New Take On An Old Subject:

[TNbourbon]

Prohibition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/11/AR2010061102868.html

George Will's synopsis:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070703558.html

includes some classic descriptions:

"...Daniel Okrent's darkly hilarious Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition recounts how Americans abolished a widely exercised private right -- and condemned the nation's fifth-largest industry -- in order to make the nation more heavenly. Then all hell broke loose..."

"...Women campaigning for sobriety did not intend to give rise to the income tax, plea bargaining, a nationwide crime syndicate, Las Vegas, NASCAR (country boys outrunning government agents), a redefined role for the federal government and a privacy right -- the 'right to be let alone' -- that eventually was extended to abortion rights. But they did..."

"...Carry Nation. She was 'six feet tall, with the biceps of a stevedore, the face of a prison warden, and the persistence of a toothache'..."

"...Before the 18th Amendment could make drink illegal, the 16th Amendment had to make the income tax legal. It was needed because by 1910 alcohol taxes were 30 percent of federal revenue..."

"...The many lessons of Okrent's story include: In the fight between law and appetite, bet on appetite. And: Americans then were, and let us hope still are, magnificently ungovernable by elected nuisances."

[ratcheer]

Yes, everything makes ripples. From 80 years away, it is hard for us to imagine all of the repurcussions caused by Prohibition, but they certainly had to exist.

I hope to have time to read the full article, soon.

Tim

[OscarV]

I heard that Ken Burns is making one of his long documtary for PBS about prohibition.