Government Can't Fix Bad Behavior


The change from just 15 years earlier, when most Americans saw alcohol as the root of the problem and voted to ban it, was dramatic. Prohibition's failure to create an Alcohol Free Society sank in quickly. Booze flowed as readily as before, but now it was illicit, filling criminal coffers at taxpayer expense.

Some opponents of prohibition pointed to Al Capone and increasing crime, violence and corruption. Others were troubled by the labeling of tens of millions of Americans as criminals, overflowing prisons, and the consequent broadening of disrespect for the law. Americans were disquieted by dangerous expansions of federal police powers, encroachments on individual liberties, increasing government expenditure devoted to enforcing the prohibition laws, and the billions in forgone tax revenues. And still others were disturbed by the specter of so many citizens blinded, paralyzed and killed by poisonous moonshine and industrial alcohol.

Supporters of prohibition blamed the consumers, and some went so far as to argue that those who violated the laws deserved whatever ills befell them. But by 1933, most Americans blamed prohibition itself.

WSJ


Culture can fix these problems by making it clear that they are problems.

But in a pluralistic society? Any culture is there as a hangover, not a foundation.

Instead of opting for stronger culture, most people opt for what is convenient, which is having institutions enforce a drug policy.

Institutions have one goal -- perpetuate themselves -- so they grow stronger and the citizen has to deal with literal insanity in the name of the War on Some Drugs.

I think it makes sense to legalize drugs, at least in certain areas, and to remove all welfare and treatment programs. Let nature sort out who lives and who dies, and let government weaken by not presiding over either process.

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