Ending Prohibition

81 years ago today the prohibition of alcohol was lifted in the United States. For 13 years (1920-1933) the United States  “the manufacture, importation, sale, and transport of alcohol was illegal in the United States, Section 29 of the Volstead Act allowed of wine and cider to be made from fruit at home, but not beer. Up to 200 gallons of wine and cider per year could be made, and some vineyards grew grapes for home use. The Act did not prohibit consumption of alcohol. Many people stockpiled wines and liquors for their personal use in the latter part of 1919 before sales of alcoholic beverages became illegal in January 1920.” {1}

This is the very issue many have with government as it stands to be the supposed “moral compass” of a nation of individuals with individual wants, desires, vices and hobbies; the ability for a centralized group of people to quickly take away their rights. As the majority votes in government were able to stretch out their hands and grasp away the rights of peaceful people en mass, the people gave little real resistance and concern for their fleeting freedom.

This encroachment into the very hands and stomachs of the people was able to stand for 13 years. The eighteenth amendment to the US Constitution made outlaws of businessmen, it made felons of job holders, made criminals of producers. Those that resisted were those that made business of going around the laws; bootleggers and anarchists. Rum Running, Blockade Running, by car, truck, boat whatever means they could use, the underground market of alcohol grew and grew.

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed on December 5, 1933, with ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Twenty-first Amendment does not prevent states from restricting or banning alcohol; instead, it prohibits "transportation or importation" of alcohol in "any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States" "in violation of the laws thereof", thus allowing state and local control of alcohol. Following repeal of Prohibition, alcohol could be legally sold in some, but not all, townships or counties within a particular state, while other states continued to enforce prohibition laws.

And today we mark an anniversary of government reducing its tyranny just enough to allow, permit, heavily regulate and tax the business of spirit making. But we live in a country still that uses prohibition by government to try and be that moral compass. Today acts such as growing your own food, collecting falling rain water, the consumption and production of various substances and plants, being recognized in courts of law as married of certain groups of people, the amount of people you can be united legally with, cars to drive, products to use, are prohibited by government.

To say that America is a free country is a delusion and a fantastical use of imagination. No America is not free, it is highly regulated, permitted, licensed, restricted and prohibited. We may now have the ability to consume liquor and beer, to transport wine and spirits, to produce spirits for personal consumption, but it is all under legalese, under the close supervision of bureaucrats and regulators, up to certain amounts and certain guidelines are in place to hinder the free exercise of manufacturing and marketability of products on the domestic and world markets.  

Do not be fooled by quasi or semi legalization. Do not be culled by partial regulations. Do not be fooled by politicians and pundits who clamor for regulations, prohibitions and restrictions based on the notion of the government being a moral compass. Under the idea that men are bad and they will do bad things who would suppose that allowing some men to be the leaders of other men restricts that bad from the supposed leaders. If man cannot govern himself than no other man can govern him either.