commentaries

You also missed the point that elephants never forget. One off shoot of the 1886 election is that MN Republicans don't want that to happen again. So this year they pushed their voter ID law.

Voter ID makes sense, unless of course you believe that we shouldn't check IDs for purchasing alcohol, cigarettes, writting checks, using credit cards and using government services. Voting is more important than all of those activities and yet we refuse to give voting at least the same security measures as purchasing a pack of cigarettes; some people are even trying to prevent common sense measures like voter ID from becoming law, sad.

My lesson from Prohibition is that once legal you can never go back to illegal. I am against legalizing drugs because if society ever finds out the harm was too much, it will have been ingrained in so many that taking it away again will increase crime & corruption again.

dave, Maybe the alternate lesson you might take from Prohibition is that when you make something lots of people are hooked on illegal, criminals will be shooting it out in the street for the privilege of distributing it. And the product will be more dangerous than if it was legal and regulated. Everybody should raise their glass and spit on the ground when Volstead's name is spoken.

The biggest lesson from Prohibition is that an amendment to the United States Constitution was REPEALED.The United States Constitution should not be a plaything of politicians. They could have passed legislation instead.Thank Congressman Volstead for putting the Constitution at risk.Now in theroy,all the other amendments to the Constitution are at risk of repeal including the 2nd.You had better think long and hard about voting for anyone who talks about amending the Constitution.

"I am against legalizing drugs because if society ever finds out the harm was too much, it will have been ingrained in so many that taking it away again will increase crime & corruption again."

You don't even have to play the "what if" game. Simply look at other countries who have already legalized certain drugs and see what impact it has had on them. Pro or con, you already have your data to make an informed decision.

"Voting is more important than all of those activities and yet we refuse to give voting at least the same security measures as purchasing a pack of cigarettes..."

It seems a little clarification in the process is in order here. IDs are checked--in the voter registration portion of the process. People need to validate who they are with a current drivers' license or proper utility bills that show they live at that address. The counties then go through those records before election day to make sure they're valid.

Another little known fact. The voter ID bill that was recently put through the Minnesota legislature proposed taking out that validation process. No more utility bill to prove you live at an address. It's ironic that the bill that was supposed to make voting more secure actually had the opposite effect.

Legalize, regulate, and TAX. There is absolutely no moral justification whatsoever for allowing Scotch but not Heroin. None. Please, Lord, if one more hypocrite pontificates on the "evils of drug use" while slurping on their Johnny Walker, just smack them upside their pointy head!

Well said, Veneta. Some claim that lives will simply be ruined by drugs, but that doesn't change either way simply because they're legalized. Criminalizing drugs though ruins more lives due to the violence surrounding gangs as they fight for territory.

I'll have to see this documentary even though I'm not much for Ken Burns' documentaries, they tend to leave a lot to be desired. I hope that when this program talks about the MN connections it also spends a few minutes covering Kid Cann and his influence on bootlegging and organized crime in the TCs and transporting illegal liquor to Chicago. That's a fascinating chapter in MN history.