Monday, September 26, 2011

Prohibition: A Failed Social Experiment that Gave Us Income Tax ...

The income tax was first enacted to replace what the Fed. Gov?t primarily relied on for revenues: Alcohol Taxes. Prohibition was a failed social and legal experiment, but we need to learn from our history or we?re doomed to repeat the same mistakes again.

Historical Documentary: ?Prohibition?

I?m looking forward to this PBS series. I?m a history buff, and I?ll explain my interest, along with maybe my ignorance on the subject. If I?m wrong about the following, Ken Burns? ?Prohibition? series will inform me.

PBS Ken Burns Prohibition 600x187 Prohibition: A Failed Social Experiment that Gave Us Income Tax

PBS - Ken Burns - Prohibition

Conservatives can?t balance the books, Not even the Bible.

I personally feel that conservatives in our country have been the cause of most of our financial ills. In this case? Moralists felt alcohol was the evil ruining the fabric of society. So after a hard-fought and unlikely campaign, they got alcohol federally banned. This Social Engineering experiment failed, but not before creating a black market which bred a surge in organized criminal activity, exemplifying a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

What about our finances? The federal government used to get a large portion of its revenues from alcohol taxes. After it was banned, the ?deal? was that an income tax would need to be enacted. I don?t think this is the bad part. Our government is important to our way of life, and what it provides isn?t free. The problem is that so many people don?t realize this, or don?t value our government (conservatives) and they?ve successfully lobbied against taxes and for lowering them for since the ?70s. Now we have a $15 trillion debt because we didn?t stop spending, just quit bringing in enough revenue.

In summary, conservatives are sure they know how people should act, based on some convoluted interpretation of their holy book, which they?ve never actually read in its entirety, or some other equally bankrupt reasons, like ?Common Sense? or ?Gut Feelings?. So they pass laws that take away civil rights, which lead to awful unintended consequences like Al Capone of Prohibition (more examples? Try searching ?Freakonomics, abortion, crime rate? and then ponder how conservatives want to end Reproductive Rights because their god says so). Conservatives also create the need for things like ?income tax?, and then are so selfish and/or ignorant about finance, that they act like taxes are a conspiracy to scam them, which has led to our current debt crisis in America.

Anyways, hopefully this show is great, right?

Watch the full episode. See more Ken Burns.

Source: http://krisbunda.com/blog/index.php/2011/09/25/prohibition-a-failed-social-experiment-that-gave-us-income-tax/

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