Repeal The Drinking Age

In CT we recently tried changing the sale of alcohol on Sundays and it was the owners of the liquor or what we call Package stores that did NOT want it to be open! They said they would spend too much money making sure there are people at the store than the sales they will get. On the other hand MA no more than an hour from most of us cashes in exclusively on CT alcohol sales. So it doest seem like much of a church vs state issue in CT at least . Even though, Tim Leary did say "Alcoholics are very religious people" so maybe they are all too busy at church to open up :)

"The glory of the psychedelic moment is the victory over life and
death won by seeing the oscillating of energy and yielding to it.
The age-ole appeal of the psychedelic experience is its solution to
the problem of escape. The visionary revelation answers the escape
question. There is no death, ecstatic, mirthful relief. There is
nothing to avoid, nothing to escape, nothing to fear. There is just
off-on, in-out, start-stop, light-dark, flash-delay.
Death, void, oblivion is the split-second pause. I accept the off.
It is of interest that the heroin addict and the Illuminated Buddha
end up at the same place. The void. The junkie is a deeply religious
person. The alcoholic is too. Thus our physicians and psychiatrists
have no luck in "curing" addicts. If you see an addict as a social
misfit, a civic nuisance who must be rehabilitated you completely miss
the point.
To cure the junkie and the alcoholic, you must humbly accept that s/he
is a more deeply spiritual person than you, and you accept the cosmic
validity of his search to transcend the game, and you help him see
that blackout drugs are just bad game because you can't just keep
holding the off switch and that way to reach that void is through
psychedelic rather than anesthetic experience."
Timothy Leary - The Politics of Ecstasy Pg. 43

Have you ever driven in Italy? It's impossible, no rules, no speed limits, and the roads are impossibly narrow. People drink all their lives in Italy. Even in France the children drink.

Not any more. It's 18 in France now. Everyone is having a problem with highway fatalities. The drunk driving laws are also pretty much universally tougher in Europe too. They tried tougher laws before increasing the drinking age.

Maybe this will change if we get automatic cars you don't have to be sober to drive.

We had French exchange students...one summer our favorite one came back to visit, bringing a friend with him. He and my son were now of legal drinking age so they went to a local pitcher and pizza place that had bands.... My son and the other American friend were drinking from glasses and shared a pitcher. The French boys, having been drinking all their lives drank directly from the pitchers and proceeded to consume much beer. My son and his friend came home very tipsy and the two French boys were hitting more bars appearing not in the least tipsy...looking 'as sober as a Judge'...I guess like the driver in the Di and Doti Farad crash!

Oh, back in the the 80's or even 90's it was true. That American drivers license thing got quashed over 10 years ago iirc. More population, more drivers on the roads, Higher speeds, More immigrants with different acculturation, Teh homogenization of the EU, The system couldn't take it.

Yep, this was back in the mid 90's. When my youngest was going through the school system I was shocked by the number of kids that did illegal things and felt quite proud of it. I guess the parents from the entitled baby boomers generation let their kids "do it if it feels good"! Hey, if it's illegal fight to change it, don't break the law and flaunt it! So many laws.....

Hear, hear! Limited government intervention.
It is not government's job to protect us from ourselves. That's the job of the two people that supplied the DNA to the you and the rest of your siblings. (Grandparents may help with parents ok!)

Critic, I would almost (but not quite) agree with you if the only one harmed by putting substances in their bodies was the person doing the inhaling, ingesting or injecting. But when someone endangers their mental and/or physical health, they quite often harm far more than just themselves.

In the case of an abuser of alcohol, they often endanger their families in their drunken rages, whether it be parents, spouses, children or others. When they climb behind the wheel they become the loaded weapon in a game of Russian Roulette that none of the other drivers knows they are playing.

When the person doing the using or abusing is still in their early to mid-teens, they are changing the way their brain processes stimuli at a time when the brain is still in the process of completing its growth. The risk of depression and other mental illnesses, possibly leading to suicide increase exponentially. In such circumstances, family and friends are deeply affected.

Looking back, I wish I had never started and quitting in my late 20s was one of the best decisions I ever made. If I were the king of the world, I would like to see kids at least get through their first year of college or -- if they decide not to attend college -- get through their first year of work before those so inclined can imbibe. 19?

Well "inherent " is a pretty specific term to behavior how would you separate what society should or shouldn't mandate ? Weak minded is another interesting idea you brought up , I am so curious to find out what you define weak minded as ?

Never had a drunk plow into a tree in the middle of your front yard have you? It's messy, and guess who gets to clean it up?

Alcohol has destroyed families, Nations, and economies. How can we measure the destruction caused by decisions made by our leaders while under the influence? By its Nature, we are trapped like a fly in the spider web!

When I was 17 I rode both my bike,...and took the buss to work. ( I dont think younger kids really have any business being out of school/school related activities and into "business" to begin with ). If the work place REALLY NEEDED teenagers for local business,.....the community WOULD FIND A WAY to provide routs of transportation,.....DRIVERS licenses not required.

You're forgetting the farm kids. The only reason that kids are allowed to drive below the age of 18 to begin with is so they coould drive farm equipment and go to school 30 miles away. Not everyone lives in a city.

It wouldn't hurt my feeling if there were some sort of " rural exemption ". No one really cares if " the kids" are out drinking moonshine in the cornfields either. It has always been somewhat problematic to make laws that are sensible for both rural AND urban settings; all those "gun issues" fall squarely into this category.

so it's OK if the rural kids die so long as you can get loaded? Gosh thanks.

The point is that "RURAL" is indicative of LOW TRAFFIC density,....much smaller chance for mishap. I don't believe the federal government really has any business regulating individual consumption of substances in private,....AT ALL. Not AT ALL.

p.s. MY (personal) "getting loaded" has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion on the autonomy I believe is the right of ALL INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS. Driving,.....on public shared space,.....is not a right. Everyone's personal "state of consciousness" IS innately their own space and ethical autonomous domain.

Unfortunately the two do not coincide. Rural roads actually have higher per capital accident rates. This is because they are of poorer quality, are more rarely lit are often driven on muchfaster, and are a lot farther from emergency medical services.

Ah the endearing sociopatic egotism of youth. Of course. That is not what is being debated. This is ONLY important when the behavior affects others. Like when you for instance murder them with your incometant vehicle control. Here is what I think you are missing here:
1) Almost everything you do affects other people in some way.2)
2) The world does not revolve around you.

The Mexican pot you buy is paid for with numerous innocent lives by some of the most violent and vicious criminal organizations on earth. You are effectively smoking dead people.
You claim you have no interest in driving so you should be allowed. Ordinarily I would have no problem with that, but you are a tiny minority. How do we seperate you from the rest of Society? Remember this would be YOUR idea. If someone manages to avoid the law and kills someone it will be on YOU.

+^d

Indeed, 18-year-olds are able to buy heavy liquor in Germany (unsure of Austria).

Furthermore, kids who want to drink at 16 are going to find a way to drink--it's that simple. Either the law can support their safety in a similar way like condoms are given out for sex, or they can make teens more paranoid and drink without being able to tell their parents what they're doing and where they are.

My dad always said, "While I don't encourage you to drink/smoke, if you're going to do it, I'd rather you do it in a safe environment. Call me if you need me to pick you up." With that, I had no desire to do what was excluded from my privileges. Not all parents are like that, however; I had friends who were terrified of their parents finding out, and thus kept their sometimes dangerous escapades quite secret.

IIRC they solved that by ending the draft. It's still not so much a drinking issue as a drinking and driving issue. Germany has a low drinking age, but they go the other route and have a very high driving age combined with an incredibly expensive and difficult exam process. One of the the things every German highschool exchange student wants to do is get an American drivers license. They can then convert it to an international drivers license and have coup on their friends for several years as well as saving thousands of dollars.

This is harder to do than it used to be because these kids were going home and drunk driving. This was noticed because Germany also has a zero tolerance policy for drunk driving. Get caught once, lose you license FOREVER. You wound up with 19 yer olds who would never be able to drive a car.

yep. They just can't drive. The driving age is 18 but that just means you can start the process to get your license, which takes a long time and is very expensive and hard to do.

Remember it's not the drinking that's the problem, or the driving, it's the drinking AND driving that gets people killed. America solves it by limiting drinking, Germany solves it by limiting driving. Italy solves it by putting up with the wildly high death rate and having the rest of Europe afraid to drive there.

Every issue that infringes on individual rights is important.

always good to remember that +^d

Yepper,..........YOU sound like a hoot,....a real party cannibal . ( .....but then,...........we know what you "dollars to donuts" types are like...........)

cheers !

+^d

MADD drives me crazy (accidental pun, which I'll leave). They'd rather abolish alcohol altogether.

Probably. And if it wasn't already proven to be impossible they'd probably try it. IMHO the world would be better off without addictive psychoactive drugs. They cause stupendous amounts of misery and pain.
That doesn't mean it can be made to happen though. The best one can do is limit the damage. In this case it means reducing the number of people the user can hurt besides themselves.

to mentally healthy an attitude for this country I am afraid. ( but +^d by me ! )

I suggest spending some time in Aberdeen Scotland, on Union Street, Friday and Sat. nights to fully understand the "European attitude" toward alcohol. Or go to Glasgow during a football tournament. You will then have evidence of the inability of underage drunkards to handle their drink.

Agreed. While I'm not an NRA, pro gun nut, I do believe in one fundamental thing which I believe shares a commonality with what you're saying.

It's not guns that kill people. People kill people. Same thing applies to alcohol.

Even the Romans commented on the propensity of "Barbarians". to drink to excess, thus committing violence and then unconciousness. It is a certain fact that Northern Europeans have a particular attraction toward alcoholic drink, that exceeds the desire of most other nationalities. This tendency has evolved a people uniquely resistant to the effects of alcohol. Unlike, Native Americans, or other isolated populations, with a limited history of alcohol consumption. The English, Scottish, Irish, Germans, French, and Spanish, all share a cultural heritage of alcoholic consumption. It has not, however, protected them fom the ravages wreaked by alcohol consumption.

a very interesting position.

if i may, in a fascinating class on physical anthropology the professor explained that much of the difference between European drinking and those of Asians had to do with the source and kind of alcohol. I'd be interested in reading something that validates what they taught...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Asians made theirs from rice (Ie: Saki, for the Japanese), and they were able to metabolize rice wine well without the serious side effects.

Europeans from the mediteranean made wine. Europeans had domesticated grains such as wheat and made their alcohol from weat and barley, and the northern Europeans tended to make their alcohol from those grains, and developed a bit more resistance to those grain alcohols.

Asians apparently don't metabolize grain alcohols very well. Native Americans, being decendents of the Asians, also do not metabolize grain alcohol well either.

I have had a question about this for a long time I couldn't get answered: the native americans did make alcohol out of corn, such as pulque, and isn't corn a grain? We have also made alcohols out of corn, but it's much stronger than pulque. So I've wondered if maybe there is a flaw in what our professor was teaching or if there is something about naturally occuring corn and rice that is different from wheat and barley.

No mention was ever made of meade, nor of alcohol made from sugar cain, so I have no idea where that fits into the picture.

if someone knows the answer...i'd like to hear about it.

you're talking about the rest of Europe...like say...Russia? not exactly known for being teetotalers or "moderate" drinkers. Quite the opposite.

In fact, the Irish and Scots and English are somewhat infamous for their excessive drinking.

My point is that you can't really generalize about "Europe" since there are a lot of problems with alcoholism in Europe, it's not like they've got the problem all buttoned up.

I agree with you that youths should be allowed to be taught how to drink in moderation. I do like the fact that in Germany, a 14 year old can drink when in the presence of his parents. I think that's wise, to let them get a taste while being properly parented. My Venezuelan family has the same policy, and their kids have shown the ability to moderate their drinking...MOSTLY. When my nephew came to the US, and was no longer around his family, his drinking got out of control. So it has a lot to do with the environment, as much as the upbringing, and sadly, our environment here in the USA is not conducive to having responsible teen drinkers.

So I do NOT advocate reducing the drinking age down to 14 or 18 here, because unlike in Europe, about 90% of american teens are also driving.

A car in the wrong hands is a deadly weapon.

Would you advocate giving a teen a bottle and a loaded gun?

should we trust a teen ager with access to alcohol and cars?

why not give that teen a bottle and a loaded gun?

I think that last scenario would make some of these liberals quiver.

most of these people here were born long before the minimum age drinking limits were imposed and have no real understanding of how many teens were driving drunk and dying in accidents or--even worse--killing people.

all they know is that they want to be cool and go out drinking.

and how many people do you think were run down inthe streets by drunk 14 year olds on a horse?

the Minimum Age Limit Drinking laws were put in place because teens were driving drunk and killing people, not out of some prohibitionist tendency gone awry

Who the hell would want to eat at a segregated restaurant?

Exactly.

But shouldnt you be free to make that choice? bars and clubs kinda segregate already.

While it is a terrible business policy, if it is a private business then they can choose who they do or do not serve according to the right of association and right of property. No one, especially the government, can or should be able to tell a private business how they should operate. I'm not racist nor do i support racism, but I cannot speak for others.

And as for minimum wage, it should be repealed. All wage and price controls are tools of a centrally planned economy which is a moral hazard as well as insufficient and not long-term sustainable. We need to End the Fed before we can repeal wage control laws.

We already have businesses who "reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" and the ol' "No shoes, no shirt, no service" thing, why should we have a double standard for race, gender, sexual orientation, etc?

And i honestly don't think things would become all re-segregated and pre-Civil Rights Act if we did allow businesses to service whoever they wish.

And yes, i do not know who would eat at a segregated restaurant anyway. Like I said, it's a bad business policy to service some and not all.

i've seen VIP areas in clubs, but never a Whites Only section

sadly about 23% of America
whenever i hear some embarrassing statistic (birther/racist/ignorance) it's always 23%

And im not suggesting that clubs should start segregating people.

But if a certain club decides to do that, who are we to say they shouldnt?

Theyll lose customers and be out of business in no time.

I'm glad you ask, we don't have conversations like these often enough.

People should not have threats of violence imposed on them for their personal choice not to associate with another person. I would never personally discriminate against any person, I see us all as equal under Natural law, we should all have right to own ourselves, no politician owns you nor I, we have self-ownership and Liberty. That being said, if you don't want to associate with a person, you have that right, but expect to be ostracized by the community and people like me. I will not spend 1 dime at your establishment if you support racism. The last thing we want to do is mask the racism and keep it building up in people. We want to see where it is so people can take to the task of educating these individuals on why racism is harmful for their business (unless their the Ku Klux Klan, which already exists today - people have the right to free speech).

Minimum wage has harmed the minority community the greatest. All unemployment does is speed up inflationary pressures, but without contractions of the money supply. We must remember, business owners are not price setters, they're price takers, at least in a competitive market. When costs of labor rises, business owners must increase costs of the food. This sends a damaging ripple effect into the economy which only decreases the value of the dollar. I hope you google libertarian minimum wage to understand the caring mindset of libertarians who actually mean well, although possibly disagreeing with you on the path to that solution. I want to abolish minimum wage laws because price setting always carries negative externalities and has long-run unintended consequences that most sympathetic and apathetic voters do not recognize. Peace

My point exactly.

Agreed, this is an awesome conversation to have.

To be honest, I discriminate against people who like Justin Beiber.

well i buy my groceries, and get my mother's
perscription pills from someone of a different race than myself.
should the same country that gives the right to live, liberty,
& pursuit of happiness also give racists the liberty to put my mothers live in jepordy by making her persue her kidney medicine from someone willing to serve her kind?

Beiberphobia ?

it took me a while to figure out what you were trying to say...

it's a good question. it's a valid concern. i have to wonder what would happen, if people were allowed to serve "only their own kind", if it would become a common thing like it was in the segregated south, or if our culture has simply advanced to the point that we would not go back there.

it does seem like a dangerous experiment, after coming so far from that

So...how about the Congressional Black Caucus?

Rep. Richard Carroll is the Arkansas General Assembly’s only Green Party member. He is white, but his wife is black and he represents a predominantly black district in North Little Rock. Recently, he asked to join the Legislature’s Black Caucus because, he said, he wanted to better represent and understand the views of his constituents.

The caucus said no. Carroll is welcome to attend the group’s meetings and even voice his opinions, but he won’t be allowed a vote there.

The high-minded Elliott, whose many honors include recognition from the ACLU as a great civil libertarian, patiently-and nonsensically-explained to a reporter that “all discrimination is not bad. You can discriminate about whether you are going to drink four beers or 10 beers. I would say that’s good discrimination.” She went on to claim that excluding white lawmakers is a legitimate form of discrimination because black legislators need to join with others of “common cause.” Never mind that Carroll’s district was found to be 65 percent black in the last census.

Or another example:
As a white liberal running in a majority African American district, Tennessee Democrat Stephen I. Cohen made a novel pledge on the campaign trail last year: If elected, he would seek to become the first white member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Now that he's a freshman in Congress, Cohen has changed his plans. He said he has dropped his bid after several current and former caucus members made it clear to him that whites need not apply.

Cohen said he became convinced that joining the caucus would be "a social faux pas" after seeing news reports that former Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr., D-Mo., a co-founder of the caucus, had circulated a memo telling members it was "critical" that the group remain "exclusively African-American."

***
I do believe that it's OK that the Congressional Black caucus said no.

But then, by that token, should ANY private organization also be able to say "No blacks allowed", or "No homosexuals allowed", or "No women allowed", etc.

I agree with you, Mike, that if I went to a bar or restaurant and there was a sign "No blacks allowed" or "White Only", I'd never enter. I mean, I don't care how good the drinks and food is, you know what kind of people you're going to meet inside, and that in itself would make me lose my appetite.

I thought that it was illegal for any organization accepting gov't. funds to discriminate. Isn't the Black Caucus supported by taxpayers?

the real problem with underage and perfectly legal drinking is being drunk in general...

do you know what the mexican accident rate is for drunk drivers?

Exactly one of the points I made below. :)

There is no draft in America today.

If I'm not mature enough to drink then I shouldn't be mature enough to hold a gun and be sent to war.

When I came home from Viet Nam I could drink on Base, it was 3/2 beer. I could die for my country but not drink a beer until I was 21. Such is life.

teens have proven in the past that they were NOT mature enough to make the wise decision to avoid drinking and driving.

that's not speculation, that's a fact. You were a baby probably when the law was changed and you don't remember what it was like when teens were driving drunk.

Because the federal government gives funds to the states to build highways, they had every right to withhold those funds from states that didn't agree with a national minimum limit drinking age (MLDA) because it had national impacts on highway safety. If you had a state with a MLDA of 21, and a neighboring state with one of 16, guess what happened: the kids drove several hours to get drunk in the neighboring state and there were accidents, often fatal.

As for comparing drinking to the draft and voting, it's an argument made quite often. In the first place, I don't think 18 year olds have the knowledge and experience to vote wisely, and probably should not vote until they are a bit older. Young voters are easily manipulated, it happens all the time. But the consequences of a million kids voting unwisely across the nation is far less than a million kids deciding to drink and drive. It's still problematic, but less so.

As for the draft: I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a sober 18 year old has the ability to choose his career path. By contrast, even adults, with years of experience, show a much-reduced ability to make wise decisions when drunk, and teens are even less capable to make those decisions when drunk. So to try to compare an 18 year old choosing to join the military and a 16 year old driving to a bar to drink is ludicrous.

Even sober teens do some really stupid shit when perfectly sober, simply because they have not developed a sense of mortality yet.

+^d

Do you own a car?

everyone knows that one way to get girls to lower their inhibitions and "put out" is to get them drunk or high.

you seem to be countering omnomynous's concerns that a reduction of drinking age would result in an increase in sexual assaults by responding that the girls "would want it".

does that strike you as a mature attitude?

I seem to recall you defending underage sex with some silly argument that Europeans are "more open minded about sex", and darn it, why do I also have this vague recollection that you defended Roman Polanski on similar grounds?

I guess according to Quinlan, there is nothing wrong with a 40 year old man getting a 14 year old girl drunk and having sex with her since you seem to be saying "she'd want it".

All that time in Europe sure made you a "sophisticated" young lady, alright.

Shenanigans, I say. plenty of 16-and-younger kids still get their hands on liquor no matter the drinking age. That's not the point. Nor is the point "well, they're doin it anyway so we should make it legal so we can supervise them." The point is that it is a federal law that violates states' rights and forces them to comply to it by threatening to take away their highway funding. Unconstitutional much? Safety doesn't have much to do with it, or at least not much. Also, it has been shown that teens in Europe that have a lower age limit tend to be more responsible with it than teens here, so that's a moot point anyway.

Edit: also, I'm calling out the stats you quoted. They are either not true, or are presented in a way that skews the information to support your standpoint.

you say "studies show" but don't cite any.

at least I provided some. you don't.

either put up, or shut up. prove that european teens are "more responsible", that phrasing sounds like bullshit from the very start

I think this article talks touches on that topic a bit. But I don't remember and don't care enough to re-research it. Remember how I said the whole issue was mostly states' rights?