Your Attention Please [Breaking News and WoD Flamewars]

[Admin Moderator]

Since my last vanity announcement on keywords went so swimmingly (it ended up with something like 5000 keywords added to it) I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity.

Breaking news is being abused again, big time. This goes in cycles, with sometimes people being responsible, but other times people not being very responsible.

We are in one of the not-very time periods.

Please, do not post something in Breaking News because you think it is something you want people to see. Place something in Breaking News only if it is

1. Something the networks would interrupt their programming to say,
2. The networks would interrupt their programming to say if they weren't overwhelmingly liberal,
3. Something that honestly would (not should, would) be of interest to majority of self-described conservatives
4. Official chapter announcements

Or things along those lines. Don't consider that a list of rules, but of guidelines. But act as if the guidelines matter, please. And flame the heck out of people that don't. And provide appropriate feedback to people who don't.

Some things that are never breaking news: Stories that have been posted before, stories that are over a day old, opinion vanities, freep this poll, or anything from the op-ed section of any newspaper.

Now, on to the WoD [War on Drugs] flamewars. There are a few problems with them. The flaming on them is tremendous. It is wrong for several reasons, and it should stop and the first thing we are going to do to try to get them to stop is to make a request for them to stop. If you feel the need to flame someone for something they say on one of these threads, do this (and yes, it involves a lot more work than just hitting reply, but such is life):

1. Post a copy of the article to the Smokey Backroom
2. Ping your flamee to that copy.
3. Go to town over there and keep the crap off the main forum.

Instead of hitting abuse on someone on a WoD thread right away (unless it is extremely bad), please just advise them to do what I am saying here- take it to the backroom. Link them to this if need be. And if you don't want to get into a flamewar, leave it at that. If you do, then join them in the backroom and have at it. The WoD flamewars overwhelm the latest posts page with a neverending sequence of posts that are just mindless insults. Please, spare us, and don't try to put it on the moderators to determine who fired the first shot. There are rarely clean hands here, and no matter what we do one side or another is going to complain.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Freeping. I expect no fewer than 500 taunts at us in the keywords here before this is over. Thank you, and God Bless. ;-)

[robertpaulsen]

You have claims, I have facts.

You and bvw claim that the 18th amendment gave Congress the authority to ban alcohol. The fact is, laws were passed banning and restricting alcohol prior to the 18th amendment. You and bvw concede this, but claim that those laws were unconstitutional.

I say: Prove it. Back up your claim.

[MrLeRoy]

You and bvw concede this, but claim that those laws were unconstitutional.

I have made no such claim. You're the one who implicitly claimed that they are Constitutional---else they'd be no evidence for your claim that the 18th Amendment was not required in order to ban alcohol. Prove it. Back up your claim.

[robertpaulsen]

If the laws banning alcohol were passed after the 18th amendment, and I then claimed that it was a coincidence, that they actually could have passed before the 18th amendment, then you're right, I'd have to prove why that would be so.

But these laws were passed before the 18th amendment; ipso facto, the 18th was not necessary for their passage into law.

Until you came along, no one claimed these laws were unconstitutional, did they? Not the House, not the Senate, not the President. Certainly not the courts. Not the distillers, distributors, stores, bars, and unions. Nobody.

But you claim it. Prove it.

There is nothing for me to prove. The laws were passed. That's a fact.

[tpaine]

Word games.

[Houmatt]

"If adults want to take such chances [using marijuana], that is their business." -Ronald Reagan, Radio commentary, August, 1979

"Of course dad was for legalization." -Michael Reagan

And yet, for the eight years he was President, not once did he suggest drugs be legalized, or recommend legislation to do so.

So much for your strawman.

D'oh!

[Roscoe]

Uh, we know that he traveled to Nevada.

Uh, so what?

[Cultural Jihad]

LOADies (Legalization Of All Drugs advocates)

The moral-liberal anarcho-ideologues must think this is FreeLicentiousness.com with all their pro-drug threads they scatter around here.

[Roscoe]

The moral-liberal anarcho-ideologues must think this is FreeLicentiousness.com

Political flashers.

[tacticalogic]

Also, you are making a giant leap of logic to assume that The Lever Food and Fuel Control Act and The War Prohibition Act 1) were unconstitutional and 2) were only enforceable because we were at war.

Again, my point is that Congress did not need a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. My proof is the above two Acts. Your "proof" is mere speculation, conjecture, and false claims, unsupported by any sliver of documentation.

Your arguments ring hollow. While assertions that the above acts were only enforceable because we were at war may be speculation, assertions that they are enforceable if were aren't are no less so, since it's never been done. Moreover, your arguments seem to have an underlying premise that the presence or absence of a state of war is irrelevant - that any power the federal government has in wartime, it has in peacetime. That would include things like food rationing, and detention and internment camps for civiliansn not accused of any crime. I don't think that's going to fly.

[robertpaulsen]

The War Prohibition Act became law in November, 1918. WWI ended November, 1918. We were no longer at war.

Also, this was challenged in the USSC and found constitutional.

[tacticalogic]

Why was it called the "War Prohibition Act"?

[tacticalogic]

TITLE I.
TO PROVIDE FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF WAR PROHIBITION.

The term "War Prohibition Act" used in this Act shall mean the provisions of any Act or Acts prohibiting the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors until the conclusion of the present war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization, the date of which shall be determined and proclaimed by the President of the United States.

[robertpaulsen]

Very good. And it was challenged and found constitutional.

Again I state that the 18th amendment was not necessary for Congress to pass constitutional laws banning or limiting alcohol.

[toothless]

It was found constitutional based on war powers. Meaning it was only constitutional BECAUSE we were at war.

[tacticalogic]

Again I state that the 18th amendment was not necessary for Congress to pass constitutional laws banning or limiting alcohol.

And are again very careful to avoid any reference to it being done as a wartime measure. No matter how much you stomp your feet, wag your finger, and beat your chest, all you have is a half-truth.

[robertpaulsen]

Technically we weren't at war when it was being enforced; we were in a state of demobilization. So, you agree the 18th amendment wasn't necessary?

[toothless]

No, the court said that since we were demobilizing that we were still technically at war.

I can't find the link anymore, if someone could point me to it I will quote the relevant section.

[toothless]

Sorry, I was actually thinking about the companion case.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=251&invol=146

The reason the war-time prohibition act was still valid and in force was because demobilization was not complete.

"But in fact demobilization had not terminated at the time of the veto of the act of October 28, 1919, or at the time these suits were begun, and, for aught that appears, it has not yet terminated. The report of the Secretary or War made to the President under date of November 11, 1919 ( and transmitted to Congress on December 1), in describing the progress of demobilization, shows (p. 17) that during the preceding ten days (November 1-10) 2,018 officers and 10,266 enlisted men had been discharged; the rate of discharge being substantially the same as during the month of October, in which 8,690 officers and 33,000 enlisted men were discharged.

The War-Time Prohibition Act being thus valid and still in force, the decree in No. 589 is reversed, and the case is remanded to the District Court, with directions to dismiss the bill; and the decree in No. 602 is affirmed. "

[headsonpikes]

"...all you have is a half-truth."

Hey, that's a record!

I'll gladly settle for half from these guys.

[bvw]

Thanks to both of you.