What Happens When You Legislate Morality?
What Happens When You Legislate Morality?
by Bill Knell
I often hear the phrase “We are a nation of laws.” It's mostly used to remind people that, in America, we choose politicians to represent our views while crafting laws. Those laws are supposed to be guided by our Constitution. We, in turn, are expected to obey those laws even if we don't agree with them because majority rules. That's fine when it comes to things like fighting crime and staying safe. It fails when elected officials decide to take sides on issues involving morality. The perfect example of this is Prohibition.
Because of pressure from “Temperance” groups that saw alcohol as the prime cause of many societal ills, the federal government made the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages illegal in 1920. Temperance preachers made statements like, “Now we can close down all the ghettos” believing that alcohol was a major cause of poverty and child neglect.
Prohibition lasted for thirteen years. Poverty remained and crime rates soared thanks to gangsters who illegally imported or made their own beer, wine and liquor. Gang wars erupted over territorial control of illegal liquor sales in cities like Chicago and New York. These brought a new level of violence. Chicago crime lord Al Capone ordered the infamous Saint Valentine's Day Massacre which took place on February 14. 1929.
Capone's assassins, dressed as police officers, entered a garage used as a warehouse to store illegal booze by George “Bugs” Moran's Northside Gang. They murdered seven men, but Moran wasn't there at the time. The incident caused public outrage and focused federal law enforcement efforts on taking down Capone and others like him. Prohibition ended in 1933.
Another more recent hot button issue involved marriage. For the longest time it was defined as a legal union between a man and a woman. Anything else was considered immoral. This excluded the LGBT community from choosing to legally formalize relationships the way others could. Those relationships became legal when the Supreme Court acted on the matter.
Complicated arguments erupt when people are excluded from what they want. These exclusions are often defended by how what some people want affects others. Drugs are a good example. People who abuse drugs often resort to crime to support their addiction. Users can find their mental and physical abilities compromised making them potentially dangerous to others. While limited legalization of many types of drugs has worked in other countries, legalizing Marijuana here by some states has caused an increase in crime and violence. It remains illegal by the federal government.
Another example is Prostitution, which is technically illegal because of prohibitive federal laws surrounding it, with an exception for certain areas in Nevada. However, these prohibitions represent decisions based solely on morality. Yes, there can be health consequences, but probably a lot less than those of longtime smoking and alcohol use which remain federally legal and produce huge amounts of revenue in taxes.
The truth is that prostitution still occurs in many forms. High School girls (and boys) have made extra money for decades by providing oral sex in the back of cars at the mall. College students form small groups that offer sex for money to their peers and others. Streetwalkers sell their bodies to feed drug habits or just to survive. High end call girls work through Escort services and charge substantially more for sex. It may not be a “victimless” crime, but it seems unfair to pair it with other vices like illegal gambling and drugs.
These days politicians are intent on controlling every aspect of our lives. The USA has become a Nanny State thanks to overreaching progressives and morality driven conservatives. When requiring things like Salt Water Fishing Licenses in some places and making kid's Lemonade Stands illegal in others, you have to say YOU MUST BE JOKING. They are not.
A good example of politicians gone wild occurred in the South during the 1860s after the Civil War. Newly elected state representatives that replaced Confederate lawmakers sought to prove their worth by enacting laws they felt would better serve their constituents. Finding it difficult to locate causes worthy of their attention, they became concerned that as the popularity of ocean swimming increased, so did drownings.
After considerable thought on the matter, they decided to regulate wave heights. If waves got above a certain height, the beach would have to close. Yep. Perhaps that will happen again creating jobs for people paid to continually measure wave heights? Don't laugh. In the 1990s the feds created a $20 million funded study of Nocturnal Bovine Emissions (night time cow farts) that required federal employees hired specifically to go out into the field, interview ranchers and interact with livestock. Use your vote wisely before they take it away because they believe we are too dumb and irresponsible to run our own lives.
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