Actually, I admit in my haste to respond I quoted the wrong stats. I was meaning to respond to the post that again mentioned TAX as a reason that HOBBY DISTILLING does not have a chance of being passed. I have gotten from the TTB their annual reports for BEER INDUSTRY taxable revenue for the years 1978-2013, to correspond with the year before legalization to present.
For the TAX issue to be true, you'd expect to see a decline in taxable revenue as these home beer and wine producers supposedly stopped buying because they were now making their own. This was not the case for either beer or wine industry taxable revenues. In fact, something appears to have stimulated a growth in revenue a few years following legalization.
This brings into play the factoids I mis-quoted earlier which should have been used in context of the entire CRAFT brewing industry which DIDN"T EXIST in 1978 before legalization. There were four dominant brewers and they all made the same pilsner style of beer with minor favor differences. The first craft brewery I can document opened in Yakima, WA in 1982 by Bert Grant. The second in California in 1986.
You might correctly argue that there's no straight line between the 1978 legalization and a $14.3 Billion industry thirty five years later. But you can't say they're not related.
As I've written drafts for the script for the video appeal I've thought about many approaches. The script does reference a libertarian "American farmers distilled leftover grain from the earliest days of our country until Prohibition outlawed it in 1919", similar to your Lockean reference. I like a 'learn a craft, find a career' argument because I think a human interest angle featuring engaging, articulate brewers or distillers who learned their craft in a non-professional setting would resonate well.
I appreciate all comments and ideas on how might make an engaging, effective appeal successful to a broad audience who might find in it something they'd support or be interested in.
I'd like to document comments from a couple distillers who have a compelling anecdote to share. I've got a couple, maybe a couple more would round out a bonus video segment.