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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Less free than under Lincoln, who essentially governed under martial law? Less free than under Wilson, during whose presidency Bureau of Prohibition ran roughshod through the nation searching for illegal booze? Less free than under Nixon, who initiated the "war on drugs" and Reagan, who really militarized it?

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Definitely less free than under Wilson. Prohibition was a failure on all fronts[1], and did significantly increase the prison population. But it has nothing on modern drug policy[2].

[1]: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1...

Incarceration rates aren't the only measure, though. Prohibition agents invaded the privacy and property of ordinary mainstream Americans in a way that in the drug war has been limited mainly to minority communities.

If by "ordinary, mainstream" you mean white, you need to remember that the Irish, the Polish, etc. were not considered white at this time.

(not trying to be racist, just trying to accurately describe a racist system)

I don't mean white. Prohibition agents didn't just hassle the Irish and the Polish (though they did particularly focus on immigrants). The invasive nature of Prohibition extended to everyone, across racial lines. Arguably that's why the drug war has lasted so much longer than Prohibition--so far the major injustices of the drug war have been limited to people outside the social mainstream.

> Less free than under Wilson, during whose presidency Bureau of Prohibition ran roughshod through the nation searching for illegal booze?

Clarification: Wilson vetoed the National Prohibition Act, a.k.a. the Volstead Act, but the veto was overridden. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_Uni...

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