Given the postponement of the vote on banning drink specials in East Baton Rouge Parish, I know how I will be spending my weekend. Simply put, I will be lying prone on my floor, armed with a shotgun, in fear for my life from the waves of drunken violence and general shenanigans that occur in the hippie enclave I live in.
Wait, none of that ever happens, well, ever.
Of course, I do not expect those individuals pushing this ordinance to note that the overwhelming majority of students who drink are law-abiding folks, who use drink specials less to get trashed and more to protect their pocketbooks.
What is it, then, I wonder, that drives the prohibitionist mindset? I’ve put myself on record before that I oppose restrictions on personal behavior, be it drug use, tobacco smoking or alcohol consumption.
I believe in a free society such restrictions should be left up to individual choice, as well as the business of those who own the property on which such things occur.
Unfortunately, we live in a less than perfect society of government-enforced smoking bans, groups of narrow-minded individuals crafting discriminatory legislation and a “war” on drugs. So on to my original question, what exactly is it that drives the people behind these restrictions?
In the past, I believe the prohibitionists were driven by the twin demons of fanatical piety and envy. As religious folk, they had the missionary instinct that drives all prostelyzing faiths. The notion that a man should enjoy, an occasional drinking bout was inimicable with bringing about a clean, Christian society. So is forcing, by the point of a gun, people to believe your ideology, but I pass that one by.
The second point, and here I tip my hat to Henry Mencken, is general envy. Hell, they’d think, here’s this man, a city man (as cities, the incubi of sins, were almost uniformly opposed to Prohibition) enjoying himself a nice mixed drink, while I’m stuck here with this moonshine. Predictably, they’d find a way to get their representatives, first in their state, later in Congress, to deny this man his right. All from envy.
Of course, we live in happier, more enlightened times. No longer are people kept from their pleasures for reasons of purely scriptural matters, unless, of course, they engage in homosexual relations. Instead, our modern prohibitionists have developed elaborate measures to show they enact legislation because they care.
They are, of course, not legislating morality, although you’ll hear the occasional hidebound conservative actually say this, but they are simply concerned with issues such as students drinking themselves to death or drunk driving. Most rational people, I’d think, would simply ask why we don’t enforce the laws we have on the books. But no, that’s simply not enough.
While everyone deplores what happens when bad things happen when are under the influence, can we agree that it is the individual at fault, not the drink, drug, etc., and certainly not all of us? And while, of course, they may believe they are doing the right thing and helping society, they are indirectly supporting black markets, binge drinking and all assorted human ills they are desperate to combat.
I speak, of course, of the new prohibitionists generally, and perhaps that is a little unfair. The CCCC, which originally incorporated fairly broad-based support both on and off campus, seems to have run out of things to do besides proposing ordinances that are, I’d wager, nearly unanimously opposed by the campus element. At least we know who they are, and they are willing to engage in debate, even if its director, Nancy Matthews, doesn’t return our calls.
What we need are the students of this campus to embrace freedom, real freedom. Whether one smokes, drinks or uses drugs, it is time, at least in our generation, to simply allow individuals to relax and enjoy themselves as they see fit.
Enforce your morality on yourself, and let the rest of us be.
Ryan is a history senior. Contact him
at [email protected]
Another round of prohibitionists
March 10, 2006