Breeding Tells Liberals opposed to drug prohibition, and in favor of legalization, have always faced a cruel legacy: Liberalism, as a philosophy, as a practice, was founded in prohibition and still feels that old urge to ban something. It's in the blood.
Liberalism as we know it in America is the follow-on to the early 20th century Progressive movement. The Progressives were non-partisan, and usually urban, dedicated to reining in the excesses of capitalism and cleaning up the partisan cesspools of machine politics. Often Republican, they inadvertently elected Woodrow Wilson in 1912 by splitting the Republican majority with the presidential challenge of the Bullmoose Party.
The Progressives responded to abuses too numerous to list fully here. Opiate drugs and cocaine were pandemic in cough syrups and other 'medications', but these were often the least harmful of adulterations in our food and drink. The cities of the day were ruled by criminal gangs disguised as political parties; the fire departments and police departments were more often complicit in crime than they were to be found fighting crime or fires. The largest corporations bilked shareholders and customers alike as they formed monopolistic cartels and bought legislatures to extend their rule.
None of this, of course, was conducive to any real economic development, and the process of history was on the side of the Progressives. Banning the adulteration of flour with dirt made it possible for bakeries to improve the quality and quantity of their output; instituting non-partisan municipal government and civil service reforms tipped the municipal balance sheets toward the positive side.
Nor were these efforts confined to the early part of the century. In our lifetimes we have seen the first real efforts to criminalize drunk driving, spousal abuse, and incest. With justice the liberal descendants of Progressivism have felt the job was far from done.
Unfortunately, they have been Prohibitionists. "There oughta be a law!" has been one of the most enduring and deepest sentiments of all of us at some time or another, and perhaps the rank stench of the American cigarette industry has done more than almost anything else to keep that sentiment alive.
We've also seen alliances with unfortunate consequences, perhaps most notably the liberal alliance with black Baptist churches, but also the alliances with feminists and environmentalists, in which some very illiberal opinions are mooted. The fundamentalist black churches have opposed AIDS education and gay rights, the feminists have tried to restrict the free speech of pornographers, the campaigns against drunk driving have included roadblocks and mass searches- the list could go on, but the underlying trend should be plain to see.
Historically, liberals have been progressives and vice versa. For a number of reasons the interaction between tighter regulation and improved productivity will continue to buttress this historical prohibitionism.
The challenge, for anti-authoritarian liberals, will be to spotlight the most egregious errors in this trend, and form alliances with anti-authoritarians who aren't liberal. It won't be easy.
- by Serial Catowner
5:44:52 PM 
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