How Can Third Parties Learn from the Temperance Movement?

By Andrew Bushard

The Temperance Movement succeeded at ratifying the U.S. Constitution's 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol. The Temperance Movement also succeeded at winning state and local Prohibition victories. Therefore the Temperance Movement can teach contemporary third party activists how to achieve their goals.

 

"How Can Third Parties Learn from the Temperance Movement?" traces the history of the Temperance Movement and analyzes Temperance Literature to inspire and inform third party activists to achieve their goals.

 

69 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: FREE PRESS MEDIA PRESS INC
• Release date: Jun 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201785307

Andrew Bushard

Find empowerment through the First Amendment here:We leverage freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances (the First Amendment) to empower youWe leverage creativity and inspiration to empower youWe leverage presentations, talks, mp3s, and videos to empower youWe leverage movies, DVDs, internet videos, and video games to empower youWe leverage integrity, understanding, diligence, and maverickism to empower you

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How Can Third Parties Learn from the Temperance Movement?

©2004, 2021

Andrew Bushard

Learn from the Temperance Movement

The Temperance Movement of yesteryear fascinated me and seize my soul, so I got inspired to write my master's thesis about the Temperance Movement.  As third party supporters and activists, we should ask ourselves what we can learn from the Temperance Movement.

The Temperance Movement epitomized activism, so my thesis analyzed the Temperance Movement through the perspective of Social Movements Sociology, using the Sociological Method of Comparative Historical Analysis, which involved analyzing primary and secondary Temperance Movement historical documents. 

MSU-Mankato Sociology Professor Leland McCormick chaired my thesis committee.  MSU-Mankato Sociology Professor Steve Buechler was the 2nd member of my thesis committee.  MSU-Mankato History Professor Kathleen Gorman reviewed my thesis from her expertise.

Professor McCormick taught me important things about the subject matter at hand and about the writing process itself.  He helped me reformulate my sentences and he showed me how to reformulate my sentences to maximize clarity and impact.  He taught me grammar and usage to improve my writing.  I use his writing insights nearly everyday in my publishing business.  For this work, I have further polished my thesis excerpts and am contextualizing the writing for third parties. 

The Prohibition Party (who has the slogan America's Oldest Third Party) led the Temperance Movement, thus studying the Temperance Movement reveals insights and lessons for third parties. 

Before we begin, ask yourself, what do you already know about the Temperance Movement?  Are you open to changing your views? 

Since I love almost all third parties, I love the Prohibition Party, so I love the Temperance Movement they led.  Some third party scholars credit the Prohibition Party for its contributions to third parties in general.

What do you like the most about the Prohibition Party?  What do you like the most about the Temperance Movement?  What do you think you can learn about the Temperance Movement from reading this work? 

How can third parties learn from the Temperance Movement? 

One:

Learn from Historians

You might think I'm going to repeat the old notion that History taught us that Prohibition didn't work.  It's not so simple, friends.  We third party people should dig deeper than most do.

During my thesis defense meeting, the History Department Professor Kathleen Gorman argued that Prohibition worked as Prohibition was popular and they only repealed it because they needed money during the Great Depression.  So let's applaud Professor Gorman for challenging conventional wisdom. 

How can this example of challenging conventional wisdom inspire your third party to also challenge conventional wisdom?

Most people argue that because of bootlegging and other crime during Prohibition, such meant that Prohibition failed.  From my experience, these people have not researched the matter and only say this because they want to affirm the status quo and serve their own interests.  People violate every law no matter how good or bad the law is.  For example, we have laws against rape and murder, yet people still rape and murder, so we shouldn't deem these rape and murder laws failures and we shouldn't repeal them.  After writing this last sentence, I listened to a Free Press Media Press Inc. program from 2 decades ago, at which activist Mark Trewalla argued people violate every law as people still rape even though we have anti-rape laws.  How can you and your third party use logic like this to defeat defenders of the status