Posted on 06/17/2011 6:17:48 PM PDT by AustralianConservative
I oppose Prohibition in my kitchen. But – there is often a but - I’m also against professional libertarians and drunks making stuff up. Were American Prohibitionists really complete failures? You see, when a questioner proposes a few laws to curb drug addiction, your hysterical libertarian will unthinkingly scream, “Prohibition failed!” Or cry like a baby.
Critical thinkers armed with primary sources, by way of contrast, beg to differ. And we’ve known this for decades: Prohibition was far more moderate and successful than what some libertarians imagine. It wasn’t pure socialism or pure lassie-faire romanticism. On the one hand, mainstream commercial manufactures and distributors shut shop. On the other hand, personal production and consumption was openly allowed.
The results were mixed. But it wasn’t a complete failure as made-for-HBO shows and libertarian propagandists would have you believe. In 1989, for example, Mark H. Moore, a professor of criminal justice at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government advanced an evidence-based position. In truth, “alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.”
What’s more, Moore noted, arrests for public drunkenness “and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent.”
A complete failure? As well, this idea that crime exploded is a fiction. There were no historically significant crime explosions, but in any case, criminal gangs existed before and after Prohibition. “The real lesson of Prohibition is that the society can, indeed, make a dent in the consumption of drugs through laws,” concluded Moore.
(Excerpt) Read more at weekendlibertarian.blogspot.com ...
It was against personal liberty.
Yes, criminal ganga existed before prohibition but prohibition gave them an extreme chance to proliferate into the everyday life of citizens.
If prohibition succeeded so well why was it repealed?
Even if these numbers are true (highly doubtful), do they justify government intervention in people's personal decisions? Prohibition was a disaster that lives with us to this day in the spider-web of laws that attempt to regulate what?
I have heard of these stats before and agree that Prohibition wasn’t the disaster it was portrayed to be. Today, however, the state’s apparatus has grown immensely from efforts to fight drugs and I’d rather see violent criminals only being put in prison. If and when this includes drug traffickers, so be it, but putting minor users in jail is a waste.
My Lord G-d blessed/cursed me with free will at the moment of my birth. Who is The Government to take it away?
The problem with Prohibition was that the law was a) rather vague, b) gave the Federal Government the power to [arbitrarily] define “intoxicating liquors” [something most would think would be hard alcohol; yet the definition supplied by the federal government disallowed even beer], and c) was by its nature unenforceable.
C is perhaps the most disturbing in-nature, it is the method by which the government is stripping away our rights: turning Justice from something that is blind and treats everyone equal into something wicked and evil that is wholly dependent on the whims of the police/judge/prosecutor.
Interesting and probably containing some truth. I know my Grandfather on my Dad’s side made a little beer for personal consumption.
Actually you lie about being against prohibition. You are for it as your article clearly shows. Prohibition was a total failure and led to huge criminality across America,just as the drug laws in effect do today. And, just like the drug laws today prohibition and the frenzy of law enforcement agencies to control it led to huge losses of freedom for the citizens of the USA.
Response: Every law known to man restricts "personal liberty," and in that sense is "against personal liberty." In most instances Libertarianism means Libertine-ism. The isolated individual floating in the void with relation to any other person, place or thing. Solipsism comes to mind.
Excellent!
I started thinking of all the reasons it failed when you post jolted me back from the brink of a pointless exercise.
“With” equals “Without”
It was repealed because people like to drink and be drunk, a little or a lot. When we can vote to get what we want, regardless of the consequences on larger culture, we do. Self restraint in the individual is rare, in the broader society rarer still.
Ours, in government, it is the collective will of the people. Who may say to you it is forbidden to engage in actions that damage all of us. Where and what those limits are is shifting sand.
One bad law breeds disrespect for all. Prohibition turned a relatively law abiding nation into an utterly lawless one. Other more standards plummeted terribly during that time. We have still not recovered.
Drug Prohibition is doing the same, and worse, we have a far more corrupt government now, which uses it as an excuse for deprivation of civil rights. I am more afraid of the government than I am of drug users.
The Prohibition Party still soldiers on, obscurely and irrelevantly. Their 2008 presidential candidate got a grand total of 643 votes. Yet, they did manage to elect one public official in the 21st century, a Pennsylvania township tax assesor. Not exactly relevant....
http://www.prohibition.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_Party
Make that "other mores and standards...."
chalk it up to a 3 year old climbing on me while typing...
Christ’s first miracle was to make wine.
Lots of it.
You’re welcome mate.
Just another Joe:
“Whether prohibition succeeded or failed on a social plain is irrelevant.”
Really? Now you tell me. For years, elite libertarians were screaming prohibition didn’t work, and now when I confront them with facts, it doesn’t matter? Okay. Tell that to them.
“It was against personal liberty.”
That depends on who we’re talking about doesn’t it? Liberty for the drunk or the beaten wife? Sure there are beer-first libertarians but there are road-safety libertarians too, my guess.
Interesting too how some professional libertarians define “liberty” for the rest of us with a communist iron fist.
“Yes, criminal ganga existed before prohibition but prohibition gave them an extreme chance to proliferate into the everyday life of citizens.”
No it didn’t. In many places crimes dropped.
“If prohibition succeeded so well why was it repealed?”
For numerous reasons related to culture, as Coulter points out. Read the whole piece. But I never said it was perfect, the point being it wasn’t a disaster either. There is a middle ground!
The statistics from the Harvard professor are very reliable. In any case, I think alcohol positives offset negatives, personally, but the key issue is: Prohibition has a good side and a bad side.
Without laws, we could sell LSD lollipops to kids. I’d call for balance, not romantic libertarian dreams or pure socialism.
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