Restricting Freedom

Prohibition was one of the more tough times in the 1900's. It's funny, because it was supposed to be a time of more peace, and less violence for sure. But, like we have discussed plenty, this act completely backfired. Rather than civilize society and limit domestic violence, it created a sense of anarchy across the entire country of people who still wanted their alcohol. There was a lot of these types of restriction laws going on in this general time period, such as the laws restricting the freedom of speech, Espionage and Sedition Acts. What I find very interesting is the fact that the country felt the need to pull back on advancements. It was not a time when there were an incredible amount of technological advancements being made as a whole. However, I believe that the thought to restrict speech and, in general, rights, was because of the recent war. America wanted to restrict things in general. They stopped free speech during the war, they were extremely paranoid after it, when trying to squash out new ideas.  So while going along with that, Prohibition falls into both of those categories. It kept in line with America's habit of eating rights with restrict rights, however it was also a new idea. So it contradicted what people wanted. Which may be another reason why Prohibition was met with so much hostility and opposition. The other reason being people still wanted their alcohol. This is why Prohibition was such a difficult time in American History. There were so many reasons for people to not agree with Prohibition. In our discussions, we have approached the subject if the repercussions of Prohibition were foreseeable. To be honest, I think they should have been, because of the fact that the government should have seen the resistance to other laws that constricted freedom, the Espionage and Sedition Acts. There was also precedent, like we discussed, from the Revolutionary War.