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A comment on Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement. Parent comment

Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by rayiner on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @12:44AM (#10971998)
Most people don't think Prohibition was bad because it's a bad idea to outlaw a substance. They think it was bad because they don't think alcohol should be illegal. Similarly, while a majority of people now support legalization of marijuana, an overwhelming majority of people still support keeping cocaine and heroin illegal.
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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by CamperBob2 on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @01:29AM (#10972144)
True. Most people aren't very good at abstract thinking.
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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by antillean on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @04:50AM (#10972631)
That's not being bad at abstract thinking. That's thinking abstractly (and well), but just differently from you.
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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by CamperBob2 on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @07:48PM (#10977451)
Yes, it's being bad at abstract thinking. There's not much that cocaine, heroin, or even meth can do to you that alcohol can't. It's indisputable that we've made poor decisions regarding what drugs to ban -- marijuana as a Schedule I drug? Really? -- and IMHO the reason for that goes back to the fact that we didn't have an appropriate basis for banning any of them in a supposedly-free society.

As other posters have suggested (and been duly modded down for it), prohibition isn't really about the drugs.

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Re:Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement by existencebox on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @10:36AM (#10973882)
Is it really? The vast majority of Prohibition era issues were relatively substance independent, and given that we've seen the EXACT same public response, political/buzzword currents surrounding the pro-prohibition movements, and emergent criminal enterprise, I think it's fair to say that "prohibition of *" is a reasonable class to abstract by.

(Watching Ken Burns "Prohibition" is something I'd strongly recommend to just about anyone, not only is it a fantastic documentary as par for the course for Burns, but it was a steady stream of "HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF" in such stark terms as you rarely see.)

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