Well, we agree that the power is not the right, anyway.
It does. The National Youth Organization or somesuch organization filed a few suits after the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was enacted, and lost all of them.
If you’re going to make your case on the basis of nebulous and unenshrined notions like “rationality,” then why not a higher drinking age? Surely any argument based on the effects of 18-year-olds drinking can also be applied at some level to the effects of 24-year-olds drinking. Raise the limit to 25 and you’ll reduce drunk driving and whatever other ills you have in mind still more.
The problem is there’s no basis for that–no reason to choose any particular age over any other, except that each higher limit provides some theoretical additional margin of safety. But there is a basis for 18–the age of adulthood. If you want to change that, and adjust drinking along with the passel of other rights and responsibilities of legal majority, that might make sense–but there’s no objective basis for treating drinking separately.
We agree on that because governments don’t have rights. They have powers.
You don’t see any difference in moral quality between various examples of government power? You don’t think one exercise of government power can be upheld as just and another condemned as unjust?
As I said (repeatedly), I’d support lowering the age. But it isn’t on constitutional grounds. The reason they should do it is that it is rational to set the drinking age (for some drinks at least) at 18, IMHO. Try reading what I am saying before opposing something I didn’t say.
A state absolutely has the power to set the drinking age at 25. It would be a dumb law, but a constitutional one. And 18 is hardly universal as the onset of adulthood. Other things - driving, having sex - can often be done earlier. Some things - becoming President - can only be done later. There’s no constitutional requirement that all age limits be the same. Nor is it necessarily sensible that they are the same.
The problem with your line of argument is you assume that drinking should be considered one of the “rights and responsibilities of legal majority.” I don’t see the basis for that. It’s something that can be, and is, regulated by the government. I hope they do it in what I think is the most sensible way, but they don’t seem to do that with most other things they regulate, so I am not holding out much hope.
I give up. Where in God’s name did you get anything as ridiculous as that from what I said?
Oh, I read it. I’m saying that you’ve failed to make the case that your reasoning supports your conclusion; it could just as easily work the other way.
Being President is a job. All jobs have conditions of employment, and no employment decision is one person’s to make. No job’s employment criteria are analogous to the age of majority standard for individual decisions.
My logic is consistent with respect to decisions made by and for individuals: adults should get to make their own choices, and adults should be held responsible, if necessary, for the consequences of those choices. Adults should be allowed to drive, or sign binding contracts; children should not. I would set the driving age to 18 as well, and substantially increase penalties for drivers who cause harm to others–rights and responsibilities, inseparable.
The basis is that it’s a decision with potential consequences for the drinker, or others, just like driving, or signing a binding contract. We can’t hold children responsible for the consequences of such decisions. But as we should hold adults to account, so we must concede their right to make the decisions for themselves; that’s the whole point of an age of majority as I understand it.
Actually, the logic here would hold up with another standard of majority as well, other than an arbitrary age mark. If we had a universally-understood rite of passage to adulthood, we could make that passage the dividing line. But the prevailing standard we have, for most purposes in the United States, is the 18th birthday. I’m saying that logic dictates it be the standard for all purposes, specifically because rights and responsibilities are naturally linked, and to acknowledge one should always be to acknowledge the other.
That’s my essential point; what follows is semantics, I think.
Okay. I take it you agree that there are just and unjust exercises of power? Another way to phrase this would be to say that a just exercise of power is a government acting within its “right,” i.e., in the case of a Constitutionally-based system, within the scope of powers specifically allocated by consent of the people. An exercise of government power which was outside this scope would be unjust, or outside the government’s “right.”
When you said governments don’t have “rights,” only powers, that sounded like an amoral “might makes right” position. Presumably you are just using the words “rights” and “powers” in a narrower sense? You then wouldn’t call anything which was literally within a government’s power a “power” in the narrow sense? That’s fine, I won’t get hung up on terminology here, and don’t wish to so derail the thread. The point I wished to make is up above.
What conclusion? That the drinking age should be dropped to 18 or that governments have the power to regulate the drinking age to a level different than 18?
I haven’t tried to reason the first - just stated it.
As to the second, I’m just right on that. They do have that power. That’s the default position and I was discussiong with RNATB why a constitutional challenge to that would, and in my opinion should, fail.
I am not using them in a “narrow” sense. I am using the words in their correct sense for the discussion. If you misinterpret what I am saying, then maybe learn the terminology used. There’s nothing about “might makes right” in what I am saying. Just a simple recognition that when anyone talks of government rights under the US System they are talking out of their ass. Because governments, be they federal or state, have powers, not rights.
The mirror of this is alcohol!
In Wisconsin you have to be 18 to sell booze in a store or be a bartender in a bar, but you can’t possess/drink the stuff until you’re 21. What nonsense.
Why is that nonsense? The two are unconnected - there is no reason you should be able to consume something because you are allowed to sell it.
I disagree. Selling alcohol takes a mature mind. Bartending is not just a job, it is a profession. Someone is responsible enough to oversee the consumption by others, but not responsible enough to consume it themselves? Treating a sect of adults as children is insulting to them.
And by your standard, a convicted felon should be allowed to sell guns in a gun store.
No, it isn’t.
It was a joke.
We allow people without drivers’ licenses to sell cars. A dealership may choose not to hire a person in that position, but a law requiring it would be out of place.
I sold alcohol frequently when I worked in a supermarket before being allowed to drink it.
And I have said repeatedly I am in favor of lowering the age. Just not in favor of the logic behind some of the reasons people have given. Especially the “states’ rights” analysis from people who apparently don’t grasp the constitutional issues involved.
I think a Constitutional argument could be made for a lower drinking age. Although I agree with Villa that courts would be unlikely to impose a “compelling state interest” test for adult drinking. A restriction on personal choices through criminal sanction must still have a “rational basis” and cannot be arbitrary. I’m sure some lawyer for a 19 year old convicted of an alcohol offense has raised this argument and lost, but the road to justice is long, and someday perhaps, we’re get some correct rulings.
Courts got that one wrong to, according to me.
I think you are kind of out there on a limb to suggest they don’t have the power constitutionally to do it. They may be stupid prohibitions (19 year olds drinking and anyone smoking weed) but it is would take a pretty seismic reinterpretation of the constitution to claim there is not a sufficient rational basis justificiation for them.
You’re probably right. Rational basis has been interpreted to mean “I can make the argument with a straight face.” A guy can dream though, can’t he?
I admit to not reading every post, but I think that instead of lowering the drinking age, they should raise the smoking age, AND the age at which one can enter the military to 21.
I have a stepson about ready to graduate High School. He’s got his college all picked out and paid for (medical settlement) and we get at least one call a night from military recruiters, not to mention they hang out at the school, which I think is WRONG.
Before anyone says anything, I support the military 100%, but let kids graduate at least before hounding them about military service.
Should colleges let kids graduate high school before trying to recruit them into their university?
Not all kids go to college or the military after high school. Some go directly into full time work. Should employers be banned from trying to lure prospective young employees before they graduate high school?
Should the opposite sex be prohibited from suggesting marriage before graduating?
Should religious sects be banned from suggesting a life in the priesthood before students graduate high school?
Sorry, but high school juniors and seniors should be thinking about adulthood, and the military may or may not be part of that adulthood. The armed services have just as much right to talk to them as any other entity. Just saying no and walking away (or telling them not to call again and hanging up the phone) is simple and effective.