As terrible and uninformed as those politicians are, your statement is equally uneducated.
Go find the Forbes list of the most educated cities in America.
However, with that said, I think the issue, at the core, is that were dealing with the historical issue.
Coming from Boston I saw this first hand. The "Blue Laws" that banned liquor stores to be open on Sunday were just recently appealed, or at least relaxed. Getting there took a major battle. Tattooing was banned up until about a decade ago; it originally was outlawed as the result of a Hep outbreak in the 1920's I believe.
But these politicians are, in great part, a reflection of their constituents.
One of the biggest concerns that was brought up was moonshine, and the risk of potentially giving some leeway or loophole to brew it. Look at one of the historical concerns of moonshine; blindness from additives to increase the alcohol content. These additives like methanol and lye are nasty stuff...adding them into something you drink doesn't equate being terribly bright.
But on top of that, moonshine was brewed as a solid flipped finger to the government when it went ahead and taxed and regulated Whiskey.
This is what mindset they're coming from....the kind of fundamentally religious folks that made a logical conclusion; it was two preachers that founded the American Temperance Society that lead to Prohibition.
