Youth rights (Youth meaning 16-21)

Things such as alcohol, tobacco, driving, voting, must be weened into society as opposed to thrust upon the populace all at once at a certain age (Ie. 18, 19, 21 depending on your jurisdiction). When you keep all of these basic freedoms from an entire group of people then just give them all back at once there are consequances. Take the drinking age. When you keep alcohol from everyone and on their 21st (or 19th) birthday's they suddenly have access to this forbidden fruit, what's going to happen? They are going to get completely plastered and do very stupid things. If you ween it in as they have in europe (16 for beer and wine, 18 for spirits) then it's not a scary thing. When something is made scary and off limits it is a teenagers NATURAL reaction to want to investigate, drink, and possibly die. If it is made to be a seemingly normal part of life in moderation such as in italy and denmark, then the level of drunken youth go down. Driving age. I have heard arguement in the US about raising the driving age to 18. The people promoting it say that 16 year olds are inexperianced and drive poorly. So there are two things wrong with this. A) If you raise it to 18 then the 18 year olds will be JUST as inexperienced as a 16 year old. and B) Funny how the people who want to strip rights away from people under 18 are..*gasps* over 18. To summarize I have two major concerns about youth rights. The first is so: What society is doing is degrading the quality of life for a group of people based on a condition that is beyond their control to change; age. If a child dies at 14, he will die having never experienced life. Why? Because society deemed him incapable. All the children who are dying in their childhood go without having experienced life. This is just morally WRONG to deprive people of certain rights. The second problem is that the people making the laws which infringe upon teenagers rights happen to all be of an age that it won't affect them. It is easy for a 45 year old politician in congress to say 'RAISE THE DRIVING AGE! RAISE THE DRINKING AGE! MAKE A CURFEW' and then get into his Lexus, drive to the local bar, and drink whiskey until midnight. It is very easy to sit in a chair and take rights away from a group of people to whom you do not belong, and therefore YOU do not have to suffer with the lack of rights. Now I ask you how this is right. Before you go and rant about how 13 year old's are too young for these responsibilities..I agree. I am arguing for YOUTH rights..by which I mean young adults. Not children's rights. My argument is twofold. First of all: If youth (by which I mean 15-20) can be expected to have jobs (off which taxes are deducted), behave like adults, be responsible for household chores, attend school daily for the same amount of time as an adult would work, why are they not allowed certain adult privileges? In my perfect world, if you can afford something by yourself, you may have it. 16 Year old's may drive (accompanied) and 17 year old's not accompanied. 16 year old' may drink beer and wine, and 18 year old's may drink beer wine and spirits (anything over 14%) and voting age is 16. It is unfair for hypocritical middle age politicians to take rights away from a group of people to whom they do not belong, and then go exercise those rights.