No one can snort coke. My point exactly. What magical powers does turning 18 give you that suddenly enable you to do all these previously forbidden things?
The government feels that someone needs to be at least 18 years old to be able to rationally contribute to the system. Fine, ensuring that people have some life experience before they push their will upon the rest of the public is probably a good thing, too. But what does consuming alcohol have to do with politics or nationalism? Nothing that I can see.
If you want to be a libertarian about it, then the government shouldn't regulate it at all. Then you also agree that the government shouldn't regulate the ability to defend yourself with the firearm of your choice, that it shouldn't force you to wear a seatbelt, that it shouldn't force motorcyclists to wear helmets, or that it shoudn't keep 17 year olds from gambling themselves into debtor's prison.
I don't think that the government should get rid of booze, but I don't think that voting or going to war should have anything to do with it. Eighteen isn't a magical age either. It's a number that the government felt that it could at least assume that the citizens could rationalize their own political feelings and that people were developed enough physically to fight in a war.
But what does any of that have to do with booze? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You don't need to drink to vote (in fact, you shouldn't mix the two), and it's very easy to argue that 21 year olds can't even make rational decisions about drinking, let alone 18 year olds. If that is the criteria for the age limit, then I say it should be raised, not lowered.
Or the other option would be to get rid of it entirely and hope that a drastic change in our drinking culture occurs.
But if you lower the age to 18, those 90-95% of rapes and violent crimes do go away, they just go down to high school.
Any alcohol consumption for younger persons has negative effects on brain development. Those popular cliches about having a glass of wine a day is good for you is for older peoples.
What about LSD and other hallucinogens? You're substantially less likely to develop a dependence or overdose on them than you are on alcohol. Moderate consumption isn't that bad for you, so why not let all of our young adults get high on shrooms and kill their brains? We let them do it with alcohol.
Overeating McDonald's doesn't encourage reckless driving or crimes against others. That being said, I do think that steps need to be taking to curtail eating fast foods, steps similar to those we apply to tobacco.
No, you have the inherent right to make decisions about your own person. That may be a choice to drink, but it may not be.
You don't have an inherent right to violate other persons, which is often a consequence of drinking.
It does nothing of the sort. The two are mutually exclusive. There is a moral argument about drinking, but it has everything to with individual choice and nothing to do with being drafted (or even alcohol itself). If you want to be moral about it, then trying to stop automobile fatalaties and rapes would benefit society then letting 18 year olds drink.
I think the comparison is clear and sound. The government, any government, puts age limits on certain things. Voting, driving, the purchase of intoxicating substances and going to the army. Whenever the government believes that age X is sufficient enough for action Y, it makes perfect sense to compare that to age Z and action B.
I'm not saying the limit should be lowered, highered, enforced stronger or lifted. I do not know what it's real effets will be, nor does anyone else. I'm just focusing on the draft vs. drunk side of the argument.
It's simple. The moment you turn 18 the government feels you are old and apparently responsible enough to handle a firearm in a military structure, and when push comes to shove even ready to fight a real war. To be in life threatening situations day to day, to make important decisions not only regarding your own life, but often enough the lives of others as well.
Now, when the government says 18 is old enough to fight, doesn't mean the government is right. Just as the government says with drinking. I know and knew plenty of 16 and 17 year old kids from my shool who were, for their age and the liberty they had with alcohol, surprisingly responsible for someone their age. And at the other end of the spectrum we have 49 year old men drinking hard, then driving and killing someone. Just because the limit is at XX doesn't mean anyone under XX isn't capable of it and everyone over XX is. Hell, most soldiers over 21 are still not capable of the rigours of a real war and I daresay most humans will never be ready for something like that.
So it's not as much about the fact that the age limits are there. It makes sense that they are in place. As a government, you have to lay down the limit somewhere. My beef is with where that limit is laid.
So, back to where this all started. The American government in particular here, believes that someone of 18 years or older, is ready enough to be in their armed services. To carry weapons, to go to foreign places and, if needed, to kill people.
And yet, that very same American government does not trust those very same kids that they just gave a huge fucking responsibility to, enough for them to enjoy a cold one on saturday night.
Whether someone really *is* responsible with their cold one or with their M16 rifle, is a different matter entirely. That completely depends on the individual, and although individual evaluation would be neat on these kinds of subjects (voting, drinking, driving), it is, of course, totally impractical to interview millions of your citizens.
No, what matters here is what the government in question
believes you are capable of. In accordance with those
assumptions, because that's what they are, they hand out responsibilities like clean tissues.
Now, you may not see, or most likely may not want to see this rather obvious comparison, but to me this smells of big fat hypocrisy. And I'm not saying the drinking limit should be lowered to 18, for all I care they're putting the draft limit up to 21, fine with me. Or put them both on 16, it doesn't really matter where they sit, what matters is the discrepancy that exists between these two same-criteria limits (in the end it's purely about being responsible) and the action or the liberty it then "allowes" you to do.
