Lower the Drinking Age for Everyone

National Review Online ^ | today | Michelle Minton

[bassmaner]

Isn't it nice that 18-year-olds can be sent off to Afghanistan, be given an AR-15, and be told to kill the enemy, but are treated as criminals if they drink a beer when they get home.

Whatever decreases the influence of the nanny state gets my support.

[Kansas58]

And then HS Seniors can supply all of the Freshman?

Bad idea.

[ilgipper]

I am with you. The assumption is that high schools can’t get their hands on it with the current law, which most of us can attest is not true. It just becomes more hidden from parents and leads to more problems. More drunk driving, more fake ids, more crime. It also conditions young people to flaunt the law early on, rather than preparing them to be law-abiding adults.

[fwdude]

Whatever decreases the influence of the nanny state gets my support.

So, by your raw reasoning, lowering the drinking age to 12 would also get your support, since it reduces the effect of "nanny statism" on yet more of our populace?

Not saying I disagree with the proposed AK law, but please first think through the reasoning you use to arrive at the conclusion. Some laws are GOOD, and work to preserve and maintain our free American way of life.

[Artemis Webb]

Nice to have rhetorical arguments about bad ideas that have (in this case thankfully) zero chance of occurring.

[brytlea]

Why do we have a drinking age? Just let everyone decide for themselves and be done with it.

[TheOldLady]

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[utahagen]

Proposal: make it illegal to SELL alcohol to anyone under 21, but legal to SERVE alcohol to anyone over 19. If colleges and parents could legally allow nineteen and twenty year olds to drink beer at school or at home, fewer of them would be driving around, looking for places to drink. (I think a drinking age of 18 is too low because so many high school kids are 18.)

[utahagen]

Proposal: make it illegal to SELL alcohol to anyone under 21, but legal to SERVE alcohol to anyone over 19. If colleges and parents could legally allow nineteen and twenty year olds to drink beer at school or at home, fewer of them would be driving around, looking for places to drink. (I think a drinking age of 18 is too low because so many high school kids are 18.)

[cripplecreek]

21 is fine but a soldier has shown a definite degree of maturity and should be able to buy alcohol with a military ID.

[Forgotten Amendments]

...our free American way of life

That ended decades ago.

[fwdude]

Can’t say I disagree with you.

[kevslisababy]

A co-worker of mine pointed out this morning that his 16 year old daughter can drive herself to an abortion clinic and obtain an abortion without his consent, but only if it's before 10pm. That is the curfew for 16 year old drivers in Michigan. And if she violates curfew, I would bet he gets reprimanded too, because on that issue they would probably tell him she is a minor and he is responsible for her.

[Yo-Yo]

When I was 18 the drinking age was 18. When I was in the Air Force, the drinking age at the Airman's Club or NCO Club was 18, but off base it was whatever state law said it was.

Is this still the case today?

[dfwgator]

but off base it was whatever state law said it was. Is this still the case today?

Not if the State wants Federal Highway funds.

[radpolis]

We have been so conditioned by the nanny state that the notion of being a free people is scary to most Americans nowadays.

[John.Galt2012]

Insurance companies have done extensive research and determined that drivers under 25 are the greatest risk, therefore the premiums are highest for that age. Rental agencies won't even rent to those under 25 except in certain situations.

A National Institutes of Health study found that the part of the brain that restrains risky behavior, including reckless driving, and thinking skills is not fully developed until the age of 25. Jay Giedd, the psychiatrist leading the study, told said that this finding came as a surprise to him because he used to think that the brain was fully developed by the age of 18. In fact, the continuous study uses magnetic resonance imaging to scan 2,000 people’s brains every two years. It has been found that teenage brains have extra synapses in the areas where decision making and risk assessment take place. Most of these synapses are useless and even get in the way of one’s judgment. Eventually, as teenagers become adults the synapses disappear, but the findings imply that many life choices are made before the brain’s decision making center is fully developed.

So I say don't let them vote, drink or enlist until 25. It's the safest way to go. and watch the dems spin out of control when they lose their voting base!!!

[doublecansiter]

I’m with you.

Old enough to vote
Old enough to serve in the Armed Forces
Old enough to pay taxes

Should be old enough to drink

Mike

[BenLurkin]

Why do we consider 18-year-olds old enough to join the military, to fight and die for our country, but not to have a drink with their friends before they ship out or while they’re home on leave?

That's as stupid as "Why do we consider 18-year-olds old enough to join the military, to fight and die for our country, but not old enough to vote"

[cripplecreek]

In my litrtle hometown bar they let the local military guys drink. It wasn’t legal but nobody had any issues with it.