Good ‘Till the Last Drop
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A post by "Blake the Megalomaniac" To see more posts click here |
18?
Answer: Obviously, it depends on who you ask. If you can’t drink
legally and you’re not a bible thumper (as I am) then you’d probably be
in favor of lowering the said age. If you’re like me, 24, and you
realize that it took you 21 whole years to drink legally then you’re
probably adamant about stinky little brats under 21 paying their dues
and waiting it out.
…a conspicuously sober group led by a former college president
€” now exists to promote the idea that drinking should be lowered from
21 to 18. John McCardell Jr., an esteemed historian of the American
South and former head of Middlebury College, founded Choose Responsibility
in 2006 to argue in favor of licensing 18-to-20-year-olds to drink
after they have completed an exhaustive 42 hours of instruction in the
history, chemistry, psychology and sociology of alcohol €” which could
even include sitting in on an AA session for three hours.
have with guns. I listened to a semi-debate on guns a while back and I
agreed wholeheartedly with the argument that kids and teens wouldn’t be
so fascinated by guns if we stopped approaching them as faux pas and
started schooling them on proper handling, shooting, cleaning and the
like. You know how kids are; if you tell them not to touch the hot
stove they want to touch it even more but only when they actually touch it
and get burned do they know the dangers for real.
Don’t get me wrong
I’m not advocating shooting kids but if parents who own guns sit their
children down and rap with em about weapons, let them hold em, and once
their old enough teach them proper shooting techniques, then the kid
will know the sheer power of these weapons and won’t want to experiment
on their friends. Thus, the parallel is made, at least in my mind, to
alcohol…
hazards involved with drinking then they’ll be fine. Right? C’mon, you all know the parents
that allow their 14-year-old to drink a glass of wine or something at
the dinner table usually in someone of Hispanic or Italian descent’s household. That works for them, right? But hold up though:
According to the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future study,
the proportion of those 19- to 22-year-olds who reported consuming five
or more drinks in a row in the two weeks prior to being surveyed
actually fell from 40.7% in 1984 to 38.1% in 2006. (Should the Drinking
Age Be Lowered – Time.com)
Finally,
lowering the drinking age to 18 would stop infantilizing college
students, but it would probably kill more of them in traffic accidents.
In 2006, 2,121 people ages 16 to 20 died in alcohol-related fatalities
on U.S. roads, according to data compiled for me by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration; in 1984, the figure was 4,612.
McCardell has argued that improvements in seat-belt use and car safety
partly explain these gains, but traffic fatalities unrelated to alcohol
have increased 21% in that age group during the same period (the raw
numbers are 2,915 in 1984 and 3,537 in 2006).(Should the Drinking Age
Be Lowered – Time.com)
I waffled back and forth on whether I think the drinking age
should be lowered until I read this part of the article. You’re
probably thinking, “Who the F cares? I’m 32 years old,” well the
evidence as to why you should care is right there. Put plainly, alcohol
in the hands of kids who are just learning to drink and only 2 years
removed from learning to drive is PROBLEMATIC. O, you still don’t
care, well you will when one of these kids driving their dad’s minivan
at 3 a.m.veers into the lane you’re sister is driving in and hits her
head on, instantly killing her.
Lightening the mood now, I think there is something to be said for keeping the drinking age at 21. Especially because we know that most newbie drinkers are usually the ones opening up a beer at 2a.m. that they have no intention of drinking. Half Beer Sallys.
udothedishes…
I like the fact that you presented two different sides to the argument here, but I wanted to point out one thing I’ve always wondered about.
If an 18 year old is old enough to die for this country in Iraq, he should damn well be old enough to drink his Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome away when he gets home.
What do you think?
Here’s how I see it going.
Drivers permit: 15 ( must drive with adult,
Work/school Permit:16 ( all other driving times must be with adult other than work and school)
17: License with driving curfew at 12:00
am unless coming back from work
18: Drink/full license
21: If clean driving/arrest record get car insurance discount, and 1000$ a semester for college tuition.
Maybe extreme, or unrealistic and I’d probably do things a little different, but I think it’s a start. How bout you?
Many people feel that b/c 18-year-olds can die for their country and vote that they should be able to drink legally but I think that’s problematic. I used to agree with that school of thought but now I believe otherwise. Simply stated, the ramifications of having 18 -year-olds go to war and vote are the same with having them drink and therefore drive drunk more.
If they go to war then the assumed consequence is that the military will mature the immature teenagers. And voting, I mean c’mon, many in the population don’t know the least about a candidate. They vote against candidates rather than for them and contrary to public belief, every vote doesn’t count. So the ramifications of 18-year-olds voting are less than them drinking. I don’t know if that makes sense.
As far as you’re proposed regulations. Seems idealistic but it makes sense. The last one would be hard because you’re saying it would probably only benefit the kids who went to college later in life. Neway thanks for commenting brother. Keep it up.