She embarked on a campaign of destruction of saloons which she christened "hatchetation."
She described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like."
Her tombstone epitaph: "She Hath Done What She Could."
The lesson in all of this is glaringly obvious.
Reformers and fanatics of all kinds could take note of all of this, and take note of the end result of all of it, and learn something. But, of course, one of the hallmarks of a reformer and fanatic is the inability to learn from history. In this case, Al Anon, with its extraordinary insight into acceptance of the behavior of others, wasn't founded until 40 years after Nation's death, 31 years after the passing of the 18th Amendment and 18 years after its repeal. Hindsight shows that no amount of moralizing, hatchetation, Bible thumping, maniacal evangelicism, prohibition or any other damn thing made a bit of difference in the face of alcoholism and "the evils of drink." In fact, many of these desperate and agonized and inflamed actions had the opposite effect. Dr. Bob describes how, when the 18th Amendment was passed in 1920, he figured he was safe and it would cure his alcoholism, so he laid in a huge store of booze beforehand and determined to drink it all and then quit. But of course, he ended up drinking more during Prohibition than he had before, because that's exactly the kind of thing an alcoholic would do. And he decided to drink the worst kind of bathtub rotgut and homemade beer because that's also what alcoholics do.
On the other hand, normal people responded the way normal people do. Alcohol consumption during the 1920's was half that of the preceding decade. The rate of cirrhosis was also cut in half. But by 1930, things started to even out, consumption began to climb back to pre-Prohibition levels and the misery of course went on unabated.
The term "bootlegger" first appeared in 1889, and seems to have first meant someone who hid a knife or a weapon in their high boots. The suffix "-legger" was briefly popular in word formation regarding the smuggling of any forbidden item, such as "meatlegger" during WWII food rationing or "book-legger," regarding banned books such as Joyce's Ulysses. It is hilarious to imagine some porn addict, desirous of smut, getting hold of a smuggled copy of Ulysses and eagerly reading it, and saying "what the fuck is this."
Most normal people are normal in regard to whatever the abnormal is because they just don't care very much. A person normal with regard to alcohol can take it or leave it. If it gets banned and if there are criminal penalties, a normal person thinks, well, it's not so great anyway, who cares? I'll just stop. Or maybe porn doesn't move them. Or they don't have that great a time on weed, or they don't really like sweets, or what have you. So, by default, all prohibitory laws are attempts at dealing with abnormal behavior, and the irony of course is that the abnormal will find a way to engage in that behavior, even under the most severe threat of sanction.
I guess there are people on the fence, who, if something is not prohibited and is freely available, will indulge almost as if they are addicted, but, if that substance or behavior is then prohibited by law, will moderate or stop altogether. I suppose this is why prohibitory legislation does seem to have a mitigating effect on highly destructive behavior, such as drunk driving or gun violence. Often, the mitigating effect is significant enough to make the legislation a good idea. I think probably this is in areas where consciousness gets raised, people realize they are being anti-social and that their behavior has consequences, and they moderate or stop. Reduction in gun violence via strict legal measures may remind many normal people that they really don't care about guns all that much, and when the guns are removed from their situation, they have no option for gun violence, so the rates go down. I don't care about guns at all. I never wanted one around. I have fired many different types and they are kind of cool, but who cares? That's my attitude. So I don't have a gun around. So at certain moments of my life when maybe I would have thought to use one, I didn't even have one, and so gun violence was prevented. I think in particular about suicide. Research shows that gun inflicted suicide is the most impulsive, the most frequently linked to intoxication, and the least apparent beforehand. For obvious reasons, it's also one of the most fatal. So, if a person is normal with regard to guns and doesn't really care about them one way or the other, they won't commit that kind of suicide. And the research indeed shows not only a reduction in gun inflicted suicide but also a reduction in suicide rates overall when strict gun laws are enacted.
Addicts and alcoholics absolutely do not give a shit. You might as well make stupidity illegal, for all the effect it would have on our species. The most humane prohibitory laws around addictive substances or behaviors would allow active addicts to continue legally in their behavior. Because that behavior is going to continue utterly without regard to legality or social sanction anyway. Harm reduction would have to focus more on actually reducing harm, rather than trying to force people who cannot stop behaving harmfully to stop, or throwing them in prison. Much like some of the 17 year old students I used to teach in mathematics who were failing, hated math and just couldn't get it, it's too late. There's no way, in 180 days of school, that 12 years of shitty math education and confused neural pathways can get sorted, especially not in a 17 year old mind. It's too late. This is why I used to pass a lot of students who technically were failing. Why should I be the one to punish them for the previous 12 years of shit education to which they were subjected? As far as I was concerned, they had a Get out of Math Free card. The same would work best for criminal justice regarding alcoholism and addiction. "Here, here's your alcoholic's license. Kill yourself or get sober, we don't care."
All of these reflections go to the larger realities. Does hatchetation ever work? If so, why? Under what circumstances is it effective for us to embark on our journey of outrage with our wagon full of rocks and our little hatchet? And in what contexts is it not only futile, but also dangerous and insane?
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