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 ...
“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.
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.
>vaudine
That’s it. A different taste that’s easy to get used to.
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.”
“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.
Personally, I would rather raise the drinking age to 40. Maybe by then people would learn to drink responsibly.
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.
My son had to bury two of his best girl friends who killed themselves by drunk driving.
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.
And let states pick their own, with no interference from the fedgov.
Younger drunk chicks!
I’d hit that.....
Idiots ....
Cellphone drivers kill people too and they don’t restrict their bad driving habits to a window of 10pm-3am.
“...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.
“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.
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.
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.
...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...
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