I should have also pointed out in the original post that the reason prohibition came to an end wasn't just because of the reform that happened when it was in effect- But also because of the great depression and jobs. I think it was FDR that said we can create jobs by opening breweries and people can become bar tenders, deliver the alcohol, and work at breweries and distilleries, ect.
Prohibition was a Success! How?
- Thread starter an11dy9
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Red1966
Well-Known Member
I'm not advocating Prohibition, but the number of alcohol related deaths and alcoholism were reduced substantially. The Kennedy family was able to make up for the loss of their slave smuggling enterprise.
Red1966
Well-Known Member
Marijuana was made illegal because of racism towards Mexicans AND Puerto Ricans and Blacks, or so I've been told. I wasn't born at the time. Some of the "Reefer Madness" type films seemed to be predominately Blacks and Hispanics.
I have many issues with much of what you're saying. But the one I will point out- "The ends do NOT justify the means, when the means go against your core principles"-- That might be the case in your view, but it's not exactly mine. You see, one of my core principles is to treat women and children fairly. So to take away the right to sell or buy alcohol temporarily in order to stop that and to give women and children the rights and respect that they deserve it well worth it. You should probably read my post #18- I get into this conversation deeper in that post.
Mr Neutron
Well-Known Member
Thank you, I did read it.
You attitude is the same that keeps pharmacorps writing the regulations, the same that blames guns for violence and the same that prohibits certain words.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Damn, I sure as hell am an influential person. JK- I know what you're saying- It's people with the same attitude as me that influence those things. I don't really agree with that. First of all you have to assume that politicians always do what their constituents want. It has been my experience that that's not always the case. What dictates a politicians vote usually has to do with who is donating to their campaign. In the case of big pharma writing regulations, that is almost always the case- Something I'm completely against. So that's that. As for the gun violence comment- I do believe in stricter gun laws in many cases. But I want to ask you this- If my "attitude", as you put it, advocates for more gun laws- and assuming you don't share the same ideas as I do- Then you must believe that there should be no regulations on the second amendment- Am I right with those assumptions? And the whole "prohibits certain words" comment- What do you mean? If you are assuming, based on my "attitude", that I want to prohibit certain words, then you, my friend, are totally wrong and must have all of my "attitude" wrong. What I'm trying to say is that you are drawing a lot of assumptions from something I said. And I'm also trying to point out that our rights are not absolute in most cases- Because from what I can tell, it seems that you don't share that belief. I could be misunderstanding you though.
Mr Neutron
Well-Known Member
I don't agree that politicians should vote as their constituents want them to. I think an elected representative should lay out his political philosophy during his campaign. He should vote accordingly. If his constituents don't like it, they can vote him out. People aren't voted into office to be like a robot. Unfortunately, what we have now is neither, as you point out.
No regs on second amendment? Not exactly. I'm not in favor of the emotionally unstable or those convicted of violent offenses to have weapons.
It's this whole "politically correctness" that has prompted some places to make it illegal to use certain words.
Our rights are absolute, as long as there is no harm done. Alcohol use does not automatically mean spousal/child abuse. Many people drink and are not violent. Banning free people from ingesting any substance for any purpose, is immoral.
Brother Numsi
Well-Known Member
You're corrsct...got a bit tired LOLMaybe you didn't read my whole post. I know, it's long... In case you over looked it:
And I'm sure there are many things that I overlooked or don't know about that is a legacy of Prohibition. I can't write a book in this forum, although many would probably argue that I just did. I lightly touched on key aspects of Prohibition to create a conversation, that's all. So READ the post FIRST please- Then spout off.
HersbruckerII
Member
I really don't know much about Prohibition on the larger scene, but I do know I've read a lot about the American West before and around the turn of the 20th Century. There were a whole lot of positions and institutions that don't even exist today. There's a book, "Here They Dug The Gold", copyrighted 1931, about the gold rush of Pikes Peak, and subsequent discovery of silver and lead in the same area. The population of the town, I think it was Leadville, was overwhelmingly men, and drinking was one of the very few pastimes they could afford. While alcohol was dirt cheap, there was a shortage of housing. You would pay to sleep on the floor of the saloons as one of the few places that were heated. In the winter, every morning, there was a detail, usually one of the fire brigades, that would go around town and gather up the bodies from the men who were so drunk they had laid down on the sidewalks or in the street gutters and simply frozen to death in the sub-zero night temperatures. At one point the Temperance Society made a big deal out of giving an award to one of the town millionaires, H.A.W Tabor, who had opened a beer brewery. Now the miners and lower-class had something to drink besides the rot-gut liquor that was being distilled locally. There was a self-destructive side of the miners, prospectors and get-rich-schemers of the American mining boom that I don't think I've ever seen extrapolated out. They would lead cruelly austere lives finding the gold, digging the silver, milling and processing the mineral wealth, where food and water would be at a premium, simply because it wasn't there, get paid, sell a claim, cash in some gold dust, and then drink themselves into a catatonic stupor.
I do wonder what would have been different if there had been Marijuana on the scene as an alternative. It could have been grown just as easily as corn or potatoes. It wouldn't be the ass-kicking shit we've got today, but they smoked Bull Durham, for God's sakes. It would have been just as legal as prostitution or distilling booze outside of town like they already had.
One other thing I haven't seen mentioned. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, at one time in the 1920's ten million dues-paying members, were huge advocates of Prohibition. They were considered Progressives, hated Catholics (Irish, Germans, Italians) as much as they disparaged Blacks, and were allies of the Women's Temperance Movement and the Anti-Saloon League. (The WTM and ASL were both into eugenics, the idea of selective breeding of humans to produce a Master Race. This was twenty years before Adolph Hitler would come to power).
You really have to look at the literature and especially the newspapers of the times in the States. You had an agrarian population, and a rising industrial base with a wealthy class that perceived themselves as New Royalty. Where the white farmer and the cowboy might have knee-jerk racist positions, the moment they came into contact with an individual of color, the quaint code of "A Man is measured by who he is" seemed to kick in. Dirty Dave, Nigger Nate and J. Goodman Bray come to mind. (The one minority that never got treated right through contact were the Chinese, the 'Celestials', 'The Yellow Peril'.) It was only when Upper Class Society began to dominate that racism became, not just the default position, but an intellectual exercise. They were going to make a better society through social engineering, ultimately eliminating the unwanted classes, Blacks, Mexicans, those that they declared genetically inferior. It was the Upper Class that ran the Temperance Society, the KKK and the government. They might not have been the sole force behind Prohibition, but they rode the wave.
I've also read that in some people's opinion, Prohibition never really ended. Before Prohibition, opiates, marijuana, cocaine, they were all legal. There might have been state or local laws, but no Federal restrictions. Afterwards, besides a Federal ten dollar a gallon tax on distilled spirits, all these other recreations became illegal.
I do wonder what would have been different if there had been Marijuana on the scene as an alternative. It could have been grown just as easily as corn or potatoes. It wouldn't be the ass-kicking shit we've got today, but they smoked Bull Durham, for God's sakes. It would have been just as legal as prostitution or distilling booze outside of town like they already had.
One other thing I haven't seen mentioned. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, at one time in the 1920's ten million dues-paying members, were huge advocates of Prohibition. They were considered Progressives, hated Catholics (Irish, Germans, Italians) as much as they disparaged Blacks, and were allies of the Women's Temperance Movement and the Anti-Saloon League. (The WTM and ASL were both into eugenics, the idea of selective breeding of humans to produce a Master Race. This was twenty years before Adolph Hitler would come to power).
You really have to look at the literature and especially the newspapers of the times in the States. You had an agrarian population, and a rising industrial base with a wealthy class that perceived themselves as New Royalty. Where the white farmer and the cowboy might have knee-jerk racist positions, the moment they came into contact with an individual of color, the quaint code of "A Man is measured by who he is" seemed to kick in. Dirty Dave, Nigger Nate and J. Goodman Bray come to mind. (The one minority that never got treated right through contact were the Chinese, the 'Celestials', 'The Yellow Peril'.) It was only when Upper Class Society began to dominate that racism became, not just the default position, but an intellectual exercise. They were going to make a better society through social engineering, ultimately eliminating the unwanted classes, Blacks, Mexicans, those that they declared genetically inferior. It was the Upper Class that ran the Temperance Society, the KKK and the government. They might not have been the sole force behind Prohibition, but they rode the wave.
I've also read that in some people's opinion, Prohibition never really ended. Before Prohibition, opiates, marijuana, cocaine, they were all legal. There might have been state or local laws, but no Federal restrictions. Afterwards, besides a Federal ten dollar a gallon tax on distilled spirits, all these other recreations became illegal.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
[video=youtube;1aUl9l1O7sE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aUl9l1O7sE[/video]
yeah! you know it!
HersbruckerII
Member
DonPepe: See, this is what happens when you post when you've been smoking some seriously good Sativa. It all made perfectly good sense at the time. Don't even get me going on Tirzo de la Toba.
OGEvilgenius
Well-Known Member
Have you fully considered the implications of that movement? On many levels I agree with it fundamentally, but it had a net negative effect as well. It doubled the workforce and drove down wages and forced us into 2 income house holds while parents all to frequently don't raise their kids, the state or TV (which is basically the state) does. And don't mistake the forces behind the women's rights movement as being ignorant to this side effect. They after all benefited most from it (doubled the tax base, created weaker family bonds, strengthened the state significantly which benefits those who have most influence over the state).
I think a pretty convincing argument can be made that the women's rights movement would have come to life regardless of prohibition.
The same progressives you talk about were largely pretty wealthy themselves and saw the advantages of introducing a monetary system that was inflationary and the ability to sell an income tax to hand out lucrative contracts to themselves at the behest of government as well. If they weren't a member of this group, they were a member of the mindless ignorant supporters group that were persuaded by the aforementioned group that this was somehow a good idea (taxing income is not a good idea on many levels, both philosophical and practical).
OGEvilgenius
Well-Known Member
Alcohol consumption is more often than not victimless. As far as drug use goes, definitely one of the worse ones in terms of potential harm to others, but there are other crimes you can charge someone with if that happens.
OGEvilgenius
Well-Known Member
I think you make a compelling case that the folks behind prohibition had great success in their intentions. I don't think you make a very compelling case that the ultimate outcome was a positive.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
If your basic premise holds - "tax alcohol, prohibit alcohol, introduce an income tax, repeal prohibition, keep the income tax, re-tax alcohol" ... then my conclusion is "we're screwed". There is no advantage we can peddle to legislators that approaches the revenue from the prison-industrial complex's take from simple drug convictions. cn