Muddy Sense Of Morality

Are you being serious?

Have you considered that movies aren't necessarily supposed to legitimise whatever morals or values you practice while sitting down watching them? It's not an accident that there's ambivelence. The film-mkaers as well as law-makers and anyone with half a brain is aware of the irony that making liquor illegal only created a violent, organised bootleging industry, whose influence spread into established supposedly moral institutions. And industry that was initially fought with violent means. Ness talks about their duty to uphold the law, primarily to protect the public from criminals. Taking a gulp of whiskey that would otherwise end up down a drain does not pose a threat to the public. Neither is it immoral. The absurdity of enjoying simple pleasures, without harm to anyone else, being immoral as long as they are illegal should be obvious to anyone.

This is not the only film that shows criminals being violently apprehended by the law. I don't believe it's taken The Untouchables to make you aware of this.

At least you'll die some day, morally immmaculate I presume, so you won't have to perpetually suffer this kind of discomfort from watching films like this.


Glasgow's FOREMOST authority Italics = irony. Infer the opposite please.

Secondly, it clearly shows the accountant Oscar Wallace taking a drink from one of the barrels after shotgunning the *beep* out of some mobsters for dealing in the stuff, and Jim Malone taking out a bottle hidden in his oven and having a drink before he is shot. It's like watching a movie about some DEA agents killing crooks for dealing in cocaine and then going home to snort some after a day at work policing the streets. Pretty hypocritical. At least they both die.

This has been repeated several times in these threads - the Volstead Act (aka "Prohibition") did not outlaw the possession or consumption of intoxicating liquors, it prohibited only the manufacture, transport, or sale of it. Specifically, it said "no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act." Notice that it said nothing about possession or consumption. Therefore it was NOT illegal for the accountant or anyone else to take a drink of the beverage that was squirting out of the lawfully seized barrel after the shootout with smugglers at the border. It fact, it was not an uncommon practice back then to smell and taste what was in the barrels or bottles to make sure it was indeed liquor and not just grape juice or whatever. Spitting it out was optional.

That's not to mention the fact that 90% of this movie was pure fiction, including many characters who never existed in real life. The accountant-agent was one of the movie's many fictional characters, and having him take a sip out of the barrel was simply a plot device (foreshadowing).

Yeah, vices aren't really crimes, because they don't harm anyone else. Laws against vices are just one group of people trying to stop another group of people from doing what they want.

But if you outlaw a popular vice, you will create an economic opportunity for some really bad people to get into that business. And a lot of jobs for law enforcement to round them up.