Creativity Quote by Jello Biafra

Prohibition doesn’t erase desire; it reroutes it. Jello Biafra’s line lands like a punk chorus because it’s blunt, mechanical, and accusatory: make a rule, mint a shadow economy. The phrasing is deliberately symmetrical - “for every” and “you also” - a cold little equation that turns moral lawmaking into cause-and-effect physics. No romance, no faith in purity campaigns. Just consequences.

The intent isn’t to defend any one vice so much as to ridicule the fantasy that authority can duct-tape human behavior. Biafra came up in late-70s/80s American punk, a scene steeped in backlash to Reagan-era crackdowns, PMRC moral panics, and the broader reflex to regulate culture (lyrics, sex, drugs) as if culture were a faulty appliance. His voice, onstage and off, treats censorship and criminalization as marketing strategies for the very thing they condemn. Make it forbidden and you give it edge, scarcity, and profit.

Subtext: prohibition is never neutral. The “underground” isn’t just a cool subculture; it’s a system where risk concentrates power in the hands of smugglers, gatekeepers, and police. When the state bans, it doesn’t eliminate demand - it changes who gets paid, who gets punished, and who gets to define “deviance.” The line also jabs at liberal hypocrisy: outlawing something can feel like virtue while quietly outsourcing the mess to the marginalized.

In a 2020s context - abortion access, drug policy, youth trans care, online speech - the quote reads less like rebellion for rebellion’s sake and more like a warning: enforcement doesn’t solve complexity; it manufactures it, then pretends to be shocked by the afterlife.