Good day all. This one is going to be a bit different from my usual fare. The supreme court has agreed to hear a case on a law passed almost a 150 years ago that outlawed home distilling. Before that, people could make their own whiskey in their back yards.
Now I don’t drink hard liquor. I just don’t care for it. I also know that the only real mention of alcohol in the constitution were the 18th and 21st amendments. The 18th outlawed beer, wine and spirits, and the 21st repealed it. The law banning home distilling predates the two amendments by decades. Now someone has decided to challenge the law on constitutional grounds. Here are the details from OAN:
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.
Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.
The taxes on alcohol are rather extensive. If you buy a bottle of scotch, most of the cost is taxes. In the early days, taxes on spirits, and I don’t mean the ones that go Boo, were a significant part of the federal budget. Back in the day, most farmers had a small still set up to make their own liquor. If they sold any, Uncle Sam wanted it’s cut.
Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.
Tax evasion is still a crime. However, if someone is making small amounts for personal use, and not selling any, then there is no tax to collect. Once someone starts selling booze, then the government has a case. This would still be the case.
Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
I don’t know if bootlegging is still a thing these days. It used to be and one of the results of it was the formation of NASCAR. You had Moonshiners who made corn liquor and you had the rum-runners who delivered the product and collected the money. This has always been an issue, but rum-running and bootlegging really exploded with Prohibition. After the repeal, you still had areas that were “Dry,” meaning no alcohol was allowed. These days, bootlegging is no where near as big as it once was, but it still occurs.
One of the reasons the Supreme Court took this case was due to a circuit court split. The 6th circuit court of appeals upheld the prohibition and the 5th circuit ruled against it. Now it’s in the hands of the Supreme Court.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Alt said they are “thrilled” that the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
“Our country’s founders would be rolling over in their graves to learn that a pastime in which even George Washington partook, which is as American as apple pie and certainly a lot older, has quite absurdly been turned into a federal crime,” Alt said in a statement.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in both cases argue that Congress could ban a broad array of activities inside private homes — including cooking, gardening and remote work — under the government’s interpretation of the 19th century law.
“The importance of this case and the questions it presents could hardly be overstated,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote. “It presents fundamental questions of the extent of federal power and the powers reserved to the states and the people.”
Between this and how the Commerce Clause has been abused by government, the entire constitution has been turned on it’s head. What many people, sadly most these days, is the reason for the Constitution and what it was designed to do. It was set up to provide the rules and mechanisms for the government to conduct business. It was also designed to restrict the government. For literally centuries, Washington has been asserting powers they really don’t have. It does appear that the Supreme Court has finally decided that things have gone to far in favor of the Deep State.
Justice Department attorneys said the government’s regulation and taxation on the production of distilled spirits is as old as Congress itself. They noted that Congress outlawed home distilling to prevent those producers from evading taxes or government inspections.
“And because the location restrictions were enacted only after lengthy experience with tax evasion, upholding those restrictions would not open the door to hypothetical laws restricting other conduct lacking that history,” they wrote.
I see the issue that the Supreme Court needs to resolve. Back in 1979, a bill signed into law by Jimmy Carter deregulated the home production of beer and wine. This led people to start working on their own recipes, and some of those turned out to be so popular that the home brewers scaled up production, filed all the appropriate paperwork and started selling to the general public.
Without question, the government is collecting far more revenue, thanks to the rise of the microbreweries, than they were collecting when people were limited to the major brewers and the horse urine they called beer. There is an excellent chance that history could repeat itself. Now if people sell without paying the taxes, then of course, the government can land on them. While I personally won’t be getting a small still and making my own Bourbon, someone else might and end up with a product that people actually want. Now it’s in the hands of the Supreme Court and their DEI hire. We’ll find out how this goes next year.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
