The Drinking Age Is Past Its Prime

Time ^ | April 23, 2014 | Camille Paglia

[Second Amendment First]

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, passed by Congress 30 years ago this July, is a gross violation of civil liberties and must be repealed. It is absurd and unjust that young Americans can vote, marry, enter contracts, and serve in the military at 18 but cannot buy an alcoholic drink in a bar or restaurant. The age 21 rule sets the United States apart from all advanced Western nations and lumps it with small or repressive countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

Congress was stampeded into this puritanical law by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), who with all good intentions were wrongly intruding into an area of personal choice exactly as did the hymn-singing 19th-century Temperance crusaders, typified by Carrie Nation smashing beer barrels with her hatchet. Temperance fanaticism eventually triumphed and gave us 14 years of Prohibition. That in turn spawned the crime syndicates for booze smuggling, laying the groundwork for today’s global drug trade. Thanks a lot, Carrie!

*

This tyrannical infantilizing of young Americans must stop!

[Second Amendment First]

Carrie is alive and well in America and still trampling on the Constitution.

[freedumb2003]

An 18 year old can pick up a gun and risk his life in islamic countries but can’t pick up a beer.

More than a little unfair (and stupid).

[Tenacious 1]

The age 21 rule sets the United States apart from all advanced Western nations and lumps it with small or repressive countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

Wait! Alcohol is not allowed in the United Arab Emirates (for use by citizens in general,). I don't know about those others. Personally, I think there are some more pressing issues than this to distract us from the really, really important issues. But that fallacy caught my attention.

[gdani]

An 18 year old can pick up a gun and risk his life in islamic countries but can’t pick up a beer.

An 18-year-old can also sign contracts, get married, buy & sell property, be sent to prison, be legally executed & on & on.

But no beer.

[glock rocks]

Next thing you know, they’ll be legalizing pot. Oh, wait.

[mylife]

While i don’t like the Reagan reference, Mojo Nixon summed it like this:

Now another thing is kinda gettin’ on my nerves...

another thing that’s kinda gettin’ on my nerves is this

national 21 drinking age

Huh? what do ya think about that?

A bunch of malarky

whatever malarky is man

it’s a whole bunch of it..

you know if Reagan finally gets the war he’s lookin for

you think he’s gonna be draftin’ 21 year olds?

No man they’re gonna be draftin’ 18 and 19 year olds

but ya cant buy beer

you can get married and screw yourself up real good

but ya can’t buy beer

ya can charge 8 million dollars on the mastercharge

but ya can’t buy beer

you can vote for one fool or another

but ya can’t buy beer

‘cause this is America

America that’s run by the lowest common denominator

the money

how many units did ya move Mojo?

how many things of apple juice did ya sell?

c’mon suckers- c’mon feel it

[SandRat]

There was a time when voting, marrying, or entering contracts required the age of 21.

You may serve in the military at 18, or even with parents permission at age 17, but cannot buy an alcoholic drink in a bar or restaurant until you are 21.

[Second Amendment First]

What this cruel 1984 law did is deprive young people of safe spaces where they could happily drink cheap beer, socialize, chat, and flirt in a free but controlled public environment. Hence in the 1980s we immediately got the scourge of crude binge drinking at campus fraternity keg parties, cut off from the adult world.

When I was in college in the late 60's the 21 age limit was the law in that state. There was a tavern in town that was not too stringent on enforcing it. When we would drink beer there it was a social event where good food was available. That contrasted with the binge drinking that occurred in motel rooms and cars elsewhere.

[jospehm20]

That particular stupid law was passed while Reagan was President.

[Iron Munro]

Let them legally drink when they join the service or drop off Mommy’s health insurance.

[Cementjungle]

Back when I was around 18, the drinking was 18... then after I turned 21 they switched it back to 21.

I wonder if it was my fault they had to put it back to 21.

[camle]

the same argument was used to get the drinking age dropped to 18 once before. this has been tried, and the drinking age went back to 21. and there was a reason for that.

[Second Amendment First]

The states were blackmailed by the threat of withholding highway funds.

Also thanks to MADD was the legalization of gestapo checkpoints.

[Second Amendment First]

The reason was MADD, the new Carrie Nation.

[Sheapdog]

I grew up in UAE, Abu Dhabi, as a teenager albeit I was Canadian/ American and I could drink at the bars. The locals and others were kept out and I understood a local undercover would often be present. But at the hotels and other bars it was cool for expats and some Arabic friends that were clearly not locals and this was in the later 80’s.

[camle]

the reason was all the dead on our highways. that is where the new carrie nation came from.

[fuzzylogic]

If anything they have the age limits for alcohol and voting the wrong way around...

[Second Amendment First]

That was the excuse and it’s the same one being used to take your guns away.

[SamAdams76]

It's really nonsense to believe that "21" is some sort of magical age in which you are suddenly transformed into a responsible drinker. To highlight the absurdity of this, imagine tossing the car keys into the hands of a teenager who just became old enough to drive and telling him to "go have fun and come home safely" - despite him having no prior driving experience at all.

You probably wouldn't do that, right?

Yet this is what we do with alcohol. You can be 20 years and 364 days old and it is still illegal for you to drink. In fact, if you did drink, you were breaking the law and so was anybody else that provided you with alcoholic beverages - including your own parents. Yet the very next day, on your 21st birthday, you can now legally walk into a bar and drink yourself under the table.

What sense does that make?

Can somebody explain?

[I want the USA back]

The law is not the problem. It’s the irresponsible attitude of the kids. The inability to drink responsibly.

Colleges today are actively promoting the “get drunk” culture, and college kids are lapping it up, competing with each other to see who can drink the most and stumble around the most and wet their pants the most and act like the biggest a$$hole and vomit the most.

Changing the age of legality is not going to change this culture.