This Prohibitionist Wavers

Yes, I have suggested perhaps we should have some form of prohibition. What, with about 40 percent of the murders and about half the rapes being connected to alcohol, if we can do something, should we not?

But, the reaction to the Prohibition of 1920 to 1933 does give me pause. The Moonshine Rebellion, we could call it. People dissed the law, disrespected the law, and disassociated themselves from the government making the law.

To this day, people view the right to drink as a personal liberty. To them, you aren't just taking their alcohol away, you are taking their freedom. And, you are forcing your morals on them.

Not right, they say.

I would counter that not all "freedoms" are protected. We do not have the right to commit murder, nor rape, so should we have the right to drink to the point of impairment, given that it greatly increases murder and rape?

This is more than one person forcing his morals on another. It is a matter of reducing crime.

Nor am I calling for a full prohibition, only a prohibition of drinking to the point of impairment.

Still, I hesitate. No law will be successful if the backlash against it brings hatred of the government that institutes it.

Alcohol does Lead to Murders, and is the Smoking Gun

Causation and the crime: Is alcohol to blame simply because alcohol is imbibed before a crime is committed?

We are talking about the statistics showing alcohol is involved in about 40 percent of our murders and 50 percent of our rapes.

I think with drunken driving (about a third of traffic fatalities are attributed to drunk drivers), most accept that there is a causation. We understand that alcohol impairs the ability to react, so we do not question that the driver's ability to operate the vehicle safely is compromised.

But, the relationship to violent crimes is not as easy. Still, to me, it is evident. A person on alcohol does have impaired judgement, and is more inclined to irrational decisions. Given this, when they commit murder, it is, indeed, likely their irrational decisions lead to the crimes. Maybe not every time alcohol is involved, is it a causing factor, but in many and probably most, it is.

If a man shot and killed another man, but nobody saw the shooting, but a crowd of people saw him seconds later, holding the gun and blowing the smoke from it, it would be circumstantial evidence. I imagine the shooter looking up at the person who spotted him. "You can't prove a thing," the shooter says.

Technically, he would be right. He could have happened to have shot the gun at something else.

But, not all circumstantial evidence is created equal. I say, even without a forensics test to determine the bullet came from his gun, the man would be convicted.

So I think it should be that we should see a causation with alcohol. If we know too much alcohol leads to irrational decisions, and a lack of good judgement in what we are doing, and if alcohol is taken in 40 percent of the murders and about half of the rapes -- if those figures are correct -- then, of course, alcohol should be considered one of the causation factors.

Take the Most-Damaging Drug and Spike it

If society were in position to reduce murder, rape, and other violent crimes, should it do so?

Be quick to say, "Of course," if you will.

So, what of alcohol? If the website linked below is correct, alcohol is a factor in 40 percent of our murders and half of our rapes. Alcohol use leads to more violent crimes than any other drug. And yet, it is alcohol that is legal. Is not there argument, then, that of all drugs, the one that should be outlawed is the one causing the most damage?

I will pause to say maybe not all alcohol use should be prohibited, but much of it should. Can we look at all the harms and simply sit back and say, "No, people just would not accept a prohibition."

Perhaps they should. Perhaps the public should be educated. Perhaps we, as a society, should say we will do something about murder, rape, and violent crime when it is in our power to do so.

http://www.ehow.com/facts_4759267_alcohol-related-crimes.html

Did Founding Fathers think of Alcohol as a Right?

Driving home, just now, I considered what freedom is, and what it was back in 1776, and whether it included the right to drugs, alcohol, pornography, and prostitution. I wonder if many (or any) writings or comments remain from our Founding Fathers, on this topic. Today, many consider the right to drugs and such to be rights, to be freedoms awarded them by the Founding Fathers. What thought the Founding Fathers, then? Was freedom to them simply the right of self-rule? Yes, there are quotes suggesting limited government, but did limited government, to them, mean alcohol and prostitution should not be infringed upon? Are there any quotes from the period, suggesting how they defined freedom and whether those definitions included freedom to drink and prostitute as one pleased? The Bill of Rights doesn't hardly say government shall make no law abridging the right to prostitute or drink alcohol. Is that simply because those were assumed rights, and no one imagined government would infringe on them?

Prohibition Increases Murder?

Outlawing alcohol increases murder rates? I don't think so, but some do. I posted on a Facebook debate site about whether prohibition of alcohol is a deterrent to its usage, and was surprise that more than one poster suggested outlawing the stuff causes people commit more murders.

I then learned murder rates did, indeed, increase during the Prohibition.

But, I also learned that apparently the increase wasn't due to the Prohibition. Much of the increase came in the African-American communities, and the African-Americans were not much involved in running illegal alcohol.

http://druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults3.htm

Those American, They Just Don't Drink

Those Americans, they just don't drink.

Although it sometimes seems every which way I look, I spot a bottle of alcohol, see someone with a drinking problem, our problem in America are evidently less than what it is in most parts of the world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357892/U-S-drinks-lowest-alcohol-developed-world-figures-reveal.html

Word is, the United States has one of the lowest drinking rates in all the developed world. I take heart in this. As American Exceptionalism is taking a beating with reports that our education is no longer at the top, and that others have passed us up in standard of living, it is good to hear good news.

Let's Take Technology, Use it to Provide Government Openness

How about requiring all personal expenses by any government worker by to be paid for on a card programmed to automatically post the expense to the Internet? The cards could be linked to automatically tally the expenses of all employess, and just like that we would know what percentage of government expense is for personal expenses (dinners, travel and such).