Submitted by capsaicinintheeyes t3_yfs4ef in todayilearned
The real Elliott Ness was pretty boring.
Drinking used to be worse back then. Americans would get drunk on their lunchtime. Alcohol apparently ruined lives.
> Alcohol apparently ruined lives.
It's still pretty effective at this.
Yep.
My philosophy? Alcohol is a loaded gun. Someone still has to pull the trigger.
Both are true yea
> Drinking used to be worse back then. Americans would get drunk on their lunchtime. Alcohol apparently ruined lives.
I remember reading that alot of progressives, especially feminists, actually strongly supported Prohibition for this reason.
They were sick of men getting blind drunk and then beating the crap out of their wife and kids every night.
Alcohol doesn't make a person violent. It just lowers their inhibitions. Most would find an excuse without the drink.
Edit: Downvotes. Looks like I triggered some people. I guess by the same token alcohol causes people to commit sexual assault or rape, and causes them to cheat on their partners. What a wonder drug.
It's not that you are wrong, it's that your point doesn't change the argument. Women (and kids) weren't seen as people back then so more men felt like it was okay to treat them like shit, but it was generally frowned upon to be kicking the crap out of them every night. Those feelings were more likely to express themselves when alcohol lowered their inhibitions. Changing how men view women was/is a much longer process, prohibition just helped it along. If staying sober gives ol' Jimbob the ability to restrain most of his violent urges and leaves him with enough money to feed his kids, at least those kids had a chance of growing into better people than their dad.
Well firstly, you say women and children were seen different back then. I mean, industrial revolution, kids were chimney sweeps and working in factories. That treatment has next to nothing to do with alcohol and as you said, their perceived value.
I'd say the following had/has more to do with it than alcohol:
Unmanaged/unrecognised trauma from world war 1. We saw the repetition of it in world war 2.
Social underclass/being poor and the associated sense of a lack of control over their existence, so controlling what they could (I mean, your example of Jim Bob - you've gone redneck, which while not suffering like Black people, were/are still the social underclass).
I'm sure there's more, but - alcohol is way down the list on the reason people feel the need to pound out their frustrations on others. Those feelings are already there. Removing alcohol, again, removes inhibitions but it doesn't get to the root cause.
All I'm saying is, alcohol is a symptom and not a cause. Removing alcohol won't do much for most people because the underlying cause/s are still there.
Doubt
he wasnt for it or against it, he was just enforcing the law.
And even if you hate prohibition, it does change things when the people moving it are carrying out systemic, organized murder
it was such a stupid idea.. we lost x amount money in taxes spending more than double/ triple that amount trying to enforce it, and made the Mob what it is/was
>made the Mob what it is
Really reawakened our national hybristophilia we hadn't seen since the days of the old West
Alright partner you don't have to slap us with them five dollar words like some snot nosed city slicka. We but some simple folk
^((I only knew the word existed bc I saw it on a QI episode)^)
Well at least we learned our lesson and never made that mistake again. Right?
[deleted]
Ness got all the credit, but it was actually forensic accountant Frank Wilson that was the real hero.
>These nerds were supercool, not just supersmart—enduring near-misses of mob hits. “Wilson fears nothing that walks,” his boss Elmer Irey observed. “He will sit quietly looking at books eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, forever, if he wants to find something in those books.” He “sweats ice water,” a criminal interrogated by Wilson sighed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-bean-counter-who-put-al-capone-in-the-slammer
Yeah, some random bureaucrats put Capone away.
Ness lived long enough to turn himself into a legend. He was charismatic.
I don’t think you appreciate just how much Americans consume today. At no point in Eliot Ness’s life were Americans averaging consuming more alcohol than is occurring today. That includes pre-Prohibition. We drink considerably more now, 140,000 Americans die annually from excessive drinking
This article was pre-pandemic, drinking has gone up even from then.
This is some real /r/im14andthisisdeep vibes
Bit older than 14.
Ness was a publicity hound. Yeah, alcohol consumption quickly gets problematic.
I drink a 1/5 or more per day. I hope it kills .e soon
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