by Chris Black
Libertarian arguments be like: “Banning something actually helps it. We can only defeat porn and drugs by allowing them to be freely disseminated in society, including to children!”
These horrendous arguments may have worked 30 years ago, but not anymore.
We’ve witnessed two generations be decimated by porn and we know it’s time to act.
The idea that prohibition “didn’t work” has always been an egregious “just-so” assertion based on literally nothing.
If your standard for effective policy is all or nothing, then no policy on ANY issue is actually effective.
Nobody ever said that prohibition would 100% eliminate the prohibited behavior. The point is that we set boundaries and even if someone bends those boundaries a little, they are ultimately still acting with those boundaries in mind.
The fact is, alcohol abuse and the related illness and death became less common as a result of alcohol prohibition. The only argument against prohibition is that it didn’t completely and totally eliminate alcohol consumption, therefore it was wrong to even try, because reasons.
Drivers often violate the speed limit, but we still have speed limits. People who cry “prohibition doesn’t work!” would have you believe that doing 40mph in a 35mph zone is no different from doing 70.
If a cop sees you doing 40 in a 35, he will most likely just leave you alone. But if he sees you doing 75, the speed limit empowers him to stop you from endangering other drivers. This is the whole point of having the speed limit in the first place.
This is the kind of thing that should be so obvious as to feel silly explaining it out loud…
But I guess libertarians are so out of touch with reality that they actually need to hear this.