Legislative Damage Takes Time to Undo

Why are legislative messes so quick to be made but so slow to be removed once in place? After they are shown to move society further from the goal used to justify them, they should be immediately reversed.

If politicians can hide their mistakes without admitting or reversing them — and get away with it — that’s what they’ll do.

At most, cleaning up these messes is done piece by piece, as though searching for a way to keep as much of the mistake around for as long as possible.

Even the failed scheme of alcohol prohibition is still around; handed off to local governments, rather than completely reversed by the 21st Amendment in 1933. Governments are still allowed to get away with unconstitutional restrictions, taxes, and enforcement powers. The ghost of alcohol prohibition still haunts America. It’s why there are still “dry counties,” liquor licenses, and Sunday alcohol sales bans. If it’s wrong when done by the federal government, it’s still wrong when done locally.

It’s happening again with drug prohibition. It hit society all at once — not coincidentally just as the federal government was looking for excuses to keep employing all the useless prohibition enforcers — but only gets removed a little at a time, state by state. Never enough to stop the prohibition-fueled violence.

Maybe it’s finally moving in the right general direction, but replacing the eased prohibitions with prohibitions on new things — vaping for example — isn’t a net gain. Government has never had any business being involved with what people voluntarily consume.

It’s the same story with gun prohibition. Sure, more states than ever have passed watered-down relief for the rights violations, dishonestly calling it “Constitutional carry” when the Constitution allows no exceptions whatsoever, but other states and the federal government keep looking for new ways to enslave Americans on the perverse altar of “public safety.”

It’s said people get what they vote for, but most people either voted for the opposite or didn’t vote at all. They shouldn’t be shackled with the bad ideas other people supported. Those who vote for something should be the only ones who have to live under it; let everyone else be exempt.

Liberty must be restored, in every case where it has been criminalized and regulated with legislation. No matter what excuses are used to keep violating natural human rights — even those rights you care nothing about — it needs to be stopped.

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