Prohibition

And for all those decades of work (actually over a century), it blew up in their face (no pun intended) in less than two decades. Which goes to show again, that the Constitution is meant for enumerating rights and methods of governing, not mandating personal behavior.

Women were also a huge part of the temperance movement, and it can be argued that they were given the right to vote in exchange for Volstead. The pols figured that if the women were going to vote, then they better vote for what the women wanted.

There are many factors that went into Volstead, some of which you mentioned, plus, like I said, there were class issues as well. It's easy to say that hindsight is 20-20, and that was a much different era in terms of rights (such as the bans on criticizing the government during WWI, plus worker, women, and black rights). But I would have hoped the politicians would have thought things through before, essentially, trashing the Constitution like that.

To use a modern example, I'd cite abortion (sorry, slight threadjack). You have people who think that if there's a Constitutional Amendment banning it, that it'll just magically go away and we'll all live happily ever after. Except, we know, that wouldn't happen.

Oh, and I wasn't trying to misquote you. If I misinterpreted, I apologize.

 

If you read the Bill of Rights, you'll see that id does not enumerate rights. It limits rigths -- of the Government.

It says what the Government can't do.

God grants rights, not man.

President Obama once famously lamented that the Constitution was a charter of negative liberties.

 

I'd say it can be argued both ways. The 7th amendment gives the right to trial by jury in some civil cases, for instance. I'd find it hard to think that there is a God-given right to a trial by jury.

 

The concept of drunk driving didn't even exist back then.

As a matter of fact drunk driving wasn't even on the radar until the early 80's or so.

Until then you just got in your car, hoped you didn't hit anybody or saw a cop.

You drove on top of the the centre white line---just to make sure you didn't drift off the road. The white line was your guiding force. Well, that's what I've been told.

 

Man, I was all excited when I clicked on this thread. Hoping for a fun discussion rather than one guy who's clueless about the Prohibition era and appears not to have even watched the program.

 

Liked the first twoepisodes... Amazon dropped it to 28 bucks... trying to decide if I want to pull the trigger.

 

And I put in my first post that I didn't see the show, although I would have liked to.

And I don't see why you think I'm clueless with this. Like I said, hindsight is 20-20. But it should have dawned on the drys after a few years of speakeasies, bathtub gin, moonshiners, organized crime and corrupt cops that, while their intentions may have been noble (or not), that their idea for guiding the morals of the country just wasn't working. They were the ones who were naive.

 

And, with all due respect, you should have bowed out then. You're crashing a book club and you haven't read the book.

 

I read the Cliff Notes version. Isn't that enough?

 

YF, the statement God grants rights, not man, may or may not be philosophically correct, but is certainly false as a matter of history. Men make the decisions regarding rights that matter to other men.
PS: I think it would be accurate to say that the 13th Amendment also regulates behavior, in that it abolished slavery.

 

I wasn't speaking for myself so much as I was speaking to a broad belief.

Unalienable rights come from (a) God.

There was debate about whether or not to include a Bill of Rights, for fear it would be assumed any rights not specifically mentioned had not been granted.

So, you (mostly) have a list of things the Government can't do to infringe upon the rights you already have.

 

I thought about the 13th, too, but to me, the bigger issue was that it banned slavery, which took away the right to freedom from a race of people. Granted, it did take another amendment to give them rights, and it can also be argued (at least back then), that it was regulating a man's "property" rights. But to me, the fundamental freedom of a person is larger than a man's "property" rights.

Like abortion for instance. It could be argued that an amendment banning it assists the fetus' right to live. And that is a valid opinion. Except then you have a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, and you can say a ban would violate her rights to freedom for her own body. Which is the larger freedom?

Banning alcohol, on the other hand, merely took away freedom from a very large group of Americans. There was no benefit to those who took those freedoms away. If they didn't want a drink, no one was forcing them to have one.