The National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act 1984 should be repealed and the drinking age eliminated

My opponent's resolution has a crucial word in it, the grammatical conjuction "and". This means that I only need to refute one of the two claims my opponent has made: that either the MLDA21 should be repealed OR that the drinking age should be eliminated. Of course, I could do both but that would be unnecessary ;) That being said, I will hereby be arguing that the drinking age should NOT be eliminated. While the MLDA21 definitley needs to be changed (not necessarily repealed), my main focus is to refute argument against my opponent's attempt to completely repeal all alcoholic prohibitions. On a final note, I'm sure that both my opponent and I are at equal understanding of the terms. Repealed obviously means to remove or to do away with, as is eliminated. Drinking age is the youngest age a person in a country can buy and drink alcoholic beverages, while the MLDA21 is described by my opponent. Let's do away with silly semantics and really get into this. So without further ado: ==================== Forbidden Fruit Effect ==================== While I don't necessarily deny this effect, I ask of my opponent where his evidence is. To fulfill his burden, he needs to show that there is concrete psychological (or maybe even biological evidence) for a forbidden fruit effect - which is basically a supposed desire for something that is banned/illegal BECAUSE it is banned/illegal. Even when he does, he has to show why in light of this alcohol must be free of prohibition. Because while legalizing it may remove the effect, there is the bigger problem of young kids getting drunk, getting into accidents, etc. ==================== Forces underage drinkers to move to dangerous 'underground' venues ==================== So what? There are many types of guns that are made illegal, and subsequently people go out of their way to obtain them via the black market - somewhere that is much more dangerous. However, does that mean we should legalize it? Of course not! Because while it's prohibition has some bad side effect (see forbidden fruit effect), legalizing it will do even worse. If all guns were made legally up for sale, then we will have some very serious robberies, shootings, murder, etc. If all alcoholic beverages were made legal for anyone to buy, then we will have some very high numbers of alcoholic-related accidents. ==================== Violation of the Equal Protection Clause ==================== Oh boy, what a commonly abused and misunderstood clause, the infamous Fourteenth Clause. The purpose of the clause is not to give EVERY individual equal rights, but equal APPLICATION of laws. The only time when the law won't be equally applied when there is a "rational basis" for doing so[1]. So what is the rational basis for a drinking age? Simply that children, who obviously aren't fully developed in their rational thinking and especially impulse control, can wreck potential havoc with legal access to drinking. Especially if they live in impoverished areas. ==================== It's not possible to reasonably enforce ==================== On the onset, a simple ban by liquor stores helps to curb away young teenagers from purchasing it. However, while I can that it's difficult to scour everywhere for illegal drinking, the point is that implementing a drinking age will still prevent many adolescents from purchasing it. In fact, if it were to be legalized than MANY more young adults will purchase it, leading to more tragic accidents. ==================== Other nations have lower drinking ages and yet lower rates of alcohol problems ==================== The fallacy in using this argument is that other nations are NOT geographically, demographically, socio-culturally, and politically, etc. identical to ours. When you are trying to compare the collective thinking of an entire NATION to another, then you are stepping in very very very muddy waters. ==================== The problem of drinking games ==================== I hardly see how this is an argument. Even if we abolish the drinking age, people will always think of new ways to drink an abhorrent amount of alcohol and die in the process. Just look at frat boys. The bottom line is that unless you have good statistical evidence for this, it can be thrown away as moot. However, let's just suppose you are correct. It is STILL not an issue, because the government shouldn't be concerned with protecting someone from themselves, only what individuals do to other individuals. ==================== Conclusion ==================== We have 4 Rounds, and this is just the first. So with those small clips of my arguments intact, lets get this GOING :D! Man I'm hyper today. ---References--- 1. . http://topics.law.cornell.edu...