In Defense of "Underage" Drinking

Mercurial Times ^ | March 1, 2002 | Aaron Armitage

[A.J.Armitage]

The situation is already bad enough. Every state in the union has already been forced by federal blackmail to raise the drinking age to 21. Now a group called the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse is trying to whip up hysteria about the evils of people drinking a few years before they get government permission. They came out with attention getting claims that 25 percent of alcohol consumption is by "children", which to them apparently includes a number of potential voters. It turns out the real number is 11 percent, including, it should be noted, people over 18. The headlines ought to be shouting the shocking news that college students account for less than 25 percent of the drinking in America. My generation is a bunch of slackers.

The 25 percent figure was what Thomas Sowell calls an "Aha! statistic". Like the bogus statistic that domestic abuse increased on Super Bowl Sunday, it existed to boost a particular political agenda; whether it happens to be true is fundamentally beside the point. In this case, the political agenda is more warfare on substances (as if the war on drugs wasn't insane enough). The organization's web site, which greets visitors with an alternating graphic of someone smoking the devil-weed, a middle aged corporate manager type having what, by the looks of him, is a well deserved drink to relax after a hard day at the office (they're evidently so inhumane as to begrudge him this), and a girl smoking a cigarette, quotes their head control freak as saying, "This report is a clarion call for a national mobilization to curb underage drinking," while calling for various authoritarian measures such as holding parents legally responsible, "stepping up" enforcement, and, of course, higher taxes on alcohol. What fun.

One of the arguments advanced by opponents of the 21 year old drinking age is that you can't expect people to learn to drink responsibly by not letting them drink at all and then one day letting them drink all they want. Instead, children should learn to drink wine or beer with meals, as they do in Europe. There's a lot to this argument. You wouldn't expect a 16 year old to drive perfectly without practicing in parking lots first. But it's not my reason. These are my two main reasons for opposing the drinking age.

First, the government has no business telling anyone, whatever his age, what substances he can consume. Yes, that includes crack cocaine. Yes, that means no drinking age whatsoever. I got drunk on champaign on New Year's Eve when I was one year old with no ill effects. Restrictions on what a peaceful person can own, consume, sell, or produce are simply outside the proper sphere of government. Government necessarily operates by force, so the proper sphere of government is the proper sphere of force. Drinking before a certain age is not a reason to use force against someone, but if it is, which age? What sets drinking at the age of 20 apart to a degree that requires force, which is to say violence or the threat of violence, to stop it? Does it apply to 20 year olds in Canada? Did it apply to 20 year olds before the federal government imposed the 21 year drinking age? The truth is, nothing whatsoever except the law itself sets drinking by 20 year olds apart. That law is groundless; it exists as arbitrary will and nothing more. If it had pleased the makers of the law, the age would be set at 30.

Second, drinking is fun. Here, I suspect, my reason for supporting it is the very reason they oppose it. There's a significant proportion of the population that instinctively regards anything enjoyable as a sin and something the government ought to do something about, at which point they resemble the "Islamo-fascists" we've been at war against, who also hate drinking. H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Now, this is grossly unfair to the Puritans, and the Reformed tradition as a whole, but that type of person existed in Mencken's time, and exists now. Far from being theological Puritans, they tend to be social gospellers or non-Christians altogether. In place of a Christian zeal for salvation, they have a zeal for social perfection.

Unfortunately, a zeal for coercively achieved social perfection always ends badly.

[balrog666]

I'm just saying I'd rather err on the side of protecting innocent victims from immature, irresponsible people

..no matter how many people's rights are trampled upon to do it! Just admit you're a fascist and move on...

[LibertyGirl77]

I was the same. Had a glass of wine (or two, occasionally) just about every night with dinner from age 13 on. When I reached college, I thought all the other freshmen whooping it up with kegs and crappy vodka looked ridiculous. I'll take one glass of good Gewurtraminer over 8 plastic cups of over-foamed Bud Light any day of the week.

[metesky]

I always thought the "bloodbath", as you call it, occurred because the kids suddenly went wild when they lowered the drinking age. If it had been 18 all along the spike wouldn't have happened.

Conversly, when the drinking age was 21, the same 18 year olds, although still drinking, would have been more low key.

I was around thirty and still in barroom/night club mode when they lowered the age back in the seventies.

Suddenly the local high school football team was hanging out in front of the bathrooms, making nasty remarks to the women and elbowing all the men going to take a leak.

It took a couple of really great brawls before the kiddies got the message, but things did quiet down.

[A.J.Armitage]

I agree to a certain extent. True, the federal government doesn't have that right but, in keeping with the spirit of the 9th and 10th Amendments, the various state governments should be allowed to decide these issues.

You're right about the Constitution, but I don't think, as a philosophical matter, that any government at all has a right to make laws against substances.

[LowOiL]

Just admit you're a fascist and move on...

Balrog666 calls someone a fascist..

Ahhh... the irony..

[RnMomof7]

UMMMM are you "holiness"? Cheap date??

[July 4th]

I'll take one glass of good Gewurtraminer over 8 plastic cups of over-foamed Bud Light any day of the week.

Excellent taste. The phrase "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive" always had more meaning for me than "The keg is here."

[drjimmy]

I may not be smart, but I am a smartass!

[bassmaner]

Click here to learn the truth about MADD and their prohibitionist agenda.

[LibertyGirl77]

I'm originially from Southern California. The phrase as I am familiar with it is "Duuuuuuuuuude, the keg's here." :)

[Bella_Bru]

On this THREAD, the group CASA states:

Well, not quite. CASA grudgingly allows that underage drinking might be OK when "it is a basic component of a particular cultural event or religious ritual." This is not very reassuring, especially when coupled with CASA's implicit criticism of state laws that "limit police authority in investigating a home where underage drinking is suspected." Who decides when drinking has enough cultural or religious significance to justify letting the kids imbibe? Not their parents, it seems. They are "too often unwitting co-conspirators who see underage drinking and occasional bingeing as a rite of passage."

They basically DO NOT think parents should have any say in it.

This group would have not been real pleased with the thimblefull of anisette we were allowed to have as kids on Christmas, or the wine (watered down for the longest time) we had with Sunday dinner.

Alcohol was not some sort of "demon drink" in my house that was poo-pooed until the state said you could have some.

[mafree]

A who didn't drink while underage? bump.

[tpaine]

"I just am saying that the people of a state/city/community have the constitutional ability to prohibit 18-20 year olds access to alcohol. They have the constitutional ability to prohibit alcohol completely even. The Constitution does not prevent stupid state laws." -TA79-

And THAT I absolutely agree with. - #160 LG77-

A question. -- The 14th amendment says, [in part] : "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

-- Does this section of the 14th apply to stupid, unconstitutional, prohibitive laws that deprive persons of property such as alcohol without due process?

211 posted by tpaine

Yep. You have the right to fight them just as vehemently as you do the Fed, but you lose the constitutionality argument.

I lose? -- Why? -- I doubt that you can explain your opinion using constitutional fact.

And if you REALLY don't like the laws in your state, well, that's why we have more than one state in these United States. You are free to move to one you like better. That's what I did.

No, we have a U.S. constitution that says, in effect, -- I don't have to move, as quoted above in the plain language of the 14th. -- A state has no power to pass such law. -- Words have meaning.

It's puzzling, - why would you deny your own individual liberty, as the 14th attempts to protect?

[FreedominJesusChrist]

Honestly, the first link that she gave me was blocked, I don't know why. But the second one worked.

[LibertyGirl77]

Because I'm fairly certain (don't have my copy in front of me) that amendment is explicitly referencing due process of law, and you are twisting it out of context. When they say no man may be denied life, liberty or property without due process, they're talking about capital punishment, imprisonment and fines. You can't hang, lock up or fine a man without a trial.

[FreedominJesusChrist]

Sure...will let you know what I think once I read it. But you may have a point with the Federal Government blackmail. That isn't right, but so saying, I still don't mind underage drinking laws. But in all fairness, I will still look at the links that you gave to me.

[FreedominJesusChrist]

The 14th Ammendment is mainly used to apply the first 10 Amendments to state government as well as federal.

[tpaine]

A.J.Armitage - "...the government has no business telling anyone, whatever his age, what substances he can consume."

I agree to a certain extent. True, the federal government doesn't have that right but, in keeping with the spirit of the 9th and 10th Amendments, the various state governments should be allowed to decide these issues. That is the true essence of federalism. If Minnesota wants a drinking age of 45 and Nevada wants a drinking age of 3 months, that should certainly be allowed to happen in a constitutional republic. Of course, being a Minnesotan who likes Sam Adams (the beer and patriot), I would fight that kind of law tooth and nail!

A freeper attorney explained this state prohibitory law issue one night some time ago:
--- State criminal law covers the protection of children. Thus, - criminal prohibitory law is OK. --
But states/communitys can only regulate exchanges of goods & services between adults, in public, using civil law.
-- Governments do NOT have the power to criminally prohibit nonviolent conduct, nor common products used in private; -- in constitutional theory, of course.
-- Obviously, -- this view of the law is being violated on a massive scale, by all levels of government.

[tpaine]

The 14th amendment says, [in part] : "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

I assure you that I am not 'twisting' the words of the 14th. - It was written to stop states from writing unconstitutional law against individuals, & from ignoring the BOR's.

The congressional debates of 1868, prior to ratification, are just a couple of clicks away, & prove my point.

[mrustow]

Thanks for the ping, A.J., and of course, the post. I had heard something a crisis in "children drinking," but didn't catch the actual "story." Thanks for exposing yet another hoax. However, you went off the wagon yourself.

First, the government has no business telling anyone, whatever his age, what substances he can consume.

So, if a police officer sees an eight-year-old drinking, smoking, or taking drugs, it's none of his business? Your argument would also require that a three-year-old who accidentally kills his baby brother be arrested and charged with manslaughter or murder.

You go from making sensible arguments, to losing all good sense. It's just common sense, that you need an official age of majority. The unavoidable imperfection of such a convention is no more a convincing argument against it, than it would be against any other social convention.