Vaniver comments on Value evolution - Less Wrong

14 Post author: PhilGoetz 08 December 2011 11:47PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 09 December 2011 09:37:16PM 0 points [-]

That's very interesting, but corrupt city machines don't gain revenue from liquor licenses if all licenses or consumption of any kind are banned

Where do you think you buy employment as a policeman?

do you have any reason to believe the nation-wide movement to push through an entire Constitutional amendment, which succeeded in 46 of the 48 states, was even slightly assisted by the interest of would-be corrupt policemen?

I suspect it was mostly pushed by identity voters who didn't know how things would turn out, but I imagine that the eyes of clever gangsters and corrupt policemen all lit up when they heard about it. I suspect that they put little effort into opposing it, which could count as assistance. If any of them did support it, I imagine it was as secretly as they could manage, and thus it might be difficult for us to know about even now.

Comment author: Prismattic 10 December 2011 01:18:51AM 2 points [-]

Minor bit of historical non-trivia here: The Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, before "One man, one vote." At the time, the US still had a "rotten borrough" problem, and furthermore, the average "wet" district had far more people in it than the average "dry" district. Prohibition passed in spite of the fact that a majority of voting-age citizens probably opposed it.