I think there is considerable justification for keeping the legal age to 21. I don’t know what the drunk driving fatality stat’s are like in Europe, but here, they suck pretty hard.
I don’t think Ms. Bush should do any time for trying to use a fake ID to buy booze, but I do think the cops should take her to the station and call her folks to come pick her up.
alcohol poisoning does not come from drinking. It comes from being uneducated about drinking. Which is because people preach “don’t do it” instead of telling kids of the drawbacks. Some try to scare kids with drawbacks and that only makes them go out and try to drink themselves to death. If it were legal earlier people could focus on the actual problems of alcohol poisoning and drunk driving instead of just drinking.
I quote from this site:
I don’t have specific figures on the 18-21 age category (legal drinking age in the UK is 18, by the way), but it does seem that a lower legal drinking age does not necessarily mean a higher rate of alcohol abuse among young people. As sterra and others have pointed out, education about alcohol is the key to reducing abuse.
Like education has stemmed the tide of drug abuse???
Is it that we are less educated than Europeans or simply more impulsive? Maybe I’m cynical, but I don’t think educating teens about the dangers will have much of an effect. How 'bout this? We do the education thing and keep the legal age at 21?
This is our version of education.
Just FYI Europe is not a country. It’s a continent with I honestly don’t know how many different countries with different legislations. If by chance you mean the European Union it consists of fifteen countries with once again different views on the subject.
However, in Sweden the legal drinking age at a restaurant is 16 (I think, I’m not sure), but it’s up to the landlord to set the age when people will be served. The legal age for buying at a liquor store is 20.
Raziel:
Well, since you’re 20, if you got orders to Japan, you could buy a beer there.
Oh, and you could also drive an automobile off base. Your 18 and 19 year old fellow Airmen are prohibited from that since the driving age is 20. They’re also prohibited from buying alcoholic beverages on base too.
“Educating about the dangers” is all fine and good, but remember, alcoholic beverages can (I won’t say SHOULD, even though I’m dying to) be used and enjoyed respectfully and seen as a life pleasure-enhancer, rather than a Terribly Dangerous Drug one must use to Become Shitfaced as an Undergrad. Having an evening glass of wine with a well-prepared dinner shouldn’t be forbidden to teens.
And I disagree with Chas…making the fruit forbidden has a lot to do with college frosh downing a fifth of Jack Daniels over a 15-minute period, as opposed to consuming three or four beers or a couple glasses of wine over two hours. A not inconsiderable amount of binge drinking comes from “Oh, shit, here comes a cop, let’s drink up all our illegal booze before he looks in the car!”
Incidentally, when I was in college in Connecticut, back in 1978-82, the drinking age was 18. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it was jerked up to 21 nationwide due to some Federal pressure on state govts by either the Reagan or Old Bush administrations.
Actually SOMETHING has reduced the rate of casual drug use in the past 10 years. Problem is that the rate of addiction is pretty much the same. But you don’t hear the figures on the nightly news, wouldn’t fall in line with spending obscene amounts of money on our sadly inadequate drug war. Certainly we wouldn’t want the public to finally realize that drug addiction is similar to being homosexual in that there is a certain amount of the general population that is predisposed to be either. I believe the rate for addiction has pretty much hovered around the 19% range for as long as they have attempted to record it. Now, don’t go flying into a tizzy because I’ve compared the two. I do this only to make the points that first; the rate of addiction in the general population pretty much remains constant, and second; because people need to realize that like homosexuality there isn’t much that can be done about it. So, rather than fight serious drug abuse by throwing huge amounts of money at the Colombian goverment or building a prison on every corner, we should do what we can to help these people cope and learn to live more normal lives. Just like those who do not like the idea of homosexuality must face the fact that “those people” aren’t going away, it can’t be cured, and we do not need to shove more than 10% of our population back into the closet. There are some things about being human that we need to accept.
Finished soapboxing…back to Jenna and the OP. Which I have no comment on, I made mine last time she got into trouble. That would actually be three times since the election. I still count bailing out the boyfriend after a drunken brawl as #1.
Needs2know
I agree that Ms. Bush’s brushes with the law will become part of presidential politics. I also agree w/the OP on the basis of the ‘what the hell was she thinking???’ - at this point she should understand that she’s the world famous face of an underage person. a hearty “duh” to her.
I most emphatically disagree with Chas. E’s position that Ms. Bush’s brushes with the law have anything at all to do with an assessment of Mr. Bush’s ability to ‘provide leadership’ for the country. (while I may agree that there are questions in that area… didn’t want any of my conservative pals here think I was slacking)
I don’t believe that you can extrapolate quite that easily from ‘problems with young adult offspring’ to ‘lack of leadership qualities’. family relations can be very complex things.
And, while it’s often true that people having problems/issues may often have had problem childhoods/ problem parents etc, a)not all people who have problems had poor parenting and b) not all people who had poor parenting have problems.
A few thoughts relevant to the ‘discussion’:
Ms. Bush has only been accused of attempting to use a fake I.D.; let’s reserve judgement on what actually happened until all facts are available.
The current drinking age of 21 in many states is a result of pressure by Congress, which passed a law threatening to pull highway funds unless states increased their drinking ages, another classically crass effort by the national government to supplant the authority of the states to regulate their own safety and health. But it should be noted that many states have always been 21 for drinking, most notably California. And there is a world of difference between being 18 and being 21, as most of us would acknowledge if the issue wasn’t something that upset us because, after all, why the hell should anyone keep us from using a drug??? [/heavy irony]
The effort to keep the drinking age at 21 has to do with improper motor vehicle use, not improper drinking. Given that we view it almost immoral to keep young people from driving, we use the proxy of limiting drinking to avoid the increased statistics of impaired driving that occur among 16 - 21 year old people otherwise. Ask most teens which they would rather have, a car or alchohol and I am betting dollars to your doughnuts they would take the car.
Jenna Bush hasn’t ever impressed anyone as being the SMART twin…
I’ve heard that Badzt Maru is IRL a child molester currently on probation after serving a 5 year prison sentence.
But I don’t have a cite, either.
Oh, gimme a break, Chas, so are the thousands of other people you don’t know who are over 21 who died from alcohol poisoning. Binge drinking isn’t strictly an activity for undergrads, and arguing for the morality of a draconian law by playing off emotions is not very impressive in my book.
I don’t care if young people do stupid things. I don’t care if older people do them as well. What I do care about is that turning people into criminals for the way they treat their own bodies is immoral, and a direct violation of the purpose of democratic government.
High drinking ages are stupid.
The solution to problems like alcohol poisoning, abuse of dangerous drugs, and other social ills will never be with laws. The solution lies in education and a fundamental attitude-shift in society.
Originally posted by Badzt Maru
I think this entire thread is just another excuse to bash a Bush. All we have here is another case among thousands of a 19 year old kid who’s drinking.
This has absolutely no impact in the real world, and I can’t see how a thread like this counts as a “Great Debate.”
Seems like it. Although those other thousands of drinking 19-year-old kids aren’t the daughter of the President of the United States, readily identifiable after just having been busted for underage drinking LAST month, trying to drink illegally in public again instead of lapping up the suds behind closed doors. It IS enjoyable to repeatedly point out the renowned family stupidity.
Thats what they are supposed to do. Using a fake ID is a felony in this state(Texas), and most places that serve booze are tired of getting busted by the TABC(Texas Alcaholic Beverage Commision) because some punk kid comes in and uses a fake ID. The laws in this state are pretty strict. If you serve to a minor, even if they had the best fake ID in the world, the person who sold it to them gets handcuffed and hauled away, the store gets fined, and the TABC can even padlock the doors for a time. After this kinda hassle, you get pretty pissy about people trying it, and I’m sure they knew who she was and that if they screwed up and just let her slide it would be all over the news. I used to bounce in a nightclub, and we often detain people for the cops when they tried to use a fake ID.
IANAL, but that does not appear to be true. Check out:
http://www.tabc.state.tx.us/leginfo/minorcode.htm
particularly Sec 106.07 and 106.071. It appears to be a misdemeanor, but if she gets convicted a third time for underage drinking, the maximum penalty is 180 days in jail, $2000 fine, and 90 days loss of driver’s license.
The original source is rather…ummm…“questionable”, but FWIW
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/03/23/jenna_bush/
That’s as may be for some folks, but I think a larger part of the reason this incident is getting attention is the ol’ hypocrisy issue. One-Term Jr. ran on a very sanctimonious platform about “restoring dignity and honor” etc. in contrast to you-know-who (who has never, even in Free Republic rumors, had a drinking problem, btw). That inevitably was asking for a lot of publicity of this nature whenever he, directly or indirectly, failed to live up to that arrant horsehockey. Is that fair to Jenna? Probably not, but she does keep reminding all of us about Bush’s own “young and irresponsible” character up to the age of 40 (!), and his lack of candor (or perhaps lack of substance) in his claims to have matured in the 14 years since.
But getting the Clinton-haters to recognize their own hypocrisy has always been next to futile, hasn’t it?
I lack a cite, but heard the following this a.m. from a co-worker who is as far to the rightt as I am left, has an autographed photos of W and Reagan in his office, and puts too much work time into web news boards. According to him, the manager of the restaurant said Jenna offered the ID, it was rejected, and the police were called only after she caused a scene. I will try to get a cite.
Re the OP: I think this is a legitimate issue. The Republicans certainly offer themselves as the party of family values, and a big message of the last campaign concerned the “immorality” of the previous administration.
Yes, many, many underage people drink illegally. But not every underage person gets caught two times in less than 1/2 year after her dad becomes president! Certainly suggests a lack of judgment and discretion.
I believe it is relevant to examine how W addresses this now. Does he make Jenna move to DC where he can keep an eye on her? Make the missus move down to Texas for the summer? Shouldn’t he do something? And shouldn’t we be able to evaluate it in terms of how it reflects his character?
Moreover, I believe it is a legitimate observation that, however immoral people consider either or both of the Clintons, they seem to have raised a child that, so far, has acted with some discretion and did not repeatedly flaunt well publicized laws.
Don’t believe the other daughter has any arrests, but I seem to recall her trying to elude the secret service escort on the way to a wrestling match. As a parent, I would not be exactly proud of such behavior from my children.
Finally, there is the legitimate interest concerning genetic predisposition towards alcoholism. And the prominence today of binge drinking on campuses. W says he was not an alky, but I suggest that no one stops drinking because they don’t have a problem.
All in all, this is not the most important news in the world. But it is a legitimate news story, and not merely political muckraking.