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Get real, lower drinking age to 19
CNN ^ | Thu March 20, 2014 | William Cohan

Posted on 03/20/2014 6:52:38 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

(CNN) -- It's been eight years since a black exotic dancer in Durham, North Carolina, accused three white Duke University lacrosse players of rape, sexual assault and kidnapping at a party. Whether you believe justice was adequately served -- without a trial, the North Carolina attorney general unilaterally declared the indicted players innocent -- one fact remains indisputable: A whole lot of underage drinking of beer and Jack Daniels was going on throughout much of that March day, badly impairing the judgment of the more than 40 man-boys in attendance.

According to a June 2006 study by Aaron White, then an assistant professor at the Duke University Medical Center, about 40% of college freshmen admitted they engaged in binge drinking: five or more drinks on one occasion. Some 20% of college freshmen admitted they drank even more: between 10 and 15 drinks per drinking session.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alcohol; drinkingage; drunkwithpower; legalpot; liberalism; neoprohibition; pravdamedia; revenuetickets; revisionisthistory; williamcohan
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To: DManA

“An 18 year old in the Army can walk into any bar and order a drink?”

NO but he can drink at the EM Club or purchase at the commissary.


101 posted on 03/21/2014 3:47:54 AM PDT by Dusty Road
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To: Dusty Road

Really, the people that want to drink are going to do it, regardless of how old they are. Same goes for smoking, drugs, driving without a license, possessing/using firearms, and various other behaviors people think can be controlled with a piece of paper signed by a politician. I have NEVER met a late-teen/20 year old that enjoyed drinking refuse to drink or attend a party because they were under 21. All of those laws only exist to make other people feel better about themselves, while having no effect whatsoever on the people/behavior they desire to control.


102 posted on 03/21/2014 4:54:28 AM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: Dusty Road
Not much of a drinker, really. Just seems stupid to me. If they are man enough to protect this country, they are man enough to have a beer.

>vaudine

103 posted on 03/21/2014 4:55:14 AM PDT by vaudine
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To: Conservative4Ever

That’s it. A different taste that’s easy to get used to.


104 posted on 03/21/2014 5:19:04 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (Making good people helpless doesn't make bad people harmless.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

I remember a Mike Royko column in which he discussed the drinking age, pointing out that drunk 18-year-olds are generally drunker and more obnoxious than drunk 19-year-olds, drunk 19-year-olds generally worse than drunk 20-year-olds, etc. In the column, he went to his fictitious bar to interview some of the customers, and one of these delivered a line that will always stay with me: “If they think they’re having fun, they’re not old enough.”


105 posted on 03/21/2014 5:25:03 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: DManA

“It was pretty hard to argue that an 18 year old was responsible enough to carry a machine gun around rice paddies but not enough to have a beer.”

That argument is moot when you understand government doesn’t give a sh** about the troops or people in the country they are sent to.

When they even start heading back to the USA, they are all disarmed. Most states don’t even allow handguns until you are 21.


106 posted on 03/21/2014 5:42:16 AM PDT by varyouga
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To: fatnotlazy

Personally, I would rather raise the drinking age to 40. Maybe by then people would learn to drink responsibly.


I assume you’re being sarcastic, suggesting that people should send 20 years drinking illegally to know how it’s done properly.

Drinking age should be set based adulthood (mental capacity to enter contracts, serve in the military, etc.)

BAC limits should be set based on science (they used to be, at 0.12-0.15).

Conservatives should realize that prohibitionism is police-state nannyism and should be avoided.


107 posted on 03/21/2014 6:19:02 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("Income Inequality?" Let's start with Washington DC vs. the rest of the nation!)
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To: MadMax, the Grinning Reaper

My son had to bury two of his best girl friends who killed themselves by drunk driving.


Were they drinking legally at age 18-20? If not, your tragic tale does not support restoring common sense to the drinking age.


108 posted on 03/21/2014 6:20:42 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("Income Inequality?" Let's start with Washington DC vs. the rest of the nation!)
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To: DManA

Pick age. Less than that you are a minor. Above that you are an adult. We can talk about what that age should be. But you turn that age and you are handed the whole package.


Precisely.

And let states pick their own, with no interference from the fedgov.


109 posted on 03/21/2014 6:21:28 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("Income Inequality?" Let's start with Washington DC vs. the rest of the nation!)
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To: Vendome

Younger drunk chicks!

I’d hit that.....

Idiots ....


They’re already drunk. Just absurdly criminalized.


110 posted on 03/21/2014 6:23:10 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("Income Inequality?" Let's start with Washington DC vs. the rest of the nation!)
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To: This Just In

Cellphone drivers kill people too and they don’t restrict their bad driving habits to a window of 10pm-3am.


111 posted on 03/21/2014 6:28:15 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (The Texas judge's decision was to pave the way for same sex divorce for two Massachusetts women.)
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To: jocon307
“...without a trial, the North Carolina attorney general unilaterally declared the indicted players innocent...”
. . . sorta like William Cohan has been presumed innocent of treason, murder, rape, spitting on the sidewalk, and a whole criminal code of other crimes . . . except the imaginary crime the players were accused of was investigated, and the investigator found that the supposed crime not only could not be pinned on the players, the “crime” never occurred at all. As anyone willing to go where the evidence pointed pretty much knew after the first week of malpractice by prosecutor Michael Nifong.
And as anyone would strongly suspect, knowing the first thing about that case - and knowing what her reputation now is entirely apart from the rape allegation.

112 posted on 03/21/2014 8:04:14 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: Dusty Road

“NO but he can drink at the EM Club or purchase at the commissary.”

Not in the States. You have to be 21 to drink on or off base. Overseas is different. 17 year old soldiers can drink in Germany.


113 posted on 03/21/2014 4:07:13 PM PDT by HenpeckedCon (What pi$$es me off the most is that POS commie will get a State Funeral!)
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To: Atlas Sneezed

They were drinking legally but way too much. Their car went airborne at a high speed and hit the highway Jersey walls and I believe landed on its roof.

Estimated ages were early to mid-20’s. A needless loss of two nice young people.

Common sense has no age limits.


114 posted on 03/21/2014 4:40:13 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: Atlas Sneezed
Yes, I was being silly. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world where everyone is responsible. Far too many people get drunk and stupid. Wouldn't be a problem if every drinker was like my late uncle who was just funny when he drank. He never harmed anyone.

Far more are like the drunk driver who plowed into a co-worker, killing him. The drunk driver had been cited numerous times before, had his license suspended for X days, then he was back on the road drunk. This time, he killed a young man who never harmed anyone, leaving a young widow and small children as orphans.

Or a neighbor's boyfriend who would get drunk and beat up his girlfriend. He finally went too far. His girlfriend is dead and he's doing a life sentence.

We tried Prohibition — it didn't work. Age limits and taxes haven't deterred the stupid. Educational programs don't work either. How do we protect society from the terminally stupid, but not infringe on people's rights to enjoy a brew or 2? I don't know.

115 posted on 03/21/2014 8:33:30 PM PDT by fatnotlazy
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To: fatnotlazy

...we don’t live in a perfect world where everyone is responsible...

...Far more are like the drunk driver who plowed into a co-worker, killing him. The drunk driver had been cited numerous times before, had his license suspended for X days, then he was back on the road drunk...

...Or a neighbor’s boyfriend who would get drunk and beat up his girlfriend. He finally went too far. His girlfriend is dead and he’s doing a life sentence...

...We tried Prohibition — it didn’t work. Age limits and taxes haven’t deterred the stupid. Educational programs don’t work either....

...How do we protect society from the terminally stupid, but not infringe on people’s rights to enjoy a brew or 2? I don’t know...


You’ve answered your own question. We don’t enact ineffective laws that impair liberty. We accept that there is some tragedy to life, and resist the liberal urge to “do something!”


116 posted on 03/22/2014 5:37:00 AM PDT by Atlas Sneezed ("Income Inequality?" Let's start with Washington DC vs. the rest of the nation!)
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