Short post here, but have you watched the Ken Burns documentary about Prohibition? I have. Twice. And I was struck both times at how similar everything about Prohibition was to our current battle against Prohibition II.
Chapter 1: Prohibitionists get their way, through pushing lies about alcohol and riding on the waves of moral panic and public ignorance. They also push programs to indoctrinate schoolchildren with their lies demonizing alcohol as some kind of devil juice that will damn you with a single sip.
Chapter 2: Prohibition is in full swing, and is being enforced with draconian laws that often bulldoze right over the Constitutional rights of the citizens. As it fails, the efforts at enforcement become increasingly draconian. Organized crime gets involved in making and selling liquor. No matter how many jackboots the government sics on the public, liquor fails to disappear, and innocent lives are destroyed for nothing.
Chapter 3: Prohibition is an incredible failure and the people have finally realized it. Even many of the very Prohibitionists who lied through their teeth to get Prohibition passed have now been forced to admit it is a failure and has actually exacerbated the problem they wanted to eliminate, and these former Prohibitionists get behind the effort to repeal their once-cherished authoritarian law.
It is exciting to realize that we are actually in Chapter 3. For example, former Prohibitionists are now supporting legalization efforts, like Dr. Sanjay Gupta changing his tune and recanting all his mistakes in supporting marijuana prohibition. Not to mention the various Prohibitionist political entities I mentioned in my last post who have been backpedaling so fast about drug law reform they're tripping over their own feet--and yes, this is mostly in an effort to placate us by throwing us a meager fragment of bone from the steak they once swore we'd never get a piece of, but they were forced to do so against their will due to overwhelming and ever-increasing support for legalization.
Now if Prohibition II could be repealed as fast as Prohibition I, that would really make me smile, but unfortunately Prohibition II has seventy years of profiteering behind it to make our country stumble as much as possible on the path toward doing what's right. Why is it so easy for this country to make mistakes and so hard for it to fix those mistakes?
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