Posted on 11/29/2002 10:07:06 AM PST by NorCoGOP
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The recent riots near the Ohio State University campus were, as all similar riots have been, an inexcusable abomination. Students arrested for their involvement should be expelled. Students and non-students who were involved should spend time in jail.
City officials in the future would be justified in instituting a curfew to keep people off the streets after football games to prevent similar occurrences. University officials should seriously consider suspending the Buckeyes' participation in postseason play as a result of fans' actions.
That being said, President Holbrook has asked what can be done about the nationwide problem of college student riots. One answer, paradoxically, is to lower the drinking age to 18.
The current law that sets the drinking age at 21 does not prevent a single college student from getting alcohol if one wants it. What the law does do is label something "illegal" that virtually every college student between the ages of 18 and 20 does at least occasionally. When this unreasonable law turns students into lawbreakers when they drink, it causes respect for the law to decline. (For another, well-known example of this phenomenon, recall the Prohibition Era in the 1920s United States.)
When one is already engaging in "illegal behavior" simply by drinking, a relevant line has already been crossed, and it becomes easier to engage in other forms of illegal behavior, particularly when one's judgment is impaired by alcohol. Obviously it doesn't work this way for everyone, but the student riots that our president has described as "national and ongoing" seem to provide ample evidence that it works this way for a significant number of people.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow larger numbers of college students to drink socially in more supervised settings such as bars, and even on campus. Not as many would turn to illicit off-campus parties where sexual assaults, exploitation and other forms of injury are all too common. I'm sure that Columbus law enforcement would agree riots would be much easier to control and prevent if the masses of students who currently fuel them were not present on the streets.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 would also allow our university residence life and student affairs professionals to treat drinking realistically and constructively as an issue of student health and welfare, rather than as a discipline issue. For students with serious, life-impairing drinking problems, this would be a life-saving shift.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow younger students to socialize more with older students, allowing older students to model responsible, more mature social drinking behavior. Over time, this would help to change the culture surrounding drinking among our young people.
Many argue that lowering the drinking age would cause the number of drinking-and-driving-related injuries and deaths to skyrocket. However, if this is the problem about which we are concerned, then this is the issue our law should address. We should not discriminate against an entire age cohort of citizens because of the harmful actions of a minority, particularly when there are serious negative consequences to doing so. If we are serious about preventing drinking-and-driving, then we need to do the following things:
A first offense must be a felony, regardless of whether any injury or property damage resulted, and must result in both jail time and a multi-year drivers license suspension. A second offense must result in permanent license revocation, and a long jail term.
We must make a national effort to make driving after drinking absolutely unacceptable and to make alternative forms of transportation and accommodation readily available.
When 18-year-olds can vote, can marry, defend our country in the military, and are considered adults in our society in every other way, not allowing them to drink is an absurd legal and social incongruity. As the riots and the other negative consequences discussed above demonstrate, the effects of this law are not trivial.
While the law has reduced the numbers of young people who kill and are killed in drinking related car accidents, it has spawned and exacerbated a host of other social ills. There are other ways to keep people from drinking and driving if we are serious about it.
Young people should organize and demand the law be changed. Older people should support them, and our leaders should hear them and act in our collective best interest by reducing the drinking age to 18.
The reason the states raised the drinking age was due to federal coersion. The feds simply said to raise the age or lose federal highway funding, which is nothing more than our tax dollars being returned to us after the feds take their cut. They also pulled the same crap with helmet laws, but our legisature actually had the balls to tell them to go pound sand. It cost us a few bucks, but I'm one of a small group of Americans who can still ride legally with the wind whipping through my hair.
Sorry, 18 year olds are adults. They can drink if they want.
Yes it is. State may NOT deprive a single person of inalienable rights. Drinking what you please when you please is a right. There you go.
I repeat: The move to lower drinking (and voting) ages were pushed by leftie Democrats originally. This was all part of their initiative to hook into the rebelliousness of youth and draw forth political power.
Bill Clinton, during his unsuccessful bid for Congress in (I believe) 1972, gave an interview where he hailed the recently passed Amendment granting the vote to 18 year olds, and openly hoped that it would be lowered still further, to 16, since "kids are far more politically aware than their parents."
So the drinking age being raised was COUNTER to the leftie Democrat thinking of the time. It wasn't they who initiated it, but responsible Democrats and Republicans.
The drinking age WON'T be lowered again in your lifetime, so I think you ought to find something else to whine about.
Been there, done that, bought the tombstones.
Who do you think Congress is?
This was the argument used to lower the voting age and drinking ages in the 1970s.
Too bad for you; the experiment was already tried, and it failed. Try again next generation.
Therefore, I don't drink at all.
As Secretary of Transportation, I did not shy away from Washington’s traditional responsibility to advocate, and, where absolutely necessary, regulate. So we successfully pressed legislation raising the drinking age to 21, working with grassroots heroes like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.BTW, that's a direct quote from this elected official in 1999 as reported by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. It is my distinct feeling if this person is for it, there's a good chance any good conservative should probably be against it. Lower the drinking age back to 18 again. If men and women of this age are willing to fight for this nation of states, then they should be allowed to drink
CD, this is another failure of government control instituted by our 'Senator-elect'
I skipped a ton of replies on this thread, SR. But I just HAD to take a peek at what you had to say. You can be counted on to be entertaining, and you didn't fail this time either.
I have come to the conclusion that you're pulling my leg whenever you post. NO ONE can be this obtuse!
Of course it isn't. Glad to see you're coming around. However it is against the Constitution for the federal government to regulate what those states choose to do within their respective borders isn't it? But of course that hasn't stopped the national government for over a century
Your choice. Nothing wrong with not partaking, however you do miss out on the health benefits that come with moderate consumption.
If by obtuse, you mean confusing you with the facts, than I guess so. I hate to disappoint you, but I am not only 100% serious, but 100% right. No government entity may deprive an American citizen of their inalienable rights. That means state, federal or local. We live in a republic, not a democracy. 51% of the people in any state cannot tell an 18 year old adult what he may or may not drink. Actually, 51% of the people in any state may not tell ANYONE what they may or may not drink. If the person is a minor, it is the parents decision., not the state's or 51% of the population in it.
When a busybody law comes into conflict with an individual's rights, the right of the individual trumps that law every time. Now please tell me why my drinking what I want, when I want is not my right. That should be interesting.
That has to be the dumbest idea I've ever read at this site. The football team is not responsible for the conduct of others. You would deny the opportunity of 100 people to finish what they started this year because of what a few fans and many thuggish non-students did?
Tell me, when your oldest kid cusses in school, do you punish your spouse and the youngest kids for it, or is just the Ohio State Buckeye football team that should pay for other people's mistakes?
If the drinking age must be 21, then make the draft age 21, voting age 21, age of majority 21, and voting age 21.
Since if you are not old enough to drink, you certainly not old enough to vote in elections, die for your country, and sign contracts.
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