I recently watched one of United Artists’ biggest hits, and that was “Thunder Road.” The ultimate action film with car races, outrunning treasury agents, and in the end, Robert Mitchum rolls his car, killing him, thanks to revenuers placing spikes in the road, which punctured his tires. I played “Thunder Road” in my theatres, and especially at the drive-ins, it did very well. The terms “Rum Runner” and “Revenuer” came into existence during prohibition.
Moonshine, or illegal, untaxed whiskey, was and still is, a way to avoid taxes, and a miniature ’war on drugs.’ Americans have been making whiskey since our founding over 200 years ago, and there was no problem, till D.C. made it so expensive with huge taxation. Moonshine is home brew that avoids absurd taxes. I took a swig of it back in the 1950’s down in southwest Virginia, and the batch I tasted was pretty smooth. When outrageous taxes are levied upon a semi-free people, such as America is in 2012, they will do all in their power to avoid them. This involves moonshine, the underworld, paying employees in cash, skimming, and a host of other ways that come naturally to a race whose sense of justice and ability to think logically, hasn’t totally vanished. One has to wonder if our ability to think logically, perhaps has been dimmed of late, when one sees that Mitt and Obama are equal in the polls. How can this be?
For every dollar spent in a liquor store for Evan Williams (superior to Jack Daniels and a lot cheaper), California wine, or whatever type of alcoholic beverage one may desire, just the federal taxes alone, are close to 50%, and to this, one must add state and local gouges. Millions making wine at home, thus avoiding these taxes, is legal and widely practiced. Back during prohibition, my uncles made beer in my grandparent’s basement, and once made a huge mess when a few of their newly filled bottles exploded. During prohibition, Americans wanted to drink, and that law made it illegal to make the stuff. Legally employed bartenders, beverage producers, and related job holders were out of work. Smugglers of Canadian hootch, illegal ’clubs,’ and moonshiners, did well. This was when the FBI was formed, and it has been with us ever since. Canadian distillers’ wares such as Canadian Club and Seagrams 7 were virtually unknown until prohibition, and the Bronfmans and others got rich from it. Joe Kennedy, the father of JFK and his brothers, made his fortune, having shiploads of Scotch offshore, just waiting for prohibition to be eliminated.
About the only good thing FDR did, was to get rid of prohibition, thus freeing Americans from doing what they wanted to do. During prohibition, Americans drank more alcohol than they did before and after, because it was illegal, and fraught with the thrill of doing something illegal, and having a good time at it. Cigarettes are smuggled between states to avoid taxes, but that has about been eliminated, since most Americans don’t smoke any longer. Cigarette smoking has been eliminated, for the most part, by doing nothing illegal. Just medical statistics being made public. My Dad began smoking at 15, was unable to quit, and died of lung cancer at age 63. I’m 78, never smoked, and am in almost perfect health. Making things illegal, such as the long past 55 MPH speed limits, prohibition, and the drug war, are simply absurd, costly, and deny us our freedoms. Smoking has almost vanished, and nothing illegal has been done to get rid of it. Just common sense. Before 1965, smoking was common. That’s when the medical statistics were published, and smoking has been going downhill ever since. Tobacco farming has become almost a lost occupation, and no laws were violated by smoking becoming almost extinct.
Drugs? I have never done them, and never will. I want my brain to be whole, and not affected by drugs. Recent statistics show that marijuana use, permanently dulls the brain, and I am certain that all drugs are brain destroying. If they were made legal, and related statistics of their effects widely distributed, I am certain their use would decline radically, and virtually disappear eventually. Think of the jails not full, and all the criminals importing drugs from South America and Mexico, being out of work. Like smoking; if some are so dumb as to do what harms them, so be it, and we’ll be rid of them. Why can’t we go legally to Cuba?
The silver blanks for Silver Eagles, are made in Idaho, by the same outfit that makes A-Mark silver rounds, which are $1.85 cheaper than Silver Eagles. The same company makes the blanks for both, but the government mint at West Point New York, takes the blanks they don’t make, and stamps them as Silver Eagles, and presto! A $1.85 more expensive one ounce silver coin.
Some have quoted the common numismatic sellers’ line that FDR ’confiscated’ everyone’s gold in 1933, and the government won’t ’confiscate’ your gold if it is in rare coins. FDR issued an executive order telling Americans to turn in their gold, so he would be able to print more gold backed dollars, in a futile effort to get us out of the Great Depression. That order was never enforced, and no one ever had their gold confiscated. If they did, how come the coin stores still have them to sell? I consider purveyors of that line, the equal of a used car salesman telling a customer that the car was only driven to church on Sundays by a little old lady. FDR got us out of the depression, by getting us into WW II.
Government makes out lives ever so difficult. We’ve got hope in less than 40 days, if we can take the Senate, keep the House, and elect Mitt. No, Mitt isn’t my favorite, but I’ll vote for him. Anything to get rid of Obama, the President about which we know less about than any President in history.