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Showing posts from September 13, 2026

The Reason You Prohibit Things

 You want less of them. That’s the reason. You may find that it’s too hard to stop people from doing the thing, literally blood, sweat, and tears trying to prosecute people, but that’s a different thing. We can decide that a pothead doesn’t deserve to rot in prison until he’s dead. Full legalization is a different matter. Most people are stupid. Better said, most people are simple: if the government says something is OK, they do it if they want to. If it’s illegal, that’s all the coercion most people need to never do whatever it is. As much fun as it would be to play poker with Larry Elder, Neal Boortz, and the ghost of Ayn Rand, the charming belief that most people decide for themselves what is right and wrong regardless of what the government says is the most utopian nonsense ever. Despite his liberalism, Ken Burns and his friends do the best historical documentaries I’ve ever seen. The one on Prohibition is amazing. William Wheeler, who spearheaded the effort to make alcoholic b...