The temperance movements of the 19thC & 20thC were classic Protestant Christian movements, conservative in nature. Wesleyans, Methodists, arts colleges, working men's clubs, self-improvement, all that sort of thing. You could just as easily say it was "early 20th-century conservative Christians' grand social engineering agenda". All the more compelling since the war on drugs is its direct descendent and prosecuted just as vigorously by contemporary Christian conservatives. Failed social engineering can be a conservative enterprise as much as anything else.
Prohibition occurred during what is commonly referred to as the Progressive Era and was considered part of the progressive movement's agenda. And while "failed social engineering can be a conservative enterprise" there are plenty of modern-day self-proclaimed progressives who still back the war on drugs.
Yes, the period of the early 20th century when all this was happening liked to style itself "Progressive," but that word had a much different meaning then than it does now. And do keep in mind that "progressive" has been very recently hauled out of storage and dusted off to replace the toxic "liberal" so beloved as a target by the likes of Rush Limbaugh. You have to look a little more closely at what was actually going on in these movements, and the temperance movement is as good an example as any: the methods, the tactics, and ideology are pretty damned near fungible with those of the anti-gay, anti-science, forced birth advocates of today.
The temperance movement, and the other phenomena mentioned by Sullivan's interlocutor, were about social control and enforcing a particular vision of morality on the populace at large. (Although the other examples were more positive and the concept more palatable.) The fact that many more people were prepared to accept that morality as valid doesn't really matter -- it was enlisting government in the service of controlling personal choice, and as much as right-wingers might like to point at today's progressives as embodying the same philosophy, it seems that the shoe is on the other foot. (No, I'm not going to take the wingnut PC left fringe as representative of contemporary progressives, as seems to be the habit with the aforementioned Pimple-Butt and, in fact, most commentators.)
And even though "plenty of modern-day self-proclaimed progressives" back the war on drugs, that doesn't change the shape and philosophy of that particular endeavor (which has been, need I point out, almost as successful as the war in Iraq). It's the old saw about the extremes meeting: I don't see all that much difference in tactics and approach between, say, the far left fringe of the gay movement and the far-right fringe of the anti-gay movement. They meet at the fringe, just the way moderates meet at the middle.
Language changes, and those who are working against the perceived status quo are, by and large, going to call themselves "progressives." That applies whether their aims are what we would understand as progressive or not.
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