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Posted on 04/12/2010 9:43:31 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
America's experiment with banning alcohol created problems that persist to this day.
BY THOMAS FLEMING
On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans liberated themselves from a legal nightmare called Prohibition by repealing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Today most people think Prohibition was fueled by puritanical Protestants who believed drinking alcohol was a sin. But the vocal minority who made Prohibition law believed they were marching in the footsteps of the abolitionists who sponsored a civil war to end another moral evil—slavery.
At least as important was the belief that Prohibition would produce health and wealth. Yale economist Irving Fisher, the best-known economist in the nation in the early 20th century, predicted that a ban on alcohol would guarantee a 20% rise in industrial productivity. He cited "scientific" tests that proved alcohol diminished a worker's efficiency by as much as 30%.
Fisher and many other anti-alcohol proponents were fervent believers in eugenics, the science that preached humans could and should control the evolution of the race. His book, "How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science," was a best seller. Removing alcohol from the national diet was central to many eugenicists' belief that an invigorated America would eventually create a race of supermen and women.
(snip)
...Prohibition corrupted and tormented Americans from coast to coast. A disrespect, even contempt for law and due process infected the American psyche. Rather than discouraging liquor consumption, Prohibition increased it. Taking a drink became a sign of defiance against the arrogant minority who had deprived people of their "right" to enjoy themselves.
(snip)
In 2010, with talk of restructuring large swaths of our economy back in vogue, Prohibition should also remind us that Congress, scientists and economists seized by the noble desire to achieve some great moral goal may be abysmally wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Of possible interest.
33 seconds :)
The keyword trolls are already here.
Of course.
You’ve seen from the other thread what they’ll resort to when desperate.
Of course!
thanks for the ping! BTTT
It's only there by virtue of stolen tax dollars by ADM and the like.
The only positive contribution of the Recabite madness known as Prohibition is that it raised the general quality of homemade beer making.
So this is a coded cautionary tale against abortion and socialized medicine, right?
They are both couched in moral arguments made by the Left.
Abortionists and death panels push eugenics.
I hope the constitutional movement will open conservatives eyes to the damage drug prohibition has done to America.
I dunno, today we can follow the tobacco model.
In MA, one legislator wants to lower the DUI line to 0.04 from 0.08 down from 0.16 originally, IIRC.
Could work. No solo person gets a drink, all parties and couples must specify the designated teetotaller/driver.
Eventually, start taxing beer, wine and booze like tobacco -$50 for a case of Bud is going to start hurting, like with tobacco taxes.
those who cant see the rino-itis progressive component will support and worship at the altar of the insane woSd...
conservative followers of the Constitution, not so much...
In before the liberatrians chanting “we should end Prohibition against drugs” get here.
(Ooops, I’m too late)
Why do Conservatives go along with drug prohibition? It’s not constitutional. It’s not conservative. It’s socialist in that it socializes everyone’s blood stream and brain waves.
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It ain’t Conservatives who want to legalize dope. It’s them liberal Libertarians.
Big difference.
In DC any measurable blood alcohol level will result in a DUI citation!
“It ain’t Conservatives who want to legalize dope. It’s them liberal Libertarians.”
The Nanny State is not a conservative goal.
>.The Nanny State is not a conservative goal.
Hang around here a while.
You may conclude you are wrong.
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