VOTD: "The US Turns Away from the World to Prohibition and Crime"

"The US Turns Away from the World to Prohibition and Crime - Between 2 Wars I 1921 Part 1 of 2"--Time Ghost (17 min.)

         This video is an interesting summary of the rise of "progressivism," culminating in, among other things, the passage of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale and possession of alcohol. Prohibition, of course, also fueled a surge in crime, including providing the financing for the rise of large scale organized crime. Yes, organized crime had existed before, but it was of limited geographic impact, and mostly limited to crimes such as prostitution, gambling, and extortion. Prohibition resulted in a huge market for illegal liquor that had to either be produced in small distilling operations (moonshining) or smuggled into the country. Either way, it pumped huge amounts of money into organized crime gangs and the pockets of corrupt officials. The response from the government was similar to what we've seen with the "war on drugs," including undermining of the 4th Amendment to allow police to more easily search for smuggled liquor, and, eventually, the passage of the National Firearms Act to, ostensibly, disarm the gangsters.

      It is interesting to observe that prior to prohibition, it was accepted that the federal government needed a Constitutional amendment to ban a widely used and accepted product, but today it is just as widely accepted that the government can simply ban products by legislation or administrative rule-making.