[aristeides]

Politicians were very much afraid of voter retaliation when they passed the 18th Amendment. Women were getting the vote all across the country (most states gave it to them before the 19th Amendment,) and the suffragettes were arch-supporters of Prohibition. But I'd be very surprised if more than 35% of the population supported the amendment strongly. I should think there are almost no issues on which over 35% of the population feels strongly in one direction. Politics in general gets done by committed minorities. If 35% of the American people feels strongly about the FMA, that is really quite a high number. Especially if you're right about only 20% feeling strongly against.

And it mystifies me that you should call the working of normal democratic politics "mob rule."

[only1percent]

Side note -- people often remark on the suffragists support for Prohibition as if were an inexplicable contradiction. To the contrary, it made perfect sense: they viewed alcohol abuse, more or less correctly, as the single great and undeserved scourge and ruination of women.

It was men, almost exclusively, who drank to excess, and in so doing deprived their wives of the physical and financial support upon which the wives depended for their only sustenance, and subjected the wives to physical and emotional abuse to which the law afforded them no remedy. A drunken man of the house meant absolute shame and devestation to a family -- and the patterns of alcohol consumption back then were nothing like they are now. When you hear "drunk" in a 1910 context, you need to think "crackhead" to get closer to the comparable contemporary context -- and how many crackheads have families at home who are forced to depend upon them?

Prohibition was a bad idea, but not for want of virtues and fundamentally sound objectives in the temperance movement.

[AntiGuv]

There is no ambiguity in my remarks, and I freely concede that the 18th may have fallen under these standards. Indeed, I initially implied as much but am not familiar enough with the history to state categorically.

IF an amendment secures 66% of the Congress and 75% of the legislatures for no reason other than fear of voter backlash, I assert that is tantamount to "mob rule." Can you think of any other amendment that even remotely qualifies???? In my statement, the 18th Amendment stands utterly condemned. Whether or not the proposed 28th parallels the 18th in this particular respect, they are both condemned as the only amendments that would limit the Constitutional rights, liberties, and freedoms of the American people. If the 28th shares with the 18th the distinction of passage via "mob rule," then it is no more egregious than the 18th. If that is a singular distinction to be reserved for the 28th, then it's that much worse than the 18th in my estimation...

I'll retract my previous statements. I oppose the FMA for this reason if for no other, even if I anticipate it's future repeal. The prospective 28th will be an eternal disgrace alongside the 18th. In a way, that's a good thing. An object lesson for future generations not to repeat....