Because we said so

I had little experience with "dry" counties while growing up in "Chicago-land." One of our favorite games when driving to the lake in Wisconsin was to count the number of roadside bars that had Hamm's beer signs hanging out front (there were a lot more than churches).

Every neighborhood seemed to have a bar that people walked to and there were few social occasions I can remember where the men didn't have beers in their hands. Although I might have missed something, I doubt that neither the moral climate nor quality of life suffered.

So it was with a certain dumbfounded surprise that I learned while visiting to interview for my current position that Independence County and most others in Arkansas were dry. It seemed bizarre that anyone would have the gall to tell someone else they couldn't have a glass of wine with their steak in a restaurant.

Things have improved considerably in the two-plus decades since then. I've read that all-dry counties have slipped into minority status throughout the state and in Batesville, through some tactical maneuvering the details of which escape me, there are now probably a half-dozen or so places where you can get a whiskey sour or martini with your meal.

That represents progress, but we still have to drive to adjacent counties to load up; with no liquor stores or alcohol sales at Wal-Mart, you can't just head down the street to pick up another bottle of wine when you and your guests have run out (this produces a lot of what George W. Bush called "stratergizing," as well as the best-stocked liquor cabinets I've ever seen).

I've heard the stories, of course--that the women in a fit of holier-than-thou voted lots of Arkansas counties dry while their menfolk were off fighting World War II (some coming-home surprise after D-Day and Okinawa that must have been!), and also discovered over time that the opponents of wet don't care much about facts or arguments. You can tell them over and over again about lost tax revenue to neighboring wet counties, the negative impact on economic development and growth from being dry, the higher drunken-driving fatalities when people have to drive longer distances to buy liquor, etc.

But they aren't interested in hearing it because it's moral superiority they seek and control over other people's lives that they cherish--no one is dictating that they must drink alcohol, but they apparently enjoy telling others that they can't.

Another less than appealing aspect is the unholy alliance that has been established on behalf of dryness between the Bible-thumpers and the "bootleggers" (i.e., liquor-store owners in neighboring wet counties who pony up the vast majority of the funds to combat "go wet" proposals).

One wonders if those preaching against alcohol bother to tell their flocks in their Sunday sermons who their bed-partners are in this endeavor to remain virtuous, defined as alcohol-free.

The bootlegger faction in this marriage of convenience isn't interested in the moral component, or the paternalism and self-righteousness that flow from it; rather, it is simply naked economic interest that dictates behavior.

Liquor-store owners in wet counties are acutely aware that they can only continue to make handsome profits if (a) they can sell liquor; and (b) those in neighboring counties can't. One side wants to prevent us from being able to drink (or at least drink easily), the other to profit in exclusive manner from drinking.

So add obstruction of commerce and the workings of the marketplace to the indictment as well.

A couple years back a statewide ballot to turn Arkansas wet failed because many voters fell for the argument that "home rule" should prevail, that each county should have the right to decide for itself.

Left unsaid in this otherwise reasonable, pro-democratic line of thought was that the only reason proponents had gone statewide was because opponents had consistently made it so difficult to get the issue on the ballot at the county level, that those suddenly espousing the virtues of democracy had been the same ones obstructing its exercise all along.

Now it's back to county by county, in Independence and others, and, sure enough, the Baptist-bootlegger alliance is back in action and doing everything possible to prevent a vote. In revealing fashion, the same democracy that they disingenuously extolled at the local level just two years ago they are now, once again, trying to obstruct at the local level.

As it is so often, democracy is championed when you think it will produce the result you want and dispensed with when you think it won't.

This is also where paternalism slides smoothly into naked authoritarianism: You can't have a glass of wine with your dinner, and no, you don't get a vote at any point on whether or not you can.

Because we said so, and because we, a gradually dwindling and desperate minority accustomed to imposing its values on others, suspect we will come up short when the ballots are counted.

Thus is expressed in noxious, precise fashion both the mindset and modus operandi of petty dictatorship.

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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial on 06/06/2016

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