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jondaris wrote:

For those who are interested, I was watching the weather this morning and heard a blurb that raising the drinking age will be a topic on tomorrow's "Today Show".

Of far more interest to me, the severe heat and humidity of the last week has broken finally.

Wait a minute, raising the drinking age?!  No smurfing way.

Anyone catch that discussion... yesterday, was it? I was out of town.

What time what who. I've been internet-less for two days.

I think my people harassed a forum out of existence the day before yesterday, and it sort of related to a clash on drug, sex, alcohol and rock and roll, but they weren't even NSGN.net types, they were just former NSiders that get all red-faced when you say "poopy".

and...

Aqua OS X wrote:

My thoughts... it keeps kids out of bars and concerts that I go to. smurf them. I don't want to hang out with them. Most drunk 21 year olds are annoying enough. I'd shoot myself if I had to deal with a bunch of drunk 18 year olds.

Get a fake ID, buy booze for your friends, and party in a Holiday Inn or your dorm. Moreover, by the time you're in your mid 20's you'll agree with me and understand why that law is great.

QFT!!++
Few things more annoying than a bunch of drunk frat boys who don't know how to handle their liquor!
And drunk teenage girls scare me. There always seems to be the shadow of handcuffs or a shotgun over them.
MADD is right. Teenagers can't drive anyway, much less when they're drunk.

I think if we lower the drinking age and try to establish a more European-like attitude towards alcohol the whole "drunk frat boy" group you seem to dislike would slowly change into something more... responsible.

FutureDreamz wrote:

KHannon wrote:

I think if we lower the drinking age and try to establish a more European-like attitude towards alcohol the whole "drunk frat boy" group you seem to dislike would slowly change into something more... responsible.

It should work, unlike the "more guns to prevent shootouts in schools" idea.

The key is to find a way to gradually institute this change because it would be, in effect, a culture change.  If tomorrow 16 year olds were allowed to drink freely, it could have bad consequences.  It would need to be effected gradually, I think.

I've had bad experiences with booze so I'm not in a particular rush to reach 21 or have a particular desire to lower the drinking age.

Zetetic Apparatchik wrote:

I wouldn't push the European model too hard. You've obviously never 13 year olds vomiting in 19th Century buildings when they should be doing their damn homework.

The French kids who came over in an exchange weren't any better, if that's what you're thinking. I guess they hadn't been introduced to the consumption of vodka by eye at that stage, but they seemed to manage perfectly well.

People will only discover their limits by testing them. At least over here, the drinking limits have little effect outside of pubs and so on.

Interestingly the Chief Constable of Cheshire Police wants the drinking age in the UK to be raised from 18 to 21.

Daniel wrote:

Gurlugon wrote:

I've had bad experiences with booze so I'm not in a particular rush to reach 21 or have a particular desire to lower the drinking age.

I have very little respect for this brand of kowtowing.  You've bought into the neo-prohibitionist propaganda hook, line, and sinker, and now you're perpetuating it too.

bullsmurf!  He's making a personal decision.  And you have no right to attack him for it.

Daniel wrote:

Pithecanthropus wrote:

Daniel wrote:

I have very little respect for this brand of kowtowing.  You've bought into the neo-prohibitionist propaganda hook, line, and sinker, and now you're perpetuating it too.

bullsmurf!  He's making a personal decision.  And you have no right to attack him for it.

I can attack anyone for any reason if I so choose.

Indeed, and you can totally suffer the consequences for it, too.

Aaaah, free will!

Daniel wrote:

Pithecanthropus wrote:

Daniel wrote:

I have very little respect for this brand of kowtowing.  You've bought into the neo-prohibitionist propaganda hook, line, and sinker, and now you're perpetuating it too.

bullsmurf!  He's making a personal decision.  And you have no right to attack him for it.

I can attack anyone for any reason if I so choose.  His "personal decision" is based on a "bad experience" which would never have happened if the draconian laws currently in place were more reasonable.  He's allowed himself to be convinced by the propagandists that the "bad experience" is the "normal experience" and that he is physically and mentally unfit to experience alcohol properly.

He swallowed the propaganda just as I've stated.  By posting like that, he's providing "look, even they admit it!" ammunition for the ageist neo-prohibitionists, and as such stands as an obstruction to justice.

You are acting in exactly the way you are criticizing, and the way you are expressing yourself makes YOU sound like the propagandist.

I've seen the "normal experience," and it CAN be ugly. Apparently you've not seen raging alcoholics tear apart their lives and families.

Before I was 21, I said I would not drunk until I turned 21, if ever. Why? Because that is the law, end of story. If I really cared, I would have tried to get it changed.

Now I'm 23. I still don't drink. I've had a sip of a few drinks ordered by friends, just to see how they taste. But my family history of raging alcoholism keeps me away, the effects of alcohol I have observed first hand keep me away, and the fact that the church I'm attending opposes drinking and preaches that Christians shouldn't drink keeps me away. Thus, I don't drink.

I love how you, spouting rhetoric about justice and the misuse of statistics, are more qualified to make statements than people like Gurg, basing their decision on EXPERIENCES. Sorry, but experience beats rhetoric, only quality research and fact beats experience, my friend, and I don't think you can find demonstrative fact that alcohol isn't often bad, and a frequent cause of bad experiences.