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Well-meaning moralists campaigned for years to pass a constitutional amendment banning alcohol in this country starting in 1920. As a result, the next 13 years were bloody time when criminal elements took over supplying alcohol and many people were killed — by rival gangs, by police enforcement efforts and from drinking poisonous homemade booze.

As crazy as this whole thing sounds to us today, some people still don’t understand that we’re doing the same thing today — and have been for decades — as the federal government fights the never-ending “war on (some) drugs.” It’s time to quite committing a slow version of national suicide. We need to end drug prohibition.

When I discovered individual liberty, the toughest issue for me to deal with was illegal drugs. My own lifestyle is very conservative. I don’t use any kind of recreational drugs, either the legal kinds or the illegal kinds. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around at the problems that I saw alcohol causing for many people and I decided that the risks weren’t worth the dubious benefits, so I never even started. The more life I live, the more I’m certain it’s the smartest decision. However, I’m equally certain that it’s not my business — and not the government’s business — to decide which recreational drugs you use, even if I would prefer you leave them alone.

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I’ve never met Herman Cain, so I don’t have any specific reason to have an opinion about recent allegations of sexual misconduct on his part. I’ve been around enough politicians over the last 20 years to recognize patterns and personality types, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the allegations are true.

Cain might be the victim of dirty tricks in these allegations. The one person I know who personally knows the man speaks very highly of him. But there’s something I’ve learned from watching politicians up close for two decades. The vast majority of them have hidden lusts — for sex or money or control or ego gratification — that come along with the desire for political power.

Why do people run for political office? The standard answer — which any of them would be happy to tell you about themselves, of course — is that they’re just wanting to help the country. They love people and care about their communities. That’s what they say.

If you get them to get real with you, you’ll find that most of them have a personal need for the spotlight, for approval, for attention and for control. Most of them have been successful in some way or other. They’ve developed a love for the control that comes with politics and power. Far too often, that lust for power leads to a desire to take risks in order to control women or others they consider weaker around them, at least for a moment. It’s not universally true, but I’ve seen it over and over again.

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When I first heard about the “cash for clunkers’ program two years ago, I thought it might be satire. It sounded too much like a real-life example of Bastiat’s broken window fallacy to be real. But the politicians really were that stupid.

In case you don’t remember, the program was sold as a way to help the economy and the environment at the same time. The idea was to get people to bring in their used cars and buy new ones — with the government giving $3,500 credit on each deal. Selling new cars was supposed to stimulate the economy, and getting newer cars (getting slightly better gas mileage) was supposed to help the environment. Just don’t think about details such as cost and possible unintended consequences.

Taxpayers ended up spending about $3 billion on the program. How did it work out? A new study suggests that it was a waste of money. (Get a PDF of the study here.) The paper estimates that nearly half of the money went to people who would have bought a car even without the taxpayer subsidies. It also suggests that the program increased average fuel efficiency in the country by just 0.65 miles per gallon.

There are two issues that don’t seem to be mentioned often enough in the context of this program. One is about pure waste. The other is about the harm the program had on low-income families.

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