Moonshine liberty

At lunch today, my 19-year-old daughter mentioned seeing an advertisement promoting Question 2, which would legalize slot machines in Maryland. She seemed to buy the gambling industry's argument that slots should be legalized because they would generate tax revenue.

"No!" I said. "The last thing the government needs is more tax revenue!"

I then explained a discussion I'd had with a young Republican who argued for the legalization of marijuana on similar grounds, namely that it would provide the government with more taxes. "That's exactly the best argument against legalization," I said. "If they legalize it, they'll regulate it and tax it. Conservatives don't want government to have more revenue. More revenue equals more government. Having a billion-dollar tax-free black-market economic sector is far preferable to having a federal Bureau of Marijuana."

That led to a discussion of Prohibition which led to a discussion of moonshine, which led to me talking about the Whiskey Rebellion, a historic uprising against federal tyranny (a whiskey tax conjured up by Alexander Hamilton) that is recalled in the lyrics of the old bluegrass classic, "Copper Kettle":

My daddy, he made whiskey.
My granddaddy, he did too.
We ain't paid no whiskey tax since 1792.

At some level, being a friend of liberty means being a de facto ally of smugglers and outlaws. If you legalize gambling and dope, you are turning enemies of the state into clients of the state.