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It was an incredible look into America’s failed attempt to govern morality. It reminded a lot of how we see cannabis today. What do you mean by "governing mor

by kiba 7y ago

It was an incredible look into America’s failed attempt to govern morality. It reminded a lot of how we see cannabis today. What do you mean by "governing morality"? Do we not have laws that attempt to prohibit harmful acts?

scarface74 7y ago
Laws should only be passed when you’re harming someone else. The US has a long history of passing laws governing morality even if it isn’t harming anyone else from segregation, to laws against interracial marriage, to laws banning homosexuality.
- nkozyra 7y ago
  This pattern exists throughout history. When you look at it closely a lot of these laws (which have roots in old religious law) do have a kind of hook into "public safety." You can - through the lens of people without the technical capability to mitigate them - understand how the causality of certain acts were reflected in the creation of the laws. The argument that was made about alcohol was that it had a systemic, cascading effect on society. I think it's a fair argument at scope. Rampant alcoholism certainly can lead to a lot of larger societal problems. What prohibition proved, though, was that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Of course both alcohol and drug abuse are bad. But anytime the government is given more power, it’s always applied unevenly to poor and minorities. As much as some people love their guns for instance, the NRA and conservative politicians like Reagan were all for gun control when minorities were “exercising their rights”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
    - nkozyra 7y ago
      Believe me, I'm not arguing for legislating behavior and there's no shortage of hypocrisy when it's been done.
- crdoconnor 7y ago
  Laws mandating seatbelts work exceptionally well, though.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I agree, but even traffic laws are unfairly enforced to give police officers a reason to stop “suspicious looking people”.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    I'd argue that the incessant beeping that all modern vehicles do when you don't wear your seat belt has more effect on enforcing seat belt usage than the threat of a ticket.
    - username90 7y ago
      I think you greatly underestimate seatbelt laws. Seatbelts were seen as bike helmets back then, almost nobody used them. For example, according to this study setbelt laws increased seatbelt usage from 6% to 70% in just a few years. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000145758190021X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000145...
- hydgv 7y ago
  >Laws should only be passed when you’re harming someone else. Cough cough DUI cough cough liver disease cough cough domestic violence
  - freedomben 7y ago
    We should consider outlawing DUI and domestic violence
  - kchamplewski 7y ago
    > DUI Is illegal and I don't think anyone here is arguing against that. > Liver disease That's harming you, not someone else. If the state pays for the healthcare requirements that then arise then a more nuanced argument can be made, but surely if it's your own liver and you pay for healthcare then you're harming no one else. > Domestic violence Once again, already illegal and I don't think anyone here is arguing against that.
    - hydgv 7y ago
      I like your arguments against gun control: murder is illegal already, after all.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        My argument against gun control is similar to my argument on the “War on Drugs”. It wouldn’t be enforced equally. Do you think they are more likely to arrest one of the good ol boys in the south for having a gun illegally or a minority? Also, the US has a poor history of actually getting rid of things that people want.
- corporate_shi11 7y ago
  >"The US..." Except laws or strongly enforced social norms surrounding homosexuality, race, etc are universal in the human experience and not unique to the US. Alcohol arguably does "harm someone else" when the alcoholic comes home and beats his family in a drunken rage, or when they lose their livelihood and cannot support their family anymore. It was these real issues affecting people other than just the drinker that the prohibitionists were confronting.
  - dlhavema 7y ago
    Or when they get trashed, drive home and kill people along the way...
  - scarface74 7y ago
    It’s not the alcohol. The same person who is violent with alcohol is usually violent without it - even alcoholism is not about the alcohol. There is almost always an underlying issue.
- everdev 7y ago
  The problem is people do unfortunately see those things as harming them. It's a misguided attempt to control the culture of their community, but in their mind I think they really feel threatened and harmed.
- zip1234 7y ago
  What about laws that are banning things that are not aesthetically pleasing? They recently made a law banning 'big-foot' houses near me. It 'harms' someone's view.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Unfortunately, that causes direct negative externalities. It reduces the values of other homes. For instance, when the bank forecloses on a house, it becomes their responsibility to keep the grass cut and the house maintained. It’s not enforced in a lot of places.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  Even concepts like 'harm' or 'someone else' are hard to agree with. If I sell a kid an illegal drug, am I harming the kid? If I sell it to a young adult who I have as much belief will make poor decisions as that kid, am I harming that young adult? If I sell it to a parent who I believe will neglect their kids, am I harming someone? If I sell chemicals that will cause birth defects, but the other party agrees to them (in the 2pt font fine print), am I causing a level of harm they did not consent to? If I build an incinerator behind my house that produces the most foul smelling, but not actually poisonous, fumes imaginable and run it every day, am I harming my neighbors? A person can (and plenty do) justify prohibition over the idea of preventing harm like you are saying. Take segregation. If I require all facilities to equally be accessible to males and females, am I harming anyone? I'm including things like changing rooms. Enough people will say yes. Go back a few generations and people would say the same about other forms of segregation even if today's response is that if someone was harmed by it then they need to get therapy and stop being abnormal.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    If I sell a kid an illegal drug, am I harming the kid? Laws are passed all of the time that recognize that children aren’t capable of making the same decisions as consenting adults. Hopefully few would argue that passing laws that a grown person having sex with a 10 year old should be enforced. That doesn’t mean that any type of sex between consenting adults should be illegal. If I sell it to a young adult who I have as much belief will make poor decisions as that kid, am I harming that young adult? If I sell it to a parent who I believe will neglect their kids, am I harming someone? If you run a retail shop and see that a parent is spending money frivolously and not feeding their kids are you morally obligated to not sell the item to them? There are so many things that parents can spend money on and not take care of their kids that can be argued about anything. That’s why we as a society have “must report” laws when it comes to kids where people who interact with children must report suspicions of abuse. If I sell chemicals that will cause birth defects, but the other party agrees to them (in the 2pt font fine print), am I causing a level of harm they did not consent to? Again that comes under the same concept of the difference between laws that carve out protections for children. Also cigarettes are harmful, but we as a society has decided that informed consent in big letters is enough and let adults make their own decisions. It’s also completely legal even under the ACA to charge more for insurance for smokers.
save_ferris 7y ago
The idea of "governing morality" was a key discussion point in the series, not my phrase. The crux was that alcohol was incredibly popular throughout the country, but a growing political, largely puritan faction gained enough to support to ban alcohol consumption on "moral" grounds (i.e. society should rise above the immoral vice of drinking because drinking causes immoral behavior.) Of course, alcoholism was systemic back then (the average American consumed 3-4x more alcohol back then than today IIRC), and this did cause societal issues. But the conservative ideology of "creating a more moral society will solve all problems" turned out to be a huge failure that was soundly rejected by society.
- corporate_shi11 7y ago
  That interpretation of prohibition looks past the very reasons why it was advocated for and ultimately instituted. You mention yourself that drinking caused real harmful societal issues, and it was these issues which prohibitionists sought to confront. You downplay this by trying to make it seem like the prohibitionists were guided by a petty morality, but their moral qualms with alcohol were rooted in its causing many social problems I think all could agree are wrong and harmful. The desire to create a more just, peaceful, "moral" society is not inherently conservative. The Left is just as willing and eager to legislate its own morality in pursuit of creating a world that is more consistent with its own moral vision.
  - brianmc21 7y ago
    As someone who lives in Massachusetts, I can wholeheartedly agree. The MA governor just banned vapes for 6 weeks or so then the legislature created some new laws and a hefty 75% tax. They banned menthol cigarettes and flavored vape juice. We are literally right where we started but with a bigger tax on vaping products. Now we can have a menthol cigarette and flavored vape black market. So much "progress"... Edit: I don't vape so I have no personal skin in the game just willing to call out politicians.
  - save_ferris 7y ago
    I'm not downplaying anything in regards to how they saw it, there's incredible documentary evidence backing up the idea that Teetotalers didn't see this as a public health crisis, they saw it as a moral failure of society. They believed that they could make America a more moral place by legislating away alcohol, which only wound up creating one of of the most powerful black markets in US economic history. Had the Teetotalers treated the situation like the public health crisis that it was instead of a collective moral failure, they could've accomplished the reduction in alcohol consumption without creating some of the most powerful organized crime outfits in US history.

by kiba 7y ago

scarface74 7y ago

Laws should only be passed when you’re harming someone else. The US has a long history of passing laws governing morality even if it isn’t harming anyone else from segregation, to laws against interracial marriage, to laws banning homosexuality.

nkozyra 7y ago
This pattern exists throughout history. When you look at it closely a lot of these laws (which have roots in old religious law) do have a kind of hook into "public safety." You can - through the lens of people without the technical capability to mitigate them - understand how the causality of certain acts were reflected in the creation of the laws. The argument that was made about alcohol was that it had a systemic, cascading effect on society. I think it's a fair argument at scope. Rampant alcoholism certainly can lead to a lot of larger societal problems. What prohibition proved, though, was that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Of course both alcohol and drug abuse are bad. But anytime the government is given more power, it’s always applied unevenly to poor and minorities. As much as some people love their guns for instance, the NRA and conservative politicians like Reagan were all for gun control when minorities were “exercising their rights”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    Believe me, I'm not arguing for legislating behavior and there's no shortage of hypocrisy when it's been done.
crdoconnor 7y ago
Laws mandating seatbelts work exceptionally well, though.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I agree, but even traffic laws are unfairly enforced to give police officers a reason to stop “suspicious looking people”.
- thrower123 7y ago
  I'd argue that the incessant beeping that all modern vehicles do when you don't wear your seat belt has more effect on enforcing seat belt usage than the threat of a ticket.
  - username90 7y ago
    I think you greatly underestimate seatbelt laws. Seatbelts were seen as bike helmets back then, almost nobody used them. For example, according to this study setbelt laws increased seatbelt usage from 6% to 70% in just a few years. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000145758190021X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000145...
hydgv 7y ago
>Laws should only be passed when you’re harming someone else. Cough cough DUI cough cough liver disease cough cough domestic violence
- freedomben 7y ago
  We should consider outlawing DUI and domestic violence
- kchamplewski 7y ago
  > DUI Is illegal and I don't think anyone here is arguing against that. > Liver disease That's harming you, not someone else. If the state pays for the healthcare requirements that then arise then a more nuanced argument can be made, but surely if it's your own liver and you pay for healthcare then you're harming no one else. > Domestic violence Once again, already illegal and I don't think anyone here is arguing against that.
  - hydgv 7y ago
    I like your arguments against gun control: murder is illegal already, after all.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      My argument against gun control is similar to my argument on the “War on Drugs”. It wouldn’t be enforced equally. Do you think they are more likely to arrest one of the good ol boys in the south for having a gun illegally or a minority? Also, the US has a poor history of actually getting rid of things that people want.
corporate_shi11 7y ago
>"The US..." Except laws or strongly enforced social norms surrounding homosexuality, race, etc are universal in the human experience and not unique to the US. Alcohol arguably does "harm someone else" when the alcoholic comes home and beats his family in a drunken rage, or when they lose their livelihood and cannot support their family anymore. It was these real issues affecting people other than just the drinker that the prohibitionists were confronting.
- dlhavema 7y ago
  Or when they get trashed, drive home and kill people along the way...
- scarface74 7y ago
  It’s not the alcohol. The same person who is violent with alcohol is usually violent without it - even alcoholism is not about the alcohol. There is almost always an underlying issue.
everdev 7y ago
The problem is people do unfortunately see those things as harming them. It's a misguided attempt to control the culture of their community, but in their mind I think they really feel threatened and harmed.
zip1234 7y ago
What about laws that are banning things that are not aesthetically pleasing? They recently made a law banning 'big-foot' houses near me. It 'harms' someone's view.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Unfortunately, that causes direct negative externalities. It reduces the values of other homes. For instance, when the bank forecloses on a house, it becomes their responsibility to keep the grass cut and the house maintained. It’s not enforced in a lot of places.
SkyBelow 7y ago
Even concepts like 'harm' or 'someone else' are hard to agree with. If I sell a kid an illegal drug, am I harming the kid? If I sell it to a young adult who I have as much belief will make poor decisions as that kid, am I harming that young adult? If I sell it to a parent who I believe will neglect their kids, am I harming someone? If I sell chemicals that will cause birth defects, but the other party agrees to them (in the 2pt font fine print), am I causing a level of harm they did not consent to? If I build an incinerator behind my house that produces the most foul smelling, but not actually poisonous, fumes imaginable and run it every day, am I harming my neighbors? A person can (and plenty do) justify prohibition over the idea of preventing harm like you are saying. Take segregation. If I require all facilities to equally be accessible to males and females, am I harming anyone? I'm including things like changing rooms. Enough people will say yes. Go back a few generations and people would say the same about other forms of segregation even if today's response is that if someone was harmed by it then they need to get therapy and stop being abnormal.
- scarface74 7y ago
  If I sell a kid an illegal drug, am I harming the kid? Laws are passed all of the time that recognize that children aren’t capable of making the same decisions as consenting adults. Hopefully few would argue that passing laws that a grown person having sex with a 10 year old should be enforced. That doesn’t mean that any type of sex between consenting adults should be illegal. If I sell it to a young adult who I have as much belief will make poor decisions as that kid, am I harming that young adult? If I sell it to a parent who I believe will neglect their kids, am I harming someone? If you run a retail shop and see that a parent is spending money frivolously and not feeding their kids are you morally obligated to not sell the item to them? There are so many things that parents can spend money on and not take care of their kids that can be argued about anything. That’s why we as a society have “must report” laws when it comes to kids where people who interact with children must report suspicions of abuse. If I sell chemicals that will cause birth defects, but the other party agrees to them (in the 2pt font fine print), am I causing a level of harm they did not consent to? Again that comes under the same concept of the difference between laws that carve out protections for children. Also cigarettes are harmful, but we as a society has decided that informed consent in big letters is enough and let adults make their own decisions. It’s also completely legal even under the ACA to charge more for insurance for smokers.

save_ferris 7y ago

The idea of "governing morality" was a key discussion point in the series, not my phrase. The crux was that alcohol was incredibly popular throughout the country, but a growing political, largely puritan faction gained enough to support to ban alcohol consumption on "moral" grounds (i.e. society should rise above the immoral vice of drinking because drinking causes immoral behavior.) Of course, alcoholism was systemic back then (the average American consumed 3-4x more alcohol back then than today IIRC), and this did cause societal issues. But the conservative ideology of "creating a more moral society will solve all problems" turned out to be a huge failure that was soundly rejected by society.

corporate_shi11 7y ago
That interpretation of prohibition looks past the very reasons why it was advocated for and ultimately instituted. You mention yourself that drinking caused real harmful societal issues, and it was these issues which prohibitionists sought to confront. You downplay this by trying to make it seem like the prohibitionists were guided by a petty morality, but their moral qualms with alcohol were rooted in its causing many social problems I think all could agree are wrong and harmful. The desire to create a more just, peaceful, "moral" society is not inherently conservative. The Left is just as willing and eager to legislate its own morality in pursuit of creating a world that is more consistent with its own moral vision.
- brianmc21 7y ago
  As someone who lives in Massachusetts, I can wholeheartedly agree. The MA governor just banned vapes for 6 weeks or so then the legislature created some new laws and a hefty 75% tax. They banned menthol cigarettes and flavored vape juice. We are literally right where we started but with a bigger tax on vaping products. Now we can have a menthol cigarette and flavored vape black market. So much "progress"... Edit: I don't vape so I have no personal skin in the game just willing to call out politicians.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  I'm not downplaying anything in regards to how they saw it, there's incredible documentary evidence backing up the idea that Teetotalers didn't see this as a public health crisis, they saw it as a moral failure of society. They believed that they could make America a more moral place by legislating away alcohol, which only wound up creating one of of the most powerful black markets in US economic history. Had the Teetotalers treated the situation like the public health crisis that it was instead of a collective moral failure, they could've accomplished the reduction in alcohol consumption without creating some of the most powerful organized crime outfits in US history.