Why Did America Ban Alcohol? | Francis Teaches Me About The Prohibition Era - video Dailymotion

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Dana B | Francis Tutors Dana Beers

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00:00Hi Dana. Hey! We're back. I got energy today. Me too. I got a lot of energy. How are you doing?

00:06I'm doing great. I've worked out 10 days in a row. I've intermittent fasted 10 days in a row.

00:11I've dieted 10 days in a row. I'm so happy to hear this and I prohibit you from relapsing into

00:19your old ways. That's a hint isn't it? I prohibit. Sounds like ribbit. From going back to drinking

00:27seven beers in an evening and being a disgusting pig. Seven is... we don't do pussy numbers over

00:33here. Yeah I know. We do more like 15 to 18. Prohibition. This is a very good topic. It's

00:39so meaty and is seen and I think thought of with so much nostalgia. If you go around New York

00:46today you see speakeasy themed bars. There's one above five guys. The theme of speakeasies has

00:55endured. Everybody loves the idea of drinking secretly. It's like when you're a kid and you're

01:02looking at porn. Oh I was gonna say when you're a teenager and you're drinking secretly. Same

01:06type of theory. We drank out in the woods. Oh dude we used to make Christmas trees out of

01:11beer cans. One time my friends and I we ran from the cops. We were terrified they were going to

01:15smell the alcohol in our breath and we started eating dirt. We packed our mouths with dirt.

01:22That sounds like something I would do. We were lying on our stomachs on the forest floor

01:27scooping dirt into our mouths. I used to pour vodka into water bottles, stick it in your pants,

01:33say hey how you doing Mrs. Walk right in, go to the basement, blackout. In the late 19th century,

01:40start of the 20th century, there was a progressive movement that saw and believed that alcohol was

01:48the cause for a lot of evil and it was against religion in particular and by 1919 the voice

01:58against alcohol had grown so loud Congress enacted the Volstead Act which was to make,

02:05I think it's the sale and transportation of alcohol illegal. President Woodrow Wilson

02:10tried to veto it. All right so he was a booze bag at least. And then Congress went over his veto

02:17with a super majority vote of I think 67%. So all I'm hearing from that is me and Woody would be

02:23boys throwing back some beverages and the Congress, 67% of them are absolute pussies. People could

02:29actually still consume alcohol in their own homes and people could even make alcohol in their own

02:33homes in certain states. I probably would have been fine in prohibition because I used to get

02:39fucked up in my bedroom. Yeah. That's all we needed. We didn't need to go to a bar. Didn't

02:43need much. We didn't need to go you know clubbing. We just needed a bottle of vodka and the boys.

02:49Didn't need girls. Oh god no. Also people knew that the law was going into effect in 1920 and

02:57so they stocked it up. Huge amounts of booze right up till the last day. That's what I did during

03:04COVID. I thought they were going to be closed so I bought I think 300 beers. In COVID you didn't

03:11run through 300 beers? What's that 10 a day? Oh you think COVID only lasted a month? I thought

03:19they were prohibiting beer during COVID so I stocked up. Why would they do that? There were

03:23rumors on the internet. They said buy your booze because you'll never be able to leave your house.

03:27True. So I bought a shit load, stuck at home and I was good. What a relief. Yeah.

03:34Prohibition begins and almost immediately it's unpopular. It starts building this underground

03:44black market for liquor sales and manufacturing. Moonshine and bathtub gin. Howard Taft.

03:51Yep. He died in the bathtub. Sure. I don't know if he was drinking gin. But he was in the tub.

03:58It also gave rise to organized crime and a lot of people consider prohibition to be the event in

04:06the country that birthed the mafia. Okay. For the entirety of the Roaring 20s, the whole decade,

04:13prohibition was in effect. What would you call the current 20s? I mean you don't feel that

04:18roaring do you? No really no. Well you know what we would need for there to be a Roaring 20s?

04:24Prohibition. A war. 1918, World War I ends, our boys come home. Fired up. Everybody's making love.

04:32Fired up. Everybody's having fun, drinking, boozing. Period of huge, crazy, excessive spending,

04:40drinking, dancing. Orgies. Orgies. All that stuff. It's big time. Bundled. This leads to 1929.

04:49Yes. What happens? Prohibition. No. World War I. Black Friday, the Great Depression starts. Oh.

04:53That happens. Stock market crashes. Everybody loses everything and the country kind of shuts

04:58down. This creates a strong case for opponents of prohibition to say, because you have made

05:08alcohol sales illegal, the country is losing out on gigantic tax revenue that we would get

05:14from the sale, allowing the sale of alcohol. Times are hard. People need a drink. Yeah. Also,

05:20people are drinking anyway. Yeah. By 1925, it is estimated that Manhattan alone had somewhere

05:27between 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasy clubs. Great Gatsby. Sure. The most shocking thing I've learned

05:35so far is that there was a stock market in 1929. Yeah. I thought that was started like 50 years ago.

05:421933, they repeal prohibition. During prohibition, the nation experienced its highest homicide rate

05:51in its history. You need a little booze to calm you down, boys. That said, liver cirrhosis,

05:57diseases that come as a result of alcohol consumption did decline. Of course. And there

06:01are scholars debate as to whether or not crime was directly correlated to the repeal. Would you

06:08rather have a guy shooting people up or would you rather have a guy with some yellow skin?

06:13Great point. Other countries were appalled that we did this. Winston Churchill said that

06:19prohibition was an affront to humanity. It is. If people want to get fucked up,

06:24they want to do what they do and bang and do whatever, let them do it. Ah, the ethos of

06:31libertarianism. Well said, Dana. Look at us ever since. We've been drinking ever since.

06:37Yeah. Our country's in great shape, dude. What are you laughing at? Our country's in great shape, dude.

06:45Oh? I don't even know what I meant. I was just trying to say something. I had a feeling. That is

06:50essentially taking away a part of our identity. We know that now, but the voices against drinking

06:58in the 1917, 1918 were so loud that they overwhelmed the voices that said drinking

07:07is important. I like to drink. When people see America, they see that we are, we get drunk.

07:14Yeah. And I don't want other countries and continents not being able to see that. I think

07:19that's an important part of our identity. Yeah. It should not be stripped of us. I'm going out

07:24drinking tonight and I cannot wait. It's fun, isn't it? I have a whole job based off of it.

07:29It's amazing. Imagine there's prohibition, I'd be working at fucking Stop and Shop. No disrespect

07:33people that work at Stop and Shop. I know a lot of you. I don't think we would need prohibition

07:38for you to be working at Stop and Shop. I have a following based off of binge drinking. It's

07:43amazing. So thank you to the lawmakers who said fuck that. That's right. In 1933 with the 21st

07:51Amendment, we returned to our boozy roots and that brings us to Dana Beers. Literally. The booze

07:59bag we know and love of today. Literally. That's prohibition. All right, Franny, thank you. You got it.

Why Did America Ban Alcohol? | Francis Teaches Me About The Prohibition Era

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