One reason why we should never let intolerant, religious nut jobs take over the State is it happened before through the 18th Amendment. They’re not the majority but when we let our guard down, they manage to pass an impossible law to enforce, not even President Harding obeyed since it was rumored he always had access to booze in the White House while playing cards. Prohibition also strengthened America’s organized crime problem because if there was anyone capable of providing an illegal vice, it’s them. The collective stupidity built a Canadian beverage empire too, ever heard of Canada Dry?
Sadly, the link from the History Channel lays the blame exclusively at the Temperance Movement. When I was a kid in the late Seventies/early Eighties, the other explanation I received from the History book was President Wilson thinking people would re-allocate their drinking money toward war bonds for WWI. It the Amendment just came too late. I hope this has been debunked. I highly doubt alcoholics nor casual drinkers such as myself would do such a thing.
Today’s “alcohol” surrogates the Religious Christo-Fascists get their panties in their knot about are abortion and weed.
Let us set the record straight on abortion first. Their primary motivation against the procedure isn’t about saving babies is a Trojan Horse; when they’ve left the uterus, “Christians” are often demand lower taxes. Ergo, once the babies born they defund everything else involved with raising children: pre-K, affordable healthcare, good public schools, childcare assistance and any post-secondary education programs. The Country Club Republicans who are allied in this just get the “Christian” vote aren’t worried. They will maintain their access to abortions due to them frequently knocking up their mistresses and their daughters having “youthful indiscretions.” The latter is often covered in the euphemism, she went on a long trip to Europe.
The tide has finally turned on weed through its legalization in some states, including Utah, who would’ve thought that the state of the Uncanny Valley people could do such a thing? Personally, I still wouldn’t bother to toke up. It’s not my thing and I only smoke a cigar about once a year to celebrate something like a wedding or cutting loose in Vegas. We have too many people incarcerated over it, namely non-White, non-Rich citizens when we could be making money through it via taxes as per booze. Its primary downsides are Stoner Culture: the smell (yuck), the music it attracts (the Grateful Dead, Phish and other jam bands suck donkeys) and white kids with dreadlocks, permeated in body funk. Unlike nastier stuff such as cocaine or heroin, I dare you find a violent offender pumped up on weed. Right. You can’t. Bill Hicks said it best, “When you’re at a concert and someone is acting like an asshole, are they high or drunk?” Again, the same elites in the GOP throw this persecution bone to the “Christians” when we know they and their children are no strangers to the bong. Except Mitt Romney, maybe he’d have an ounce more empathy for non-Rich people if he took at least a hit in his youth.