There is no doubt that the Bible is clear that “drinking to excess” is a sin. And there’s no doubt that in the early 1900s that drinking to excess was so common that it was creating widespread social ills, destroying families, hurting businesses, and was a real social problem.
The question is, when sin is tearing at the fabric of society, is outlawing the sin the best way to solve the social problem.
It would be a massive understatement to say that the 18th Amendment had unintended consequences. Rather than erasing widespread drunkenness, Prohibition sparked a rise in crime and corruption. Saloons were supplanted by speakeasies, complete with secret passwords and off-the-menu hooch. Deadly organized crime ran rampant in cities and small towns as moonshine developed into a lucrative underground industry. The Great Depression only made things worse. The federal government spent a fortune trying in vain to enforce Prohibition, while simultaneously losing the potential revenue from taxing alcohol.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/women-campaigned-for-prohibition%e2%80%94then-many-changed-their-minds/ar-BB1aCyVK?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280
Almost 100 years later we haven’t learned anything from history or human nature, and we are in the exact same position with the abortion issue — and that with the advantage of already knowing the impossibility of enforcement and the needless lives lost BEFORE abortion was legalized by the courts.
We know that if we could overturn Roe v. Wade, the matter simply reverts to the states and that most states would still allow abortions. Even more unlikely if we could get all 50 states to outlaw abortions that we will have simply created another black market opportunity for organized crime to step into and fill the need, generate enormous profits, and as in the 30s, gain control of government.
Even knowing all that, the religious right has determined to put all their eggs in this basket. They have made a Faustian deal with the devil, agreed to elect a moral monster, wink at his racism, brutal oppression of the marginalized, his trampling of democracy and constitutional law, and his use of federal powers to enact revenge on his political foes, to say nothing of his gross immorality, financial fraud and political crimes.
This seems like a high price to pay to gamble on an outcome that history already tells us is certain to be worse than the condition we opposed. The real difference is this time is could lead to the collapse of our democracy and usher in a 2nd civil war. This gamble could end the “American Experiment” and prove that freedom is ultimately still a pipe dream.
The Vindication of Verbosity 