In this case, I would say that they’re too immature to be handed a gun and sent to war. Shouldn’t this require a lot of maturity and zero silliness?
And actually, the older I get the more shocked I am to see what look like kids being sent to a zone of conflict.
No kidding - I got stuck under the bleachers at Fort Jackson on the Fourth with a bunch of Army recruits, and they were kids. They screamed when it thundered really close.
There should be no age restrictions on the sale or consumptin of alcoholic beverages. I don’t anticipate an epidemic of 7 year old alcoholics.
The thing is, right now tons of 18 year olds annually descend on college campuses, where alcohol consumption is not only rampant but is illegal. We implicitly expect these kids to learn how to drink in three years in an atmosphere where they may be arrested at any time.
That expectation, plus the illegality, plus various peer pressures, have conspired to turn what used to be evenings of relatively light drinking and carousing in previous decades to incredible binge drinking now - as students try to pound as many beers as they can in a very short time, thus reducing, in their minds, their chances of getting caught.
If they had learned to drink moderately at home, as most people consume alcohol, and if the legal age was still 18, these problems could be mitigated. A student could go out for a pizza and a pitcher without a problem.
I think we can safely say that this experiment with the legal age set at 21 has been a dismal failure. Binge drinking is sky-high, more young people than ever are developing alcohol dependence, and while drunk driving is way down, this reform could have been accomplished across all age groups without monkeying around with legal ages.
The current laws have created a black market system among young people which has taught them creative ways to circumvent the law. When we mix people that can legally drink with those who can’t (as in college), what can we expect? Getting others to buy beer and/or fake IDs have become standard practice (so I gather from my kids).
When I was 18, I could get beer and wine. My college had all you could drink parties and a lot of us go falling down drunk. If we had had cars we would have been a danger to ourselves. Once the age was raised I’m sure there were less drunken 18 year old cars crashes - but I’m willing to bet that there were more 21 year old car crashes.
Now that I’m an old (52) parent, I live in fear of my kids doing something stupid like driving drunk but … The part I dread the most is their 21st birthdays when they finlly get to cut loose legally. It’s almost an obligation to get hammered.
The only thing the current law does for us is offer a tiny bit of resistance to kids, some hard laws to throw at those kids when we want to and a happy feeling for us grown-ups that we are doing something about “the problem”.
The connection, of course, is that if you’re considered mature enough to choose to do one, you should be considered mature enough to choose to do the other, and I’ve got no problem with that reasoning here. They can be trusted to volunteer to carry a gun, fly a plane, kill people and such, but not to have a beer?
It’s a little like the thread about teenage parents, really - you did it and survived, but once you’ve gotten older you don’t think other people should be allowed to. I usually find those kinds of arguments unpersuasive.
I would legalize the sale of alcohol at the enlisted men’s club on the base for all enlisted men (officers are, almost by definition, already over the age of 21).
No package stores, but if you are on base with military ID you can buy a pitcher of beer to take back to your table.
I’d be okay with an 18 year-old drinking and getting ready to die for his country, if he had a drill sergeant yelling at him for both.
I agree with letting an eighteen-year-old servicemember drink, but why treat them differently than their friends that didn’t sign up?
This is a tough one. I think whatever makes a person a responsible or irresponsible drinker happens long before 18 or 21. My friends who were responsible drinkers when we were getting homeless people to buy us beer at age 13 are still responsible drinkers. Most of my friends who were irresponsible drinkers at that time are still, as we enter our late 20’s, irresponsible drinkers.
The best solution would require social change as well as legal change. One or the other wouldn’t work.
Because I can control their drinking on the base. I can also hit them with immediate repurcussions on base as well. Finally, it recognizes that those who enlist have been found mature enough for arms and ordnance, so why not a beer?
The rate of car accidents drops once a person reaches 25 do we need to raise the age that it is legal to drive or is it because they have been driving for ~9 years at that point? I think that as a society it is ridiculous that we think 18 year olds are mature enough to choose who runs our country but not drink. I don’t disagree that you learn more about life once you’ve lived and extra three years but I don’t think that time is what helps it is the experiences gained in between. A person will know how to handle drinking (or drinking and driving) much better after three years of experience then simply being three years older with no experience.
The problem I have with 18 as a drinking age is that 18 year olds are still hanging out with people as young as 14 (a friend of a friend situation) and people don’t want to drink alone. So there would have to be a way to stop people who turn 18 early from supplying the entire high school with booze.
People need to learn how to handle responsibility but it isn’t simply learned by ageing but instead by getting it. I don’t think society would have changed if the presents for my 18th birthday were the lottery tickets, porn, and cigars, that I got, and a six-pack of beer.
But that points out a flaw in your thinking, doesn’t it? After all, it isn’t your job to control their drinking - it is their job to develop self control.
And I don’t think immediate repercussions need be limited to a military installation - but ideally these shouldn’t be needed quite so much if a culture develops where alcohol were treated as an accompaniment to meals or other social activities and not as a substance to be consumed in massive quantities quickly to the point where you are useless.
I went to college myself - for four years. After that I joined the Navy as an enlisted sailor for five and completed my degree shortly after that enlistment. Between college and the Navy I’ve certainly seen my share of people getting drunk, and I’ve indulged a bit myself.
I’ve also seen how other countries handle alcohol. And while the United States is hardly the worst offender in this area, there are countries with better attitudes toward drinking. I think we could learn from them.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The last paragraph of the OP merely asks: Where do you stand?
If the argument is that 18 year olds are too young and that they need that extra three years to become the magic age of 21, then why not keep going? If waiting until 21 is a good thing, then wouldn’t waiting until age 24 be better? Make the drinking age 24 and save a few more lives.
Then, hey, raising it to 27, 30, 33, and 36 would be better steps even.
At what point do you say that the very fact that we are going to have legal alcohol in this country (and we’ve tried the alternative) means that a large number of people are going to be killed because of it, so the whole “saving lives” argument could spiral down to absurdity.
Since we will have legal alcohol, lets pick an age based upon fairness regarding adulthood: 18.
While I would love us to have a more permissive attitude for younger people drinking in this country, it will never happen.
First of all, you are talking about equity, not fairness. Fairness would be to administer a test (written, essay, and practicum) and to ban alcohol from all who do not pass it. Equitable treatment means that everyone gets the same starting age whether ready or not.
At the same time (in the name of equity), raise the minimum driving age to 18.
I think the drinking age should be 18.
I think the age to get into a bar should be 21.
I don’t want to go to bars and see a bunch of high school kids there. It’s bad enough that you can’t smoke in them anymore - I don’t want them to be a playground for a bunch of obnoxious little fucks in Hot Topic shirts on top of that.
I don’t think that anyone’s personal experience about his own or his buddies maturity should be used to decide public policy.
If you can present statistical or empirical evidence that drinking when you are 18 causes severe health problems and that risk reduces considerably for 21 year olds, I might be in favor of the age restriction.
If you could present statistical or empirical evidence that drunk 18 yr olds are more likely to cause injury or property damage to others than drunk 21 year olds, I might be in favor of the age restriction.
In all cases, I’d want the age restriction tailored as narrowly as possible to reduce the likelihood of harm while at the same time allowing the maximum freedom.
For example, IIRC, there was statistical evidence that 18 year olds were far more likely to get in drunk driving accidents than 21 year olds (I can’t remember, the change happened when I was young). If that’s the case, I would have no problem with a zero-tolerance rule for drinking and driving for under-21 year olds. But you can still alllow under-21 year olds to drink without allowing them to drink and drive.
Many years ago I was an 18 year old in the military that thought it was bullshit that I was old enough to drive, vote and die for my country, but not old enough to drink legally. You know what, I still think it is bullshit. The drinking age is too high and serves no real purpose.
Why is it American teen cannot handle drinking but European teens can?
While we are at it, legalize pot already and tax the hell out of it. Stop making teens and others criminals over something mostly harmless.
BTW: I am 41 now, I don’t smoke pot and rarely did when I was younger and I don’t even drink that much at this point. I just think our drinking age laws are silly and useless and if anything encourages teens that breaking laws is no big deal.
Jim
Legalize pot, yeah. Tax the hell out of it, hell no. Why do people always suggest doing that? Why not just make it legal and let it be? Fuck “sin taxes.” How are they going to tax pot if I grow my own? How are they going to tax me if I want to sell some weed I grew in my garden to my friends? They don’t tax the hell out of cucumbers or carrots.
I also think that if your are in the military you should be able to go into a bar. Show a military ID and you get in. It’s definitely bullshit that you can be in the Marines and not have a drink.
Otherwise no teenagers in bars. Drinking at home, fine.
Parents should drink with their teenage children regularly and make sure their kids know their limits.