On the one hand, you say that not all 18-year-olds should be given drinking rights. On the other hand, you also say that “if you’re **old enough to die for your country” then you’re old enough to drink. 18-year-olds ARE old enough to die for their country, according to the government; it’s just that not all of them are mature and disciplined enough to do so.
It’s obvious that you painted yourself into a corner by using the potential for military service as your benchmark. Since we’ve shown that not all 18-year-olds are considered qualified to serve in their country’s defense, that leaves you with no graceful way out of your argument. For so long as you maintain that being “old enough to die for your country” is a suitable standard by which to judge their qualifications to drink, then you will be forced to talk out of both side of that mouth of yours.
If the government expects you to offer your life up, then you should be able to drink. If the government cannot give you the right to drink without extending that same right to your undrafted peers, then I feel it’s a perfectly acceptable consequence of the draft to allow all 18, 19 and 20 year-olds to drink. Either allow some, allow all or raise the draft age to match up with the drinking age.
There’s no corner, nor is there a need to abandon my argument; your insistence otherwise is just, well… you insisting otherwise.
Did you honestly think that my original statement:
was an absolute view on my part, devoid of a need for clarification? If this was GD, I would have continued on with my original post and rounded it out with reasons why I thought my statement was appropriate. Since this is IMHO, however, and the thread was a poll, I gave my answer to the posted question.
Attempting to hold me to an intentionally abbreviated answer to a poll is somewhat disingenuous on your part.
Despite the “fact” that some teens are able to “drink responsibly”. Too many can’t.
I do think that’s it’s equally unfair to ask them to put their lives on the line. Also, I don’t think the choices the average 18 year old makes at the polls are likely to be, overall, the best choices (not that apparently our general public has that much better taste in candidates, as is evidenced by our politician, but why add to the problem?).
I think that rather than lower the drinking age to 19, that the voting, and draft age (if their ever IS a real draft again) be raised to 21.
I strongly believe that the ages between 18 and 21 are crucial in, as another poster put it, “mellowing” the kids out.
As an 18 year old college student in the States and coming in from a foreign country where drinks were readily available for me legally, I find the drinking age an inconvinience more than anything. And as previously mentioned by someone else, since I can’t readily get alcohol I feel I should drink more when I have the chance. Yeah, it’s kind of a silly mentality but I have a feeling I’m not alone in this. And I’ve noticed that drinking seems to be an activity in itself here rather than something that enhances a social gathering or dancing or anything like that. You drink to drink and get drunk. Probably because they’re not used to it and it’s some sort of exciting new world.
I would also say that by setting a law the most “minors” consider unreasonable, they’re setting us up to disrespect the law in general.
Rationalization? You’re disparaging rationalizing when you’ve done nothing but this entire time? That’s irony.
Until you’ve provided cites and proven facts to back up your assertions in this thread, nothing you’ve offered here is anything but an opinion. (Which, fair enough, is what this thread is for–opinions, humble or otherwise; however, since you’re attempting to treat this as a GD thread, then you should be the first to offer factual information.)
The repeated claim for which I know I’d like to see you return a credible cite is that men are refused entry into the military (or just not put in harm’s way) for being too immature. I’d especially like to see you try and prove that’s what happens when a draft is active. If I remember correctly, a draft occurs when the government–due to an insufficient number of volunteers–feels that it really, really needs more men to fight it’s wars. Kicking men out for any reason other than the most severe reasons seems antithetical to that goal.
Maybe kicking men out for being too immature (as you put it) is a luxury the government can afford when a draft is not currently active and enough new recruits can be found through volunteers; however since one of the military’s implied enticements for joining is that–and I’ll paraphrase here–it’ll make a man of you (or “woman,” too, these days), somehow the idea that they’ll kick you out for anything but the most severe reason seems like they’re not serious about that implication. Still, I could be wrong, and this is why I’d like a cite.
In addition, your incredulousness over the belief you’ve assigned to me:
is, in my opinion, unwarranted. I feel that handling weapons and being put into harm’s way requires more maturity on a person’s part than drinking, not less. So, I feel the better question is: why would a person would be allowed to handle weapons and die if they’re not mature enough to be allowed to drink?
As I said above, it’s awful strange that over here where they legally can drink, most do drink responsibly. It makes sense. If drinking is a taboo thing that you’ve got to do in secret, it’s understandable that you’ll drink to excess and unsafely when you eventually get to. I never drink just to drink. If I was in America right now, I couldn’t legally drink, and if I went to see a band, and I couldn’t have a drink. If I wanted to go out, I couldn’t drink. Drinking would become something I’d have to take advantage of when I got the rare oppurtunity to do so, and that would make it more likely I’d do something stupid.
I do think that’s it’s equally unfair to ask them to put their lives on the line. Also, I don’t think the choices the average 18 year old makes at the polls are likely to be, overall, the best choices (not that apparently our general public has that much better taste in candidates, as is evidenced by our politician, but why add to the problem?).
I think that rather than lower the drinking age to 19, that the voting, and draft age (if their ever IS a real draft again) be raised to 21.
I strongly believe that the ages between 18 and 21 are crucial in, as another poster put it, “mellowing” the kids out.
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You could use the same type of argument against giving women the right to vote at 18. After all, the argument back in the 1970s for the 26th amendment was that if you can get drafted to die for your country, you should be able to vote. The vagina wearing members of our society did not have to face the fear of the draft. Why then did we extend the 18 year old voting age to women as well?