Prohibition: Anyone Else Watching?

[Kirk Freeman]

Anyone else watching the documentary Prohibition on PBS?

Good lessons on how racism and bigotry drive public policy, how society refuses to learn from history because this time we are really, really smart (e.g. the prior state-level prohibitions that failed miserably), and how laws are always for "the other guy".

I was really suprised by the tie in to the Sixteenth Amendment. I do not know why I was not more aware of the income tax-prohibition angle.

Prohibition: Home | PBS

Last night's segment ended with an armed robbery of booze from a freight train in Chicago immediately after the Drys proclaimed victory. The violence and corruption start tonight.

 

[Waveraider]

I saw it. Very interesting. Muct be a really old documentary, because of Henry Fonda narrating.

 

[cbseniour]

I watched with great interest and learned several things I didn't know or hadn't even thought about like you the link between the 16th Amendment and Prohibition is a surprise but makes perfect sense when you see it.
I'll be there again tonight.

 

[CarmelHP]

I was really suprised by the tie in to the Sixteenth Amendment. I do not know why I was not more aware of the income tax-prohibition angle.

What? I missed that part, I must have been getting a beer or something. I did enjoy how everyone thought it was someone else's behavior that needed controlling. I would have liked to seen firsthand the late 19th/early 20th century.

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits" - Mark Twain

 

[spec4]

What dawned on me is how the anti booze folks wanted to impose their will on the rest of us. I'm sorry that some women back then had husbands who were goofs, but that doesn't justify forcing an alcohol free society on all of us. Gee, maybe they could do that with guns because we all know how bad guns are for us.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I would have liked to seen firsthand the late 19th/early 20th century.

I heard about it from the greatgrandfather. Different but the same.

Tonight I hope they feature George Remus. Nothing highlights the stupidity and evil of Prohibition like Remus.

 

[CarmelHP]

I heard about it from the greatgrandfather. Different but the same.

Tonight I hope they feature George Remus. Nothing highlights the stupidity and evil of Prohibition like Remus.

What was the link to the 16th Amendment, I missed it. Though, all those progressive era Amendments were related.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

The Wets thought that they held a bottleneck (yes, a pun) on Prohibition as the Feds depended upon excise taxes on booze to fund the federal government. Then the Sixteenth Amendment passed and the feds did not need booze taxes.

The Sixteenth Amendment coupled with the Great War is what propelled the Drys over the top.

 

[CarmelHP]

I heard about it from the greatgrandfather. Different but the same.

Admit it, you would have liked to have grog in the morning and drank 2% beer throughout the day.

Tonight I hope they feature George Remus. Nothing highlights the stupidity and evil of Prohibition like Remus.

Can't trust a woman.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

With my greatgrandfather it was applejack. Beer was brewed as well but not for export.

He made it on the farm in Sullivan County. I still have one of his jugs that he ran into Terre Haute and Indianapolis.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd-40VnMG94

 

[indykid]

I is quite a documentary to watch. Just substitute the word drugs for the word alcohol and you find we haven't learned from history, and that we can't ban any substance and expect the whole world to suddenly go along.

Hard to believe that the government actually said alcohol was the root of all our problems, and the sheep went along with it. Today, as I said earlier, substitute drugs for the word alcohol and we find nothing has changed other than names.

 

[ocsdor]

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Hard to believe that the government actually said alcohol was the root of all our problems, and the sheep went along with it.

It wasn't the government that said that, it was the Drys that said that.

Busybodies always think that we are only one law away from Utopia.

Working to better yourself is hard and takes discipline and committment. However, working to control others via the law, merely takes a law.

 

[jbombelli]

It wasn't the government that said that, it was the Drys that said that.

Busybodies always think that we are only one law away from Utopia.

Working to better yourself is hard and takes discipline and committment. However, working to control others via the law, merely takes a law.

Other busybodies always think we are one repealed law away from anarchy. I see that theme on this very site almost daily.

 

[CarmelHP]

It does offend me that the program is relying so heavily on that filthy gun prohibitionist, Pete Hamill. I remember, because of its vicious ignorance, an anti-gun rant in his column 30 years ago when I was a high schooler. He's produced similar paroxysms every now and then since that time.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It does offend me that the program is relying so heavily on that filthy gun prohibitionist, Pete Hamill.

Yes, as the kids say, ironic.

 

[kwatters]

Interesting, one on my boys asked me the other day why it was illegal to make moonshine. I responded because the Government can't tax it.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Great ending.

I especially like how it highlighted the racism and bigotry of the 1928 campaign when members of the DOJ were speaking against immigrants and Catholics as a motivation of Prohibition thus demonstrating how law is racism/bigotry (or cronyism, rent seeking, or barriers to entry) written down.

 

[The Bubba Effect]

What? I missed that part, I must have been getting a beer or something. I did enjoy how everyone thought it was someone else's behavior that needed controlling. I would have liked to seen firsthand the late 19th/early 20th century.

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits" - Mark Twain

If you want to see what alcohol prohibition was like, look at the war on drugs and squint.