The Session #22 - Repeal, lather, rinse, repeal

First off, happy Repeal Day. I'm sick (and tired!) and the likelihood that my writing wouldn't dismally reflect that fact at the moment is nil. In that spirit, three cheers for brevity and incongruous Nyquil-inspired blathering. Thoughts on what Prohibition means us, the beer blogging public, asks Shaun of the aptly named 21st Amendment Brewery wants to know. Simply:

- It's a great reminder of the power your own government has to take away something you may have always considered a right, especially when emboldened by the force of "the better good." Don't ever think that something (ahem!) could never happen in the cultural clime you reside in. Don't get lazy thinking that there's enough common sense in the world that you can rest on your laurels.

- It's likewise a reminder that no matter what, the word "repeal" still holds some cachet. We can still use it.

- It's a litmus for how misguided and misbegotten our legislature can become, and how that reflects some of the deeper issues in our society's ideological fabric. Through cultural movements such as, on one hand, the Amethyst Initiative, and on the other hand, Prohibition, it's clear that the American view on alcohol is dangerously contradictory, a virtual psychic minefield of ethical paradoxes that, from a European view, for example, sometimes seems like something out of a fantastical Douglas Adams situation.

- Had Prohibition succeeded, Pfiff! would never have been born. And with it, likely the entirety of the Internet. And, quite possibly, you.

There will likely be deeper, more well-formed thoughts on the topic in the round-up, certainly. So with that, I'll just leave you with this, a line from an essay about a pub in Britain from 1946 that has a strange lot to do with the noble experiment with which we're occupied today:

"And though, strictly speaking, they are only allowed in the garden, the children tend to seep into the pub and even to fetch drinks for their parents. This, I believe, is against the law, but it is a law that deserves to be broken, for it is the puritanical nonsense of excluding children —and therefore, to some extent, women—from pubs that has turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be." - George Orwell

The Session is a blog carnival originated by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer. This month's party is being hosted by the great city and county of San Francisco's very own 21st Amendment Brewery. For a summary of the Sessions thus far, check out Brookston's handy guide.