The End of Prohibition and the start of Social Security 12 19 2025

 So towards the end of Prohibition FDR acquired the rights to sell some foreign alcohol brands in the United States.

Then it was legalized under his administration.

Then he created Social Security.

So can I say this?  He created Social Security so that the population would have money to buy alcohol?

So what if I do assert that to be true in some way.

So there was talk that someone receiving welfare shouldn't be allowed to spend it on alcohol and cigarettes?  The idea being that money should go to feed and clothe their kids first?

But lets say that you put that in place like that.  Then couldn't you also mandate that money paid to any federal employee can't be used to pay for alcohol or cigarettes?  Bear with me here.  An extension of that being military service members can't use that pay to buy alcohol or cigarettes?

But how many veterans are homeless?  And also their suicide rate is very high.  So somehow you would attempt to convince me that if you took away their right to buy alcohol and cigarettes with that standing army in times of peace money it would make their outcomes in terms of housing and life expectancy worse?

So could it be said that you pay military service members so that they can buy alcohol and cigarettes too?

Well, I am of the opinion that if you give someone money it is their right to spend it as they choose.  It is theirs.  But still there is the issue of what makes a better life?

And maybe here is what I believe to be the crux of the issue.  Perhaps when they drink and smoke they believe that they are more happy like some famous person, movie star, rich person is?  Selling the idea that somehow those people are happier?  I just don't buy that argument.  But it is easy to fall into that trap?  I mean what if I said it really amounts to propagandizing addictive and cancerous sickness?

By the time you figure out what is wrong with you and the mistakes that you made that caused it, it will be too late.

And so indeed.  Perhaps you are good with that.  You accept responsibility for that outcome.  But did you look around you and notice how it might have affected your family?

© 2025 Thomas Paul Murphy