View Full Version : Here's to 79 Years of Freedom!
Cigar
12-05-2012, 12:36 PM
On December 5th 1933, after a 13 year social experiment gone wrong, FDR signed the amendment to the Volstead Act that officially ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition.
Drink-Up
http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4538956606079903&pid=1.7&w=205&h=142&c=7&rs=1
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 12:46 PM
I have been, and I will do! After all, humankind has co-evolved with beer, in particular, and I am a highly evolved person! ;>)
Chris
12-05-2012, 12:48 PM
Freedom, see fact #4.
Here are five interesting facts about the slow demise of Prohibition:
1. Two states rejected the 21st amendment. North Carolina and South Carolina rejected the amendment before December 5. So the vote was far from unanimous.
2. Another eight states didn’t meet before December 5 and didn’t even act to vote on the 21st Amendment: Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota
3. One state didn’t end its version of Prohibition until 1966. Mississippi decided the keep its Prohibition laws for another three decades. As of 2004, half of Mississippi’s counties were dry. Currently, 17 states don’t allow any of their counties to be dry.
4. It was never illegal to drink during Prohibition. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, the legal measure that included the instructions for enforcing Prohibition, never barred the consumption of alcohol–just making it, selling it, and shipping it for mass production (and consumption).
5. The Cullen-Harrison Act, signed about 10 months before the 21st Amendment was ratified, allowed people to drink low-alcohol content beer and wine. Incoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the Volstead Act amended in April 1933 to allow people to have a beer, or two, while they waited for the 21st Amendment to be ratified. The first team of Budweiser Clydesdales was sent to the White House to give President Roosevelt a ceremonial case of beer.
@ Five interesting facts about Prohibition’s end in 1933 (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/12/five-interesting-facts-about-prohibition%E2%80%99s-end-in-1933/).
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 12:50 PM
There are, of course, still dry counties (to no avail).
Chris
12-05-2012, 12:51 PM
I have been, and I will do! After all, humankind has co-evolved with beer, in particular, and I am a highly evolved person! ;>)
I read somewhere years ago and wrote it down that the first historical traces of beer goes back to the Sumerians 3500 BC. Sumerian writing is the oldest known too. Wonder which came first.
Chloe
12-05-2012, 12:58 PM
It's kindof crazy to think about having alcohol being illegal like that. What would a party or a night with friends at their house be without some alcohol? Not that i drink though since I am still underage :wink:
oceanloverOH
12-05-2012, 12:59 PM
I read somewhere years ago and wrote it down that the first historical traces of beer goes back to the Sumerians 3500 BC. Sumerian writing is the oldest known too. Wonder which came first.
Definitely the writing came first. Initially, you had to write down the recipe for beer, so your results were consistent. Did you ever try to write anything legible after several beers? :occasion14:
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 01:02 PM
I read somewhere years ago and wrote it down that the first historical traces of beer goes back to the Sumerians 3500 BC. Sumerian writing is the oldest known too. Wonder which came first.
Archaeologists have convincing evidence that beer predates writing by a very long time, both in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as averred in this fine book, among others:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Archaeology-Early-Egypt-Transformations/dp/0521543746/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354730465&sr=8-1&keywords=the+archaeology+of+early+egypt
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 01:10 PM
Freedom, see fact #4.
@ Five interesting facts about Prohibition’s end in 1933 (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/12/five-interesting-facts-about-prohibition’s-end-in-1933/).
No offense ladies...,
Had it not been for women's suffrage, there would not have been prohibition. :shocked:
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 01:11 PM
It's kindof crazy to think about having alcohol being illegal like that. What would a party or a night with friends at their house be without some alcohol? Not that i drink though since I am still underage :wink:
Don't you forget it - 2 more years for you.
nic34
12-05-2012, 01:13 PM
Wow peter, a wet rug. :laugh:
Now on to legalizing pot!
Chloe
12-05-2012, 01:15 PM
Wow peter, a wet rug. :laugh:
Now on to legalizing pot!
Pot is definitely the prohibition of today in my opinion
Chris
12-05-2012, 01:16 PM
No offense ladies...,
Had it not been for women's suffrage, there would not have been prohibition. :shocked:
And suffering suffrage, enough to drive a good man to evil drink, led to its repeal. --Ducking and running :hiding:
Chris
12-05-2012, 01:17 PM
Pot is definitely the prohibition of today in my opinion
That immediately came to mind. Was the repeal because the people rejected it or because government saw an taxing opportunity to raise revenue?
nic34
12-05-2012, 01:17 PM
:grin:
Cigar
12-05-2012, 01:20 PM
Chicago gangster, Al Capone, is estimated to have made over $60 million (untaxed) on alcohol sales in 1927; a year when the average
worker made less than $1,000 annually.
Chris
12-05-2012, 01:21 PM
Chicago gangster, Al Capone, is estimated to have made over $60 million (untaxed) on alcohol sales in 1927; a year when the average
worker made less than $1,000 annually.
Exactly, and I'm sure the feds wanted to "tap" into that.
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 01:24 PM
Chicago gangster, Al Capone, is estimated to have made over $60 million (untaxed) on alcohol sales in 1927; a year when the average worker made less than $1,000 annually.
A Canadian beer-maker, Sleeman, boasts in their TV ads about having supplied Capone, cross-border. They say their beer is "notoriously good". :wink:
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 01:31 PM
I read somewhere years ago and wrote it down that the first historical traces of beer goes back to the Sumerians 3500 BC. Sumerian writing is the oldest known too. Wonder which came first.
Leavened bread and beer were accidentally discovered semi-simultaneously, according to the archaeologists.
patrickt
12-05-2012, 01:54 PM
And the staggering death toll? Irrelevant.
Cigar
12-05-2012, 01:56 PM
And the staggering death toll? Irrelevant.
It's why I built a Bar in my Basement ... I'm a responsible drinker. :laugh:
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 01:57 PM
And the staggering death toll? Irrelevant.
Human life remains the cheapest commodity. You and I are 100% expendable.
Chris
12-05-2012, 01:58 PM
It's why I built a Bar in my Basement ... I'm a responsible drinker. :laugh:
Leave the computer upstairs,
http://i.snag.gy/ZqjaZ.jpg
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 02:03 PM
1046
Freedom, see fact #4.
@ Five interesting facts about Prohibition’s end in 1933 (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/12/five-interesting-facts-about-prohibition%E2%80%99s-end-in-1933/).
Proving that prohibition just doesn't work, whether you go after consumers or producers.
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 03:24 PM
Prohibition actually didn't end, strictly speaking -- it was just rather liberally modified to restrict sales to licensees (very lucrative, those licenses -- and very politicized in some cases!). My barber was telling me that a sinkhole in the woods I had described to him sounded like a great place for him to set up a still.
Prohibition actually didn't end, strictly speaking -- it was just rather liberally modified to restrict sales to licensees (very lucrative, those licenses -- and very politicized in some cases!). My barber was telling me that a sinkhole in the woods I had described to him sounded like a great place for him to set up a still.
If you want to make a libertarian happy, get him drunk and talk to him about licensing. Couldn't agree more.
Chris
12-05-2012, 03:57 PM
If you want to make a libertarian happy, get him drunk and talk to him about licensing. Couldn't agree more.
Talk about licensing to a libertarian and he'll want to get drunk.
Licensing is just another form of redistributing wealth.
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 04:00 PM
Talk about licensing to a libertarian and he'll want to get drunk.
Licensing is just another form of redistributing wealth.
It certainly is a form of concentrating wealth. (Wish I had a Budweiser distributorship.)
Chris
12-05-2012, 04:17 PM
It certainly is a form of concentrating wealth. (Wish I had a Budweiser distributorship.)
True. Licensing regulates practice to a few and thereby either maintains a status quo of wealth for them or by creating a shortage driving the prices they charge up.
At the same time it regulates competition which would likely otherwise result in better products and services.
Talk about licensing to a libertarian and he'll want to get drunk.
Licensing is just another form of redistributing wealth.
True. Licensing regulates practice to a few and thereby either maintains a status quo of wealth for them or by creating a shortage driving the prices they charge up.
At the same time it regulates competition which would likely otherwise result in better products and services.
Oh boy I think you're right. It works the other way too. I think I need to get back home soon and hit up my bottle of egg nog.
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 05:08 PM
True. Licensing regulates practice to a few and thereby either maintains a status quo of wealth for them or by creating a shortage driving the prices they charge up.
At the same time it regulates competition which would likely otherwise result in better products and services.
And it introduces (or should) some safety standards so we don't have to wait and see which unscrupulous enterprise is poisoning people....
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 05:10 PM
Human society just isn't a simple subject, is it....
Chris
12-05-2012, 05:14 PM
And it introduces (or should) some safety standards so we don't have to wait and see which unscrupulous enterprise is poisoning people....
People die anyway, despite those supposed safeguards. The idea that licensing bestows some sort of expertise is absurd.
Chris
12-05-2012, 05:17 PM
Human society just isn't a simple subject, is it....
As Hayek put it, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
And yet there are those who, with a fatal conceit, a vision of the anointed, believe all you need to do is throw more money or intelligence around and they will solve all problems.
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 05:37 PM
People die anyway, despite those supposed safeguards. The idea that licensing bestows some sort of expertise is absurd.
Enjoy your spoiled milk. Once I see you get sick, I will know not to buy from your grocer.
nic34
12-05-2012, 05:37 PM
Though the liberal certainly does not regard all change as progress, he does regard the advance of knowledge as one of the chief aims of human effort and expects from it the gradual solution of such problems and difficulties as we can hope to solve. Without preferring the new merely because it is new, the liberal is aware that it is of the essence of human achievement that it produces something new; and he is prepared to come to terms with new knowledge, whether he likes its immediate effects or not.
Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it - or, to put it bluntly, its obscurantism.
F. A. Hayek
nic34
12-05-2012, 05:38 PM
Enjoy your soiled milk. Once I see you get sick, I will know not to buy from your grocer.
Here, here!
Chris
12-05-2012, 05:41 PM
Enjoy your soiled milk. Once I see you get sick, I will know not to buy from your grocer.
That happens even with regulation.
Chris
12-05-2012, 05:42 PM
Though the liberal certainly does not regard all change as progress, he does regard the advance of knowledge as one of the chief aims of human effort and expects from it the gradual solution of such problems and difficulties as we can hope to solve. Without preferring the new merely because it is new, the liberal is aware that it is of the essence of human achievement that it produces something new; and he is prepared to come to terms with new knowledge, whether he likes its immediate effects or not.
Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it - or, to put it bluntly, its obscurantism.
F. A. Hayek
You do realize Hayek was a classical liberal, and not modern liberal whom he would identify as a socialist.
corrocamino
12-05-2012, 05:44 PM
As Hayek put it, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
And yet there are those who, with a fatal conceit, a vision of the anointed, believe all you need to do is throw more money or intelligence around and they will solve all problems.
The classic throw-money-around case that stands out in my mind is the pathetic tale of the "magnet schools" of Kansas City, Missouri.
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 05:53 PM
That happens even with regulation.
Right, but not to the same degree as if there was no regulation.
Chris
12-05-2012, 06:54 PM
Right, but not to the same degree as if there was no regulation.
How would you measure that?
--------------------
How did man ever survive to the point he thought he needed such governmental protection?
Captain Obvious
12-05-2012, 06:59 PM
How would you measure that?
--------------------
How did man ever survive to the point he thought he needed such governmental protection?
It's hard to measure stuff now because regulation is in place and is working.
That wasn't the case say 50 or 100 years ago where it was pretty easy to measure in hindsight.
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 07:56 PM
How would you measure that?
--------------------
How did man ever survive to the point he thought he needed such governmental protection?
Life is a lot more complicated these days.
In a small village 3000 years ago, you would have a pretty good idea whether your neighbor with the milk was making a good product....
Chris
12-05-2012, 09:34 PM
I'm thinking we might be able to compare nations that have high regulations/less economic freedom to nations with the opposite. We could look to the Index of Economic Freedom. But would have to find data on food stuffs and poisoning.
I'm not sure I buy the "it takes a village" argument--partly kidding. While the store I go to might get milk from out of state or even country, it knows it can keep its customers only if it sells fresh foods. The free market imposes such incentives. The only incentive government creates is fear of being sued on grounds you didn't follow some central planning committee's idea of safety.
What about UL Standards?
Peter1469
12-05-2012, 09:59 PM
I'm thinking we might be able to compare nations that have high regulations/less economic freedom to nations with the opposite. We could look to the Index of Economic Freedom. But would have to find data on food stuffs and poisoning.
I'm not sure I buy the "it takes a village" argument--partly kidding. While the store I go to might get milk from out of state or even country, it knows it can keep its customers only if it sells fresh foods. The free market imposes such incentives. The only incentive government creates is fear of being sued on grounds you didn't follow some central planning committee's idea of safety.
What about UL Standards?
It will be hard to know. We don't have a free market here. I have no ability to buy unpasteurized milk without going to Maryland (not that this is hard; I am next to it).
nic34
12-06-2012, 09:50 AM
You do realize Hayek was a classical liberal, and not modern liberal whom he would identify as a socialist.
Realize it completely. He also did not consider himself a conservative in any sense of the word. In fact he considered himself an "old" Whig.
He rejected socialism, but conservatism as well. In fact he said:
Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing.
Mister D
12-06-2012, 09:54 AM
Realize it completely. He also did not consider himself a conservative in any sense of the word. In fact he considered himself an "old" Whig.
He rejected socialism, but conservatism as well. In fact he said:
Hayek was a European. The term "conservative" meant something quite different than what it means in the American context.
Chris
12-06-2012, 09:58 AM
Realize it completely. He also did not consider himself a conservative in any sense of the word. In fact he considered himself an "old" Whig.
He rejected socialism, but conservatism as well. In fact he said:
Indeed, an essay, "Why I Am Not a Conservative," in The Constitution of Liberty:
At a time when most movements that are thought to be progressive advocate further
encroachments on individual liberty,[1] those who cherish freedom are likely to expend
their energies in opposition. In this they find themselves much of the time on the same
side as those who habitually resist change. In matters of current politics today they
generally have little choice but to support the conservative parties. But, though the
position I have tried to define is also often described as "conservative," it is very different
from that to which this name has been traditionally attached. There is danger in the
confused condition which brings the defenders of liberty and the true conservatives
together in common opposition to developments which threaten their ideals equally. It is
therefore important to distinguish clearly the position taken here from that which has long
been known - perhaps more appropriately - as conservatism.
Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread
attitude of opposition to drastic change. It has, since the French Revolution, for a century
and a half played an important role in European politics. Until the rise of socialism its
opposite was liberalism. There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of
the United States, because what in Europe was called "liberalism" was here the common
tradition on which the American polity had been built: thus the defender of the American
tradition was a liberal in the European sense.[2] This already existing confusion was
made worse by the recent attempt to transplant to America the European type of
conservatism, which, being alien to the American tradition, has acquired a somewhat odd
character. And some time before this, American radicals and socialists began calling
themselves "liberals." I will nevertheless continue for the moment to describe as liberal
the position which I hold and which I believe differs as much from true conservatism as
from socialism. Let me say at once, however, that I do so with increasing misgivings, and
I shall later have to consider what would be the appropriate name for the party of liberty.
The reason for this is not only that the term "liberal" in the United States is the cause of
constant misunderstandings today, but also that in Europe the predominant type of
rationalistic liberalism has long been one of the pacemakers of socialism....
@ http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/hayek-why-i-am-not-conservative.pdf
Hayek, back then, was probably best described as an Individualist, what we now call libertarian.
patrickt
12-06-2012, 03:55 PM
Life is a lot more complicated these days.
In a small village 3000 years ago, you would have a pretty good idea whether your neighbor with the milk was making a good product....
Now, it doesn't matter. The SWAT team will descend on the dairy regardless.
Mister D
12-06-2012, 04:21 PM
I just bought a bottle of Tullamore Dew. Quality Irish whiskies are my workhorse whiskies. I prefer single malt scotch but I limit myself to a 2 or 3 glasses a week. Even if you stick to less expensive brands like The Glenlivet and Glenfiddich you are still talking $40 a bottle. I have a bottle of Lagavulin at home and I'm hoping it lasts another month or so.
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