Prohibition was an overreach into social control by well-meaning reformers who sought to protect women, children, and the poor. It was aimed at a very real problem, but was ultimately an overcorrection—and one that Americans could and would not bear. This was perhaps a foreshadowing of a similar phenomenon that occurred in the 1950s, when a creeping collectivism and the pressure to conform became a source of resentment and a seedbed of cultural and political backlash. The solution to hyper-individualism is never hyper-communitarianism, nor a repudiation of equally important American values
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