Drink Up, Ctd.

By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:

Balko's theory that "Prohibition was the pièce de résistance of the early 20th-century progressives' grand social engineering agenda" isn't right.

 

The temperance movements of the 19thC & 20thC were classic Protestant Christian movements, conservative in nature. Wesleyans, Methodists, arts colleges, working men's clubs, self-improvement, all that sort of thing. You could just as easily say it was "early 20th-century conservative Christians' grand social engineering agenda". All the more compelling since the war on drugs is its direct descendent and prosecuted just as vigorously by contemporary Christian conservatives. Failed social engineering can be a conservative enterprise as much as anything else.

Prohibition occurred during what is commonly referred to as the Progressive Era and was considered part of the progressive movement's agenda. And while "failed social engineering can be a conservative enterprise" there are plenty of modern-day self-proclaimed progressives who still back the war on drugs.