Posted on 04/23/2014 9:26:44 AM PDT by 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Drinking Age Act, passed by Congress 30 years ago this July, is a gross violation of civil liberties and must be repealed.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!
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This tyrannical infantilizing of young Americans must stop!
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Underage drinking (I use the term in a legal-threshold sense, not a judgmental one) is more widespread and far more voluminous than anyone’s ‘beer blast’ of the 1970s could imagine.
I hesitate to use the term binge drinking because it’s one of those Silly Putty phrases used by lefties, including college administrators, to justify surveillance and draconian punishments.
The most effective way to combat underage drinking is to lower the drinking age to 18 (or possibly 19) again.
Simple? Silly? Self-evident? Perhaps. But it will work.
All of the bluster about alcohol (binge drinking etc.) ignores one fact: for 3/4 of an undergraduate population alcohol is forbidden fruit due to the 21 age restriction. Yes some bars will allow 18-and-up in and we all know that (wink wink) these 18+ customers MIGHT have a tipple or two.’
But prohibition and an arbitrary age limit simply increase demand. In the case of college students the demand and the prohibition set up a challenge, a game to be won at all costs. Consumption of alcohol in moderation is, or was, a rite of passage into adulthood. Social drinking is called that for a reason. When alcohol becomes contraband then access to that contraband can become an obsession. When the object of the obsession is obtained the next logical (?) step is to go absolutely hog-wild. Overconsumption becomes the norm because in the back of the mind of every underage drinker is “when and where will I have access to alcohol again?”
The 21 drinking age has failed on two fronts: it has failed to prevent or even reduce consumption; indeed, it has increased it in many cases. Worse, it has created hundreds if not thousands of unsupervised speakeasies in the form of dorm rooms, apartments, off-campus houses, etc. where social drinking i.e. a public display of being able to consume and still function as a rational human being is nowhere to be found. Instead, interaction is limited to drinking-oriented games (e.g. beer pong) and constant exhortations to consume stupor-inducing quantities of alcohol (beer bongs, shots, etc.).
In sum, the 21 drinking age is an overreach that stands the process of socialization on its head and forces students who choose to drink into a state of arrested development. They remain children but they are children with easy access to oceans of beer and spirits rather than young adults who frequent licensed venues in order to drink, yes, but also to (hopefully) continue the process of maturation via interaction.
Yeppers. Its all about the dead on the highways.
Don’t like the legal drinking age at 21? (Not you camle - just a general question), too bad. It saves lives and most people accept it.
Either abolish a legal drinking age or set the legal driving age to 21.
So true.
There's no doubt that under-21 prohibition is a huge contributing factor to the many drunken riots that break out in college towns after a major sports team victory (or loss): "let's pound it down before the fuzz get here".
My mom always said the reason parents buy their kids cars is because they're tired of driving them everywhere, LOL.
A smart teen can read a book, buy some grain and yeast and a homebrew kit, and make his own regardless of whether he’s 18 or not.
At least among high school students, it appears today's students drink far less than the high-schoolers in my area did in the 1980s.
Alcohol is far more difficult to purchase & bars are much more strict.
A lot of high-schoolers have pivoted to marijuana as a result.
LOL, Burn Down the Malls...
In the late 70s Michigan had 18 as the drinking age and it was a total disaster!
Regardless of where we think the drinking age should be, we can all agree it shouldn’t be diktated from Washington.
Can’t we?
The drinking age should be the age of responsibility.
Obummercare has deemed that the new age of responsibility is 26.
So as far as I am concerned, the useful idiots who help get obummer elected TWICE can wait until they are 26 to drink......
I used to think so, but don’t anymore. I see conservatives fighting diktats from the left but are more than willing to replace them with their own diktats.
Let’s go back to letting the states decide for themselves.
The last US export is young American men and women as expendables in vague globalist wars which never end.
The should at least be able to have beer while the Obamunists and neocons play Risk.
Bookmark.
So many Freepers get so wrapped up with the trees they can’t see the forest.
“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”
IIRC, in Texas, as long as you are with a relative who is over 21 and lives at the same address you can order a drink in a bar or restaurant..
Praise Texas then.
Hate to be the one to tell you but fraternity keg parties did not just start in the eighties. I was introduced to the joys of underage drinking at one in 1965.
Get used to the drinking age going back to 18. The dope pushers will demand it.
That makes no sense whatsoever. Since when are “dope pushers” selling beer?
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