohol prohibition?
A simple "Yes" or "No" will suffice.
Sounds like the War on Drugs.
Wrong and wrong:
"consumption of alcohol actually rose steadily after an initial drop. Annual per capita consumption had been declining since 1910, reached an all-time low during the depression of 1921, and then began to increase in 1922. Consumption would probably have surpassed pre-Prohibition levels even if Prohibition had not been repealed in 1933. [6] Illicit production and distribution continued to expand throughout Prohibition despite ever-increasing resources devoted to enforcement. [7]"
"The Volstead Act, passed to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, had an immediate impact on crime. According to a study of 30 major U.S. cities, the number of crimes increased 24 percent between 1920 and 1921. The study revealed that during that period more money was spent on po- lice (11.4+ percent) and more people were arrested for violating Prohibition laws (102+ percent). But increased law enforcement efforts did not appear to reduce drinking: arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41 percent, and arrests of drunken drivers increased 81 percent. Among crimes with victims, thefts and burglaries increased 9 percent, while homicides and incidents of assault and battery increased 13 percent. [42]"
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa157.pdf
That's incorrect. The murder rate rose steadily during Prohibition, peaking in 1933. It then declined before shooting up again in the mid-1960s.
Here is data for the US going back to 1900, along with available data from other countries. Note the rise in the murder rate after drug prohibition began in the early years of the 20th centruty =>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade
It may be said that it will keep you high for more than a day, but that’s simply not true.
This is an opinion site...you can listen or not listen to me if you wish... the first amendment lets us all at least pretend that we can speak with authority...but it doesn’t mean that it should force anyone to agree that I am an authority.
I speak from 28 years experience as an RN, experiences and perceptions admittedly colored by my personal views and take on morality and ethics. I share them...I sign my name to my opinions knowing that slings and arrows will come my way.
The second amendment guarantees the right to bare arms...the constitution does not guarantee the right to ‘bare pot”. Weapons owned by the general populace counterbalance efforts by those who would tyrannize the populace. Your attempt to compare my personal views on drugs with those who would take our guns is a non sequitor.
I value life and work in a field that attempts to blow the faintest sparks of life back into flame. There are nurses I know and recognize that do a much better job at it than I can...but I try to do what I can. I hate abortion and I hate life sapping drug addictions. I’ve seen too much of the destruction of what mind altering substances
do to especially weaker minded or to families and individuals of all economic backgrounds.
There is an 800 lb gorilla in the room, the question that many avoid that is the “why” of it all! Why even use pot and other drugs. Why is there a need for ‘escape’? A clear mind and conscience is a true gift.
2 Timothy 1:7
7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
There is your “800lb gorilla”, the whole “crux” of the matter! People run from God and truth which can produce a whole lot of anxiety. Drugs are one way folks use to deal with that anxiety. The drugs fade away and reality crashes back in again...made all the more worse as the body becomes accustomed to the drugs.(the body tries to enforce reality via it’s flight or fight mechanisms, hence the body tries to make itself more immune to the mind altering effects of drugs, forcing the user to use higher amounts of substances over time to achieve a diminishing high).
As for authority, as for truth, you can believe me or not or hold to your own opinions....it’s the “American way” after all!
I talk this way with all Democrats...and the wannabe’s known as Libertarians. I’ve stated my position on drug abuse of all types all thru this thread. Let those “who have ears to hear...let them hear”!
Whether it's the war on drugs or prohibition of alcohol or socialism/marixism/communism, the arguments why all have failed will usually be things like: the wrong people were in charge, they weren't smart enough or wise enough or that they didn't spend enough, etc.
NO! All fail because they attempt to control human nature and make human nature illegal.
The attempts, no matter how wise, well intended or how much money is spent, all run counter to natural law and what the Master Programmer wrote into our most basic source code and BIOS.
What all attempts create instead is a black market, an underground sub-culture and a police state that attempts to control them.
Our own experience with prohibition should have taught us that much, but it didn't. And now our war on drugs has created all of the predictable problems, decade after decade. Deja vu all over again.
Ben Franklin was right about freedom, liberty and safety, and I bet he knew we'd ignore him, too.
The overall crime rate dropped...I know the murder rates rose in the big cities where organized crime was very active in the control of the alcohol trade. I don’t deny the murder rate...that is one reason given for repeal of the 18th amendment. I cited the vicious gang wars. Many folks were incidentally caught up in the cross fire. To own folks’ souls via their vices has always been one of the favorite pastimes of money loving sociopaths...and the 18th amendment ironically served as such a vehicle for such control!
Given the progressivism evident even in the early 20th century...those devious bastards blunted a well meant social movement that sought to curb the excessive alcoholism in the country by designing an amendment that they knew over time would self destruct.(my personal opinion anyway) They passed an amendment that was made to appease the “dry” movement that had taken the populace by storm, but avoided actually banning the ownership and consumption of alcohol. The progressive elites even then wanted a complacent populace upon which to work their mischief...stoned and drunk was even better. Hence the source for example of the founding of the Kennedy fortune and their hateful political dynasty!
A real reform effort would zero in on the causes of such a scourge, this dystopic and dysfunctional need to remain altered from reality, there-bye over time diminishing the market for alcohol without violating our personal liberties. Hence, it would not do for sociopathic progressives to allow for policies that would make men and women more grounded in their personal liberties by an understanding that God has granted and founded such freedoms thru his son Jesus Christ; there-bye allowing the populace to develop clear minds and maintain clean consciences!
2 Timothy 1:7
7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
James Madison actually argued against having the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. He warned that it could be abused to attempt to establish that the States and the People only have those rights explicitly enumerated, and the federal government all powers not explicitly denied.
Kind of sad that it comes to pass here.
I’ve read those figures and others that counter them...my main problem with any of that is the methodology that went into gathering that data. The political and moral statistical “noise” makes synthesizing the countering data sets difficult. The problem with any statistical data...then(1890 thru 1933) as to what we see now with what Obama and what the global warmists(FOR EXAMPLE) do with data... are understanding the motives of who or which groups are gathering the data and how it is shaped to inform the body politic.
Your Cato study is a good example as to how the 18th amendment mathematically was doomed to failure. ( I think it was a planned failure personally since the amendment never got to the why’s of consumption) When I read the wording of the 18th amendment...it reminds me too much of the crap our present politicians pass or try to pass now a days...bills that must be passed first before we can see what is in them. Sociopaths try to control people thru fear and thru their vices...money talks and money was to be made via prohibition.
Some of the data cited by you I have some questions about. Drunken driving for example...automobiles were still a novel item in the late teens early 20’s...as they became more affordable and reliable thru the 20’s and thirties, the more folks bought them including drinkers....hence more citations for drunken driving! Does this mean that this was a proof that more drinkers were created by prohibition? I’m not so sure?
Drinking was said to increase per capita...or were fewer people just drinking more illegal booze...this is one area I think where contradictory data clashes. And how could the data gatherers know what was consumed?...it was illegal after all. Statistical inferences? An educated extrapolation of consumption rates based on the amounts of what law enforcement confiscated vs. guesses of what was never confiscated?
As for the rise of per capita of alcohol consumption, you also have to look at immigration trends of the 1880’s thru the early 20’s before immigration curbs took effect, and the attitudes of newly assimilating immigrant groups and their first generation progeny towards alcohol. It was not for nothing that Democrats became associated with the phrase of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion and it was no accident that these people groups were attracted to Democrats. It was also no accident that certain immigrant groups became associated with illegal alcohol, narcotics, prostitution, illegal gambling.
I think this is why the data from that time get confused. Overall alcohol use with its associated evils dropped among the traditional people groups already well planted in America 2nd generation to 5th or more...the “Billy Sunday” crowd as one example if you will... but remained a scourge and source of tremendous crime in the newly assimilating people groups who came to this country from about 1890 thru 1924.
When I read your posting I thought of Franklin’s response to a woman asking about what sort of government had been created...”We have given you a republic...if you can keep it!”
30 years ago we were
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.