Beware of purity workers [who are]…ready to accept and endorse any amount of coercive and degrading treatment of their fellow creatures in the fatuous belief that you can oblige human beings to be moral by force. – Josephine Butler
Eighty years ago today, a so-called “Noble Experiment” that was anything but was forcibly shut down. At exactly 4:31 PM Eastern Time on December 5th, 1933, the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and thus putting an end to a massive social engineering effort which cost the United States over $1 billion (over $13 billion in today’s money) and resulted in the imprisonment, impoverishment and death of over 100,000 Americans. But despite the enormous economic and social costs (clogged courts, the rise of large-scale organized crime, widespread disrespect for all law, warfare in the streets and the birth of the modern police state, to name but a few), prohibitionists fought tooth and nail to prevent the dismantling of their mad scheme. Furthermore, politicians learned the wrong lesson from the experience: not “prohibition doesn’t work and has catastrophic effects on society,” but rather “start small and then slowly ratchet up the number and popularity of banned substances and behaviors, and spread prohibition across many bureaucratic regulations instead of investing it in one easily-targeted law.”
I’ve often discussed the nearly-exact resemblance between “sex trafficking” hysteria and “white slavery” hysteria; I’ve also compared the rhetoric of sex work prohibitionists to that of drug prohibitionists, and I won’t insult your intelligence by presuming any of y’all haven’t recognized the resemblance between alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition. But even though I’ve often said “All prohibitionism is the same,” I wonder if y’all have ever given any thought to how much the same the various colors of prohibition are. Today I’m going to share a few facts about the capital-P Prohibition whose end we recognize today; I won’t waste my time and yours in pointing out the modern parallels, because they really are that obvious an exercise in plus ça change.
To prohibitionists, human rights, happiness and even life are subsidiary to “sending a message”, and the cost of that message can never be too great. Various penalties proposed for the “crime” of drinking included torture, whipping, branding, imprisonment in Alaskan concentration camps, sterilization, enforced celibacy and even execution; some wanted the punishments applied to drinkers’ children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. Others preferred to execute drinkers stealthily by releasing poisoned alcohol through undercover agents posing as bootleggers; they understood that the death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands, but declared that damage a “price worth paying” for an alcohol-free society. And though that plan was not carried out, the government did intentionally poison industrial alcohol in a failed attempt to keep people from drinking it; over 10,000 people died as a result. Police and G-men raided homes and businesses (often without warrant), seized or destroyed property (including cash, vehicles and buildings), murdered citizens and even crossed into Canada for their “operations”. Nor were these depredations limited to government actors; die-hard prohibitionists formed groups to “assist” enforcement by spying on others, ratting them out to the police and even conducting raids on their own.
Since the very real threat of official violence was still not enough to stop Americans from imbibing, prohibitionists mounted a campaign of disinformation, sometimes producing bogus studies to “prove” their dogma. They claimed that any amount of drinking dramatically increased the chance of dying from edema, and that habitual drunks often died of spontaneous combustion. Drinking mothers (or even fathers) supposedly produced babies who were born addicted, and even the smell of alcohol was said to cause birth defects; some claimed these birth defects were inheritable, thus affecting multiple generations. Children were subjected to presentations “proving” that alcohol caused severe brain damage. The “anti-saloon” crowd also indulged in historical revisionism, censoring, reinterpreting or even retranslating documents (especially the Bible) to remove references to wine or other forms of alcohol, and altering pictures such as the one above (here’s the 1848 original) to retroactively turn historical figures into teetotalers.
The soi-disant Progressives wanted to remake society along “scientific” lines, to impose their idea of clockwork “perfection” on the human race; eugenics was a large part of this, as should be evident in the suggestion that “undesirables” be sterilized or their children executed with them. But though the Nazis gave eugenics such a bad name it was eliminated from “progressive” philosophy, the rest of its catechism is virtually untouched; neither Prohibition nor the four-decade “War on Drugs” has cured the adherents of that revolting 19th-century cult of their dedication to the idea that, as Butler put it, “any amount of coercive and degrading treatment” of peaceful citizens is acceptable in order to force them to obey the cultists’ perverse notions of morality.
I do not want to give prohibitionists much credit, but at least in theory alcohol and drug prohibition is possible. You don’t need to drink alcoholic beverages to live, nor do you need to take pleasurable narcotics. There is no biological imperative driving humans to get drunk or high, so some people can and do remain sober their entire lives.
This is not true with sex. The hormones that influence our sex drive are extremely powerful. They cannot be ignored. Yet the core of anti-sex prohibitionists truly believe that sexual pleasure is evil and that the only purpose for sex is reproduction. They claim that God wants Christians to enjoy sex the right way, but I don’t believe it. I think that they believe they are sinning even if they are having sex with their spouses in the missionary position, and if it were possible to have reproduction without sex, they would outlaw it.
I’m sorry it took me this long to see through this, but I finally asked a question that once asked cannot be unasked. What sort of God would condemn an adolescent to eternal damnation for masturbation if that young man were to die in an accident before he went to confession? What sort of deity would condemn a human being to hell for violating a commandment that by virtue of their human sexuality, CANNOT be obeyed? Not a loving and merciful God, but a cruel and sadistic one. Genesis says man is made in God’s image, and I think there is a kernel of truth there. Because any devout Christian like Rick Santorum who truly believes that human sexuality is evil and acts on that belief will become the image of the God I have described.
I don’t know what the answers are as far as sex goes, but I am convinced that sexual prohibition is the wrong way to go, and America’s prudery is ruining millions of lives, especially the children in whose name these laws are enacted.
Re your first paragraph: the lack of a biological imperative doesn’t make prohibition “possible”, even in theory, because people want things they don’t actually need and it’s impossible to enforce restrictions of consensual behavior without 100% co-operation from every single individual, as every attempt in history has amply demonstrated.
I hope that you did not interpret what I wrote as an apologia for prohibition. What I meant was as little sense as alcohol prohibition does in hindsight, that actually makes more sense than sexual prohibition does today.
Something closer to apples-to-apples: What about comparing alcohol prohibition to cigarettes? Use of the latter has been rather effectively reduced over the last thirty years, not by making it illegal, but by making it socially unacceptable. It seems to me that social unacceptability is a more powerful motivator than not going to jail.
I want to add that, even if there is no specific need for alcohol or drugs, there is a need for ways to blow off steam, relax and have fun.
H.L. Mencken wrote that puritans were always worried that somebody, somewhere was having fun. Oversimplification? Maybe…but one with a great deal of truth in it.
That’s why fundamentalist Iran has the highest drug addiction rate in the world. Drug prohibition is never going to work as claimed; particularly when there are few alternatives for fun and/or escapism.
You cannot draw a parallel between Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and their efforts to curtail drug use. You might ASSUME that the penalty would be cut off hands or other appendages … the actual reality is … Iran fights it’s own “war on drugs” with not 1/100th the determination and zealotry that the U.S. does.
Iranians can buy a home “how to” course on making crystal meth in their homes for as little as $70.00 U.S.
Iran is RIFE with drug addiction programs – even needle exchange programs. They have some of the most liberal drug treatment programs in the world – yes, amazing … go figure.
If you want to draw a parallel … then there IS one that can be linked to Islamic fundamentalism and that is – the Islamic Revolution has produced nothing but dispair in Iran along with high youth unemployment (28%) and high inflation (over 40% per year). Nations where youth are in dispair have high drug addiction rates.
These will soon be visiting U.S. shores because the current crop of political leaders are economic incompetents.
Not at all surprising. Most of what we believe about Iran and Iraq is lies. Iraq was a secular, progressive state where women went to university. Iran is described here: http://www.avoiceformen.com/gynocentrism/the-myth-of-patriarchal-oppression-in-iran/ .
Iraq was NOT a secular nor a progressive state. iraq has always been a group of religious enclaves – it’s just that Sadaam held them all together with an iron-fist.
I do not think the Shiite’s – nor the Kurds – who Sadaam brutally set upon with chemical weapons and killed thousands of men, women, and children – would agree with you that Iraq was a “progressive” state.
Additionally, no one is LYING to you about Iran – the problem is – no one SEEKS the accurate information on them.
This is not a lie – there was a popular “green revolution” that was put down BRUTALLY by the Iranian Islamist regime.
This is not a lie – youth unemployment in Iran is 28%.
This is not a lie – 1/3 of iranians between the ages of 16 and 25 would LEAVE IRAN (and never return) if given the opportunity to do so.
Try to justify the fanatic’s dream of a nuclear Iran some other way. The place is a hellhole – and it’s run by extremists bent on eliminating Israel and spreading it’s influence over the whole middle-east.
If you want to read what IRAN is really like …
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Betray-Astonishing-Double-Revolutionary-ebook/dp/B003EUGFW0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386365714&sr=8-1&keywords=a+time+to+betray
Iran has one of the highest execution rates in the world, and the vast majority are drug related. There is also effectively a war on the border with Afghanistan, again due to drugs. Thousands have been killed in this conflict.
Harm reduction measures are a response to the fact that the system is overwhelmed by the amount of drugs cases; it does not signal an end to the war on drugs. Consider the Ghezel Hesar prison, one of the biggest in the Middle East, is full of drug offenders.
Iran prosecutes and executes drug traffickers mostly … like I said – they have needle exchange programs in Iran and they’re sactioned by the government. There is no “holy war” on drugs in Iran so citing the normally highly punative measures of a fundamentalist Islamic state isn’t really appropriate. They don’t prosecute their war on drugs to any degree as intently as the U.S. does.
The war on the border with Afghanistan – yes it does involve drug trafficking – because Afghanistan is the major supplier of opium. However, that war also exists because the Taliban and Iranians have always been at odds. Taliban have always been sponsored by Pakistan – and Iran is intent on keeping Pakistani influence in that region in check.
You’re correct. I am not sure if it was St. Paul the Apostle or another early Church Father who admonished against finding pleasure even in reproductive sex. I do remember reading about that admonition while studying church history. I don’t have the books at my disposal but I definitely remember reading that.
Speaking of George Washington, he ran the largest whiskey distillery in the country which produced almost 11,000 gallons of whiskey the last year of his life. I’ll bet that was something that was edited out of history textbooks in the 20’s.
The progressive agenda is all about coercion and degradation? News to me! Are you sure you don’t have it confused with the Gor novels?
100% certain. Look more closely at actual aims before scoffing.
The war on drugs is much longer than the ‘Noble Experiment’, unfortunately. And the elephant in the room is the racist undertones to the whole sordid affair. (cf. the penalties for ‘powder cocaine’ (white drug) and ‘crack cocaine’ (black drug).)
The Soviet Union, with all of its control and power, didn’t have much more success with their efforts to stem consumption of alcohol than the U.S. did. But for a lot of reasons, this lesson is ignored.
And going back even further to the imagery of the opium dens and those “strange Orientals” and any Europeans visiting opium dens being suspect and immediately cast out on the fringes of their society.
They also deliberately increased the poison content in non-potable alcohol so even if it was filtered to turn it into something drinkable, people would still die: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html
I always bristle when people say Prohibition was done with good intentions. It was not, it was bad intentions from the get go.
Shocking! Reminds me of what a Swedish police chief, Jonas Trolle, said about the Sex Purchase Act. I paraphrase. We don’t criminalize the prostitute but we want to make life for her as hard as possible.
Also forced abduction of American Indian children to properly “progress” them out of existence. There are so many despicable things associated with these “reformers”.
“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.” -Woodrow Wilson.
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I’m not the first to point it out, and this isn’t the first time I’ve pointed it out here, but the first story of prohibition is in the first Book of the Bible, Genesis. There was only one prohibited substance, it was to be found in only one place, there was only one guy trying to get anybody to use it, there were only two people who had to be persuaded not to use, and the top cop was God Almighty.
It failed. Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Prohibition always fails. Even God can’t do it.