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Life is Good
I am a huge fan of Ken Burns. No one can bring history alive quite like he does, Starting this past Sunday, his much awaited documentary on Prohibition aired, and is to continue it's run in three parts. I highly recommend you seek out your local PBS station and find out when it's shown in your area.
One of the things that is glaringly obvious as one views this recounting of America's failed morality experiment known as Prohibition is just how many parallels there are to today, in so many areas of our political world.
I'm not necessarily referring to The failed War on Drugs, where it sees the most direct parallel - this thread isn't really about that - it's more about the discourse we engage in when it comes to legislating morality, what we do with our bodies, single-issue voters, wedge issues provoked by the politicians and interest groups -- the raw politics of righteousness, and, of course, the unintended consequences.
Ken Burns sums up:
It didn't work, of course. The things that brought the drys, the 'noble moralists' who held an absolutist non-compromising approach, to enshrine a restriction on human nature into our Constitution, to their dream day, were factors such as WWI, high immigration, a xenophobic fervor which swept the country about that time, people who felt they had lost their country and wanted to take it back, who was a "Real American," - amongst other things, like tax revenue and how we funded our government (liquor taxes accounted for about a third of all federal revenues prior to 1913).
It is a subject truly packed with so much of today.
I'd like to ask the forum members
1. If they have seen the premier of this documentary...(last night was the first 2 hours of the 6 hour series, to be followed tonight and tomorrow) and/or if they intend to watch it
2.If so (or even if not) -- what parallels they see in the social issue factions represented here, in the microcosm of Messageboard debate, and the macro of those wedge issues in Washington Politics in general - to that era in our history when this freedom loving nation banned something that had been a part of human nature since the beginning of time.
3. Will both sides bitch and moan it's the other side that causes all the problems?
One of the things that is glaringly obvious as one views this recounting of America's failed morality experiment known as Prohibition is just how many parallels there are to today, in so many areas of our political world.
I'm not necessarily referring to The failed War on Drugs, where it sees the most direct parallel - this thread isn't really about that - it's more about the discourse we engage in when it comes to legislating morality, what we do with our bodies, single-issue voters, wedge issues provoked by the politicians and interest groups -- the raw politics of righteousness, and, of course, the unintended consequences.
Ken Burns sums up:
"You begin to see that human nature never changes. History, therefore, becomes a very effective way to have a good perspective on the events of today...We talk about civil discourse and how it's broken down, the lack of compromise. Well, Prohibition is a lack of compromise, civil discourse breaking down, and people becoming intransigent and inflexible.
"By looking at the unintended consequences of Prohibition, it's possible to actually look at our present day and perhaps see the best way out of the problems."
It might surprise some to know that both liberal and conservative /democrat and republican segments were "drys" and both were also "wets" - them term used to describe those at the time who were for or against. Though it was led by the progressive movement, it was also hailed by evangelicals, fundamentalists and social conservatives who had the ideal that if you could rid the country of alcohol, it would perfect our human nature, it would perfect our society - finally; crime, domestic abuse, debauchery, and the hundred other ills intoxication promoted would bring us collectively to our better angels, and make us a truly moral nation. At long last. "By looking at the unintended consequences of Prohibition, it's possible to actually look at our present day and perhaps see the best way out of the problems."
It didn't work, of course. The things that brought the drys, the 'noble moralists' who held an absolutist non-compromising approach, to enshrine a restriction on human nature into our Constitution, to their dream day, were factors such as WWI, high immigration, a xenophobic fervor which swept the country about that time, people who felt they had lost their country and wanted to take it back, who was a "Real American," - amongst other things, like tax revenue and how we funded our government (liquor taxes accounted for about a third of all federal revenues prior to 1913).
It is a subject truly packed with so much of today.
I'd like to ask the forum members
1. If they have seen the premier of this documentary...(last night was the first 2 hours of the 6 hour series, to be followed tonight and tomorrow) and/or if they intend to watch it
2.If so (or even if not) -- what parallels they see in the social issue factions represented here, in the microcosm of Messageboard debate, and the macro of those wedge issues in Washington Politics in general - to that era in our history when this freedom loving nation banned something that had been a part of human nature since the beginning of time.
3. Will both sides bitch and moan it's the other side that causes all the problems?