THE MORNING RANT: The Return of Prohibition Is Drawing Closer

Back in October 2020, during the heyday of the Covid “public health crisis,” I warned that prohibition would be returning. (The Response to Covid Has Set the Stage for a New Prohibition) To put it politely, readers strongly disagreed. Despite everything we’ve seen our ruling class do in the name of Covid and climate, and despite the capitulation of most people to the Covid and climate hype, the reaction to that article was that there is no way people would submit to a ban on alcohol.

I hope that is the case, but it doesn’t change the fact that our ruling class is going to try to prohibit you from drinking alcoholic beverages. Let me summarize why:

1) Alcohol is bad for your health, and for those harmed by the alcohol-impaired.

2) Even if alcohol were not bad for your health, you don’t need it.

3) Alcohol’s use of land, energy, and fertilizer cannot be justified with the clock ticking to save the planet from climate apocalypse.

Do you remember how fast things moved from a Biden official stating that gas stoves are problematic (in January 2023) to there being actual bans on gas stoves? It happened in just a few short months. (“New York Becomes the First State to Ban Natural Gas Stoves and Furnaces” – CNN – 5/03/2023)

A similar warning cry has now been issued by a Biden official about alcohol:

“Biden’s Alcohol Czar Warns New Guidance Could Be Only Two Beers a Week” [NY Post – 8/24/2023]

Americans could soon be advised to limit themselves to just two drinks a week, a top health official warned Thursday.

President Biden’s alcohol czar, Dr. George Koob, told the Daily Mail that the USDA could revise its alcohol recommendations to match Canada’s guidelines. In January, the Great White North began urging residents to limit their alcohol consumption to two drinks per week.

Canada is quite the role model. Having effectively banned various freedoms including speech, assembly, and transportation during the Trudeau era, Canada is working toward banning alcohol too.

Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, noted there are “no benefits” to physical health from drinking alcohol.

There are “no benefits” from alcohol…

You don’t need alcohol, so why should our ruling class allow you to consume it?

Please let me revisit some of the points I made in my piece from 2020, when I stated that, “it may not be in 2021 or even 2022, but when Prohibition II comes barreling at us, it will come fast, and a majority of people will quickly and willingly submit. Remember, we went from zero to Covid-sharia in a matter of weeks.” And since then, blue states moved from discussing “the downsides” of gas cars and gas stoves to banning them in a very short timeframe. These bans move like a wildfire.

For starters, if “the science” says prohibition is necessary, only a science-denier could oppose prohibition.

If epidemiologists and the CDC were to recommend prohibition, who could say no? If Anthony Fauci stated that prohibition would reduce the number of alcohol-related deaths per year, it would be a “scientific fact” that prohibition is necessary. When he said the entire economy must be shut down, it was taken as the word of God. What difference if he or one of his successors simply declares that wineries, breweries and distilleries must be shut down due to the public health crisis?

If “the experts” were to declare that prohibition (like masking and lockdowns) was necessary to save lives, only a selfish ghoul could oppose saving lives.

There are more than 10,000 alcohol-related traffic fatalities per year – including 200 children. Employing the PHD-level modeling used by Dr. Fauci, this could be reduced to zero with prohibition. Only a monster would choose a glass of wine over 200 children’s lives, right? With a couple of executive orders from our mayors and governors, no child will ever die again in a drunk driving accident. Covid experts taught me that this is logical.

But what about the 21st Amendment? Well, it simply repealed the 18th Amendment. But even then, none of that matters because the Constitution and all the rights it contains can be suspended if a politician declares an “emergency.” We learned that during Covid.

As we learned from Covid emergency orders, if the CDC / epidemiologists were to recommend prohibition, no law would even need to be passed. Prohibition is no further away than an “emergency” executive order from your elected officials. Would Gavin Newsom or Andrew Cuomo suspend all alcohol production and sales if there was a left-wing and media drumbeat to do so? In a heartbeat. Look at how they shut down all bars, schools, and restaurants.

Wasn’t prohibition already tried unsuccessfully back in the 1920s?

Remember, “true prohibition” has never been tried. If you get the whole world on board, then hooch can’t get smuggled in from outside the US. And the whole world climbed on board the Covid shutdown. Is global prohibition possible? Think of what is being asked for in the global warming accords - Europeans (as well as our own Democrats) are in favor of banning all forms of electricity production that make our current standard of living possible. Making the masses give up alcohol is a minor sacrifice compared to what has already been endorsed.

The moral panics and social contagions embraced by the left quickly become religious in nature, and then get embraced by the mainstream. Temperance will be the same.

There is every reason to believe that teetotaling will become just as virtuous as mask wearing. And frankly, for the large majority of folks who aren’t dependent on alcohol, giving it up is less of a burden than wearing a sweaty, steamy mask all day. Smokers were once a majority of Americans. Now they are outcasts. Drinkers may soon find themselves similarly shamed.

And again, it moves at the speed of an avalanche when the moral crusade is triggered.

The mob can be motivated quickly when it has a new crusade. Do you remember how fast your leftist friends went from casually using plastic straws to declaring that plastic straws are environmental bio-hazards that will destroy all life on earth if they aren’t outlawed immediately? That passion can be steered toward alcohol.

There is also the climate / environmental aspect of consuming alcohol.

And speaking of the environment, all that acreage devoted to barley farming and vineyards– which doesn’t even feed people – is a waste of resources, right? When you add in the fertilizers, pesticides, and draining of underground aquifers – your alcohol habit is literally killing the planet. Or so you’ll soon be hearing.

Once the prohibition crusade is underway, opposing it will also be racist.

Let’s not forget how racist alcohol consumption is. Your single malt whiskeys and IPAs are white privilege. Also, selling cheap rotgut to minorities is exploitation. Only a racist could oppose prohibition.

Again, while I dislike alcohol abuse and seek to ensure responsible drinking at any dinner or gathering that I host, I strongly oppose prohibition. But it’s coming.

When alcohol is declared a public health crisis, Americans will just submit to prohibition rather than be seen as bad citizens. Corporations will jump on the bandwagon if that is where the SJW-train they are riding takes them. Abstinence will actually seem appropriate since any pleasures in life are now frowned upon in “these unprecedented times.”

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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