June 10 | The Drys and The Wets

The drys have their laws, the wets have their liquor.

A phrase from the prohibition to describe the way of things: liquor of all sorts, nominally illegal, available for purchase just about everywhere. 

To be clear, it’s a perfect contradiction. Public sentiment in one direction, private action in the opposite. Members of congress publically campaigning for prohibition while also very publicly drunk. 

We’re quicky to dismiss this kind of paradox as a thing of the past, as backhanded or incorrect, but there’s something to be said for the occasional bought of willful ignorance. 

Would that world have been a better place without any call for temperance? Any action long undertaken to, even poorly informed, try to shape the world into a better place?

Or would the world be better if no one had the guts to let their hair down, flip the bird at Uncle Sam and follow their gut?… Read the rest