I’ve never been able to work up a lot of sympathy for the drinking age issue. I do, though perhaps a little less than I did in high school, think that the drinking age is stupid for cultural reasons - that is, it probably promotes bingeing and other very stupid behavior. Then again, I don’t at all buy the notion that the government can’t regulate these kinds of things. I don’t think the Constitution is the problem here; it’s people.
The most important question to me concerns the outcome: say the government eliminates drinking ages tomorrow. What then? The problems currently associated with underage drinking won’t go away. People will still binge, and they will still drive drunk. MADD has probably gone, well, mad with power, but there was initially a point to the enterprise.
I am 39 and hang around a bar after work. There is a man who has “trained” his 18 year old son to meet him at the bar every day. This kid will be a certified alcoholic by the time he is 21. I am all for the the 21 age limit. Kids just outta school should work not just get drunk.
I don’t have a problem with lowering the age to 18 9and it’s not like 18 year olds don’t drink anyway) but I’m also in favor of raising the legal driving age to 18. Teenagers are a menace on the road, especially drunk teenagers, and it’s harder to illegally get control of a car than it is to get a drink.
Yes, smersh. Your anecdotal account has won me over! If the drinking age is lowered to 18 or 19, all of us “kids” will do is get drunk all day and not work. :rolleyes:
"I hang around a bar after work. There is this man who has trained his black friend to meet him at the bar every day. This black will be a certified alcoholic pretty soon. I am all for keeping blacks out of bars. Blacks should be out in the fields working, not just getting drunk all day."
This is precisely what your argument sounds like to me. You are making a broad generalization about an entire group of people based upon one observance.