Season of Prolonged Drought

On December 18, 1917, a Tuesday (which is a dumb day anyway), the geniuses in the U.S. Congress proposed the notorious Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited alcohol in the good old U.S. of A.

Warning: The only meaningful part is at the end of this missive.  Click at your own risk.  Not safe for work.  Your mileage may vary.  Void where prohibited.  The sleeves will ride up with wear.  Do not use near fire or flame.

Thirty-six States were needed to ratify the amendment.  The first to do so was Mississippi, which ratified the amendment on January 7, 1918; the 36th (the last State needed) was Nebraska, which ratified the amendment on January 16, 1919.

In total, the intellectually impaired governors of 46 States ratified the Amendment.  The only sanity in this mess were the good people of Connecticut and Rhode Island, both States rejecting this tripe as being un-american and likely perpetuated by godless communists.

Thus began the era of the teetotaler's joy, which, by sheer coincidence, just happened to coincide with the era of the rumrunner, the moonshiner, and the gangster.  It is the era of organized crime, and it lasted 14 years, 10 months, and 19 days.  It was 5,437 days of Puritanical induced, government sponsored misery.

When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.
 - A. Capone

The single most important lesson that could be learned by prohibition is that the people of the United States do not like being told what to do, and they are not above ignoring the law and rebelling.  As a direct result of Prohibition, a segment of the criminal element in the U.S. became fantastically wealthy, tacitly accepted by society, and politically influential.  Here I point wordlessly to Joe Kennedy and give him a hoist of the afternoon bourbon glass.

These people did not want prohibition repealed.

However, the Twenty-first Amendment was written with the sole and unadulterated function of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, and passed by the U.S. Congress on February 20, 1933.  It was ratified on December 5, 1933 by the unusual method of ratifying conventions as conducted in three-quarters of the States, and is the only Amendment to be ratified in this manner.

The other thing that's unusual about the Twenty-first Amendment is that it's written in plain English using simple sentences and one syllable words.  The meaning is clear and not open to interpretation.

So legalized liquor became the law of the land, and our political leaders ignore this history lesson, mainly because it's so damned inconvenient.

My only other observation is that this method was used successfully once, and once only.  That means the method has been tried and the legitimacy passed the sniff test - then everyone forgot about it.  Everyone, that is, except a select few interns who took a double major of Political Science and History, and are screamin' demon anti-freedom Moonbats.  These are the very few people who truly understand that what happened once could happen again, if the right people were in the driver's seat.

Amendment II: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I think it's entirely possible that this is the method that the Democratic party will use to disarm the free people of the United States.

I'm convinced that the current crop of office holders wouldn't know the method exists, but somewhere an intern or aide does know, and when that knowledge is passed to the duly elected Tree-Weasel along with a simple tactical plan, well... it could easily spell sayonara to the Two-A.

Me, I'm going to have a drink and clean my pistol.