A group of university presidents has come under a great deal of criticism recently for apparently advocating a re-think of the 21 year old drinking age. Obviously, their vested interest here is in limiting their exposure to liability. It seems their argument is a version of the "they don't do this in Europe (binge drink) because they have more moderate and healthy views of alcohol" based presumably on having begun to drink earlier.
I honestly don't know what to make of the argument. I don't know with any certainty that lowering the drinking age would have any of the benefit that the university presidents seek.
That said, I still want the drinking age lowered. That one can vote and die in combat three years before one can kick back a legal swig of beer is one of life's great inconsistencies. Talked to one of my brothers about this today, and his point was that the age should be 19, when most folks are out of high school. I'd probably be ok with this as a compromise.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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We've been through all this before. Back when I was 16, the drinking age was lowered to 18. Same arguments today as back then: "Europe does it" (reason alone for us not to do it, in my opinion); "[18 yr olds]can fight and die for our country but they can't drink"; etc. The reason we turned it back to 21 was the concern that we were teaching people to drink just as we were teaching them to drive. The actuarial tables of the insurance industry show where the most dangerous times are for drivers and to make drinking legal for that age group only compounded the problem. Of note, just as the college presidents are saying "our students are drinking anyway" with the legal age being 21, when you lower it to 18, watch the increase at 15 or 16. Next we'll have high school principals signing a similar proposal for lowering it to 14. I am surprised there is so little talk of how this all worked before. It didn't. I personally find the spinelessness of collegiate leadership to be disheartening. Also noted that there is legislation being renewed in Congress right now that requires colleges (institutes of higher education, I believe they call them) to report their alcohol related incidents and to establish alcohol prevention programs at their colleges. I didn't read far enough in the language (it's a pretty long bit of legislation) but I am suspicious that there must be appropriations attached in some way to the performance of colleges' alcohol prevention programs. this may be the real motivation for the recent "we can't stop them anyway so let's just change the law" mentality of these campus "leaders". while we're at it, let's get rid of speed limits. most people don't follow them anyway. hey,and i think europe does that too!
Actuarial tables also show that the propensity to get in car accidents rises again with seniority. Should we cap drinking the drinking age at 65?
Why do you dismiss the "die for the country" argument so blithely? Yes, of course drinking and driving causes people to die, but then so does military service. Should we raise the age of military service to 21 in order to save those lives? How many 18, 19, and 20 year-olds would now be living if the age of military service matched our drinking age?
There is a question of liberty and of citizenship here. You are either a citizen of the US with full rights at 18 or you are simply a voter. As it stands now, you are simply a voter to whom the country can and will turn during time of war WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT (if you are a male, anyway) so that you may exercise Lincoln's "last full measure of devotion" to defend a country that has not extended you the full menu of rights.
I won't begin to go on with the pure number of lives that could be "saved" with additional government intrusions in our lives. I won't do it, because that's not the way I think. But that's the direction this post leads to...
i don't dismiss their service blithely, believe me. but i also don't believe that giving them additional high probability opportunities to end their lives early, in addition to the likelyhood of ending other's lives, makes the case for bering fair here. look, if this was such an issue of injustice, how come no one's been marching on washington about it, or even blogging about it, until a bunch of disappointingly courageless academic leaders signed a petition to make the "illegal" problems on their campuses go away with the stroke of a legislative pen? you are plenty aware that we saved more servicemen's lives by going to war in desert storm than if they had stayed home and driven. and that was with the drinking age still at 21. you can't become president at 18 or even 21 either. i don't have a problem with the age restriction. by the way, there is no amendment in the bill of rights dictating a right to drink alcohol. so would you, given their is one protecting keeping and bearing arms, allow that our 18 year olds should be allowed to possess weapons on campus? there is a large grassroots move afoot to do just that. whole nuther discussion for when you get back from dude-ing. you may wish to discuss with the ranchers. they probably have some interesting views on weapons. as for the old folks not drinking, if they have through their lifelong record of driving never abused alcohol, no. if there is a pattern of such behavior, maybe so.
i wish to recraft my hastily written reply above. i had to get on the road and wanted to get it to you before i left, but with your departure for the wild, wild west, i neither got it to you on time nor with any quality worthy of your time. let me try again. first, i am almost always one who feels fewer laws are better. i am not proposing a new law here though. this is the law that has been in place, with but one brief experimental period that failed, all of our lives. further, if the fledgling drinkers and novice drivers were only killing themselves, i would agree that we do not need government to protect us from ourselves. if you want to kill yourself, have at it. as i recall, those of our citizenry serving in government at the time, responded to an increasingly outraged constituency as more and more innocents (in addition to the young rebels without causes) were killed as a result of this potent combination of inexperience being unleashed on an unsuspecting public. since killing innocents forms the basis of your objection to capital punishment, i'm hoping that resonates here as well. secondly, i remain, as stated before, suspicious of the motivation of these signatories from college campuses that they may be more motivated by fiscal concerns (if it is not illegal for their students to drink, then they just turned "abuses" into "uses" unless, I suppose, a death or serious injury is involved and they likewise would no longer need to employ a paid staff to create, manage and administer the alcohol prevention programs). That this recently revealed righteous indignation about fairness coincides with the legislation mandating these programs and reports being reviewed in Congress, I can't help but wonder where the cries for justice were throughout the last 30 or so years that this injustice remained in place. In other words, if it is unfair today, why not yesterday? And why did this emerge from college campuses rather than in the miilitary or military families or any of the other constituencies who tend to look out for those citizens who volunteer to serve their nation this way? If it was, as everyone seems to package it, a case of injustice, how did those most affected by this injustice "miss" bringing it up? As for your clever re-targeting of my actuarial table missile, I do not feel we should legislate alcohol away from our elders. That is best left to the medical profession and fed-up wives. I do believe we already have the laws in place, when judges choose to enforce them, to take dangerous drivers off the streets without also legislating a rescission of alcohol for their entire age group. Since there are tests to qualify for driving, that seems the best place to filter those who may be contributing to the rise in actuarial data for that age group. And certainly, if a wonderful sweet old lady has exhibited a problem with choosing when to drink and when to drive, hammer her a--. Finally, for me at least (because all this writing about alcohol is making me thirsty for my after dinner cocktail), I brought up the issue of firearms as a retort to your suggestion that I was walking us down a path of making new government intrusions to save lives and your pronouncement that it is not the way you think. You made it clear earlier that while you agreed with the Supreme Court's decision on the recent challenge to the second amendment, it was solely on a constitutionality basis (as it should be). What you then went on to imply...or at least what I was left to infer...is that it is high time we properly legislate this outdated right out of existence. I can think of no greater example of giving the government more power over us than to give away our right to keep and bear arms. And I have to imagine that anyone so eager for such an outcome can only be motivated by (1) a confidence that in his lifetime and in the lifetimes of those about whom he cares deeply, the balance of powers will always work, that our freedoms will never become subjected to tyranny and/or anarchy and that the police will always be able and sufficient to protect the citizenry and (2) that such a recission of a constitutional right would save countless lives of innocents. I ascribe to neither (1) nor (2) and, not surprisingly, I would never support such an end to the second amendment. Thankfully, for now at least, you appear to be outnumbered AND outarmed. I do hope your dude ranching was a blast and look forward to your return.
...and yes, I do know how to spell "rescission". drat!
Any national drinking age is unconstitutional, as it violates states right under the tenth amendment. That being said, i think the drinking age and the age of consent should both be 18 in my state, as that is the age at which you are considered an adult.
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