The drinking age lowered

I would like to congratulate my opponent on a well thought-out response. It gives me no joy (that is a bold-faced lie) to have to tear it down piece by piece. Con does not address my argument on government regulation, instead focusing on issues not related to the topic. Therefore I have to guess at what his counter argument is based on his language. Please, correct me if I am wrong. It seems as though he has dropped his argument that there needs to be regulation to protect the individual's development, since he does not address it even inadvertantly. Instead, his issue with the drinking age is that it can harm other people in a drinker's surroundings. Since he seems to have dropped the first half of his argument (development of the brain), I will proceed by addressing only his second point. -------------------- Con offers a number of statistics with questionable sources. The source he has cited offers no citation for these statistics. However, I will still address them each: - ""55% of family violence occur in homes of alcoholics" >>This is hardly a compelling statistic. If you look at it from the opposite side, this means that 45% of family violence comes from homes that cannot offer Alcohol as an excuse for their behavior. Hardly a convincing reason for its prohibition. - "Incest is more likely to occur in homes with alcoholics then in homes with no alcoholics." >>If this incest is among consenting adults, I don't see the problem. Neither my opponent nor his source cite whether it is among consenting adults or if it is mostly cases of molestation. This seems to be a deliberate blurring of facts to make it seem more appauling. - "Children of Alcoholics are 3 times more likely to become alcoholics themselves. >>Once children become adults, it is their decision on whether or not they become alcoholics. This is another area where government regulation is unwarranted. The inclusion of this statistic implies that something should be done to fix it. Unfortunately, to fix this one would require the government to overstep its boundaries. Further regulation would be required, perhaps even including a full prohibition. We all know where alcohol prohibition leads to... Con goes on to question the validity of my cited study. Unfortunately, it seems he does not understand the nature of observational research. Not all studies are in a controlled environment. For this study, they look at trends among college students from both before and after the age prohibition. As I stated in the first round, they found little to no difference in New York State. Subsequent studies at other institutions reported the same results. It is interesting that my opponent questions my sources, where a multitude of reliable studies are cited within, when nearly all of his sources are void of this reliability. His sources are clearly biased toward his viewpoint, and nearly all of them do not cite the sources where they got their information. -----" in this study of yours did the students have consequences for drinking alcohol?" >>No, this study does not look at the consequences for drinking alcohol, nor was such reporting necessary. This is a study on the (lack of) affect that the age prohibition has on college students. This question is irrelevent to this debate as well, since you have conceded that it is up to the individual to decide his own actions - including whether or not he drinks alcohol. My opponent continues his assualt on my position by claiming it false. He claims that people in nations with lower age restrictions drink more, at younger ages, and have higher levels of alcoholism. To prove his point, he offers a biased article with no citations of its own. I challenge Con to produce a reliable source backing up this claim. Ideally, this source would have verifiable statistics on the issues that he claims. He continues his argument by stating that raising the driving age would not save lives because no matter what age a person begins driving, he/she will be inexperienced. I ask the reader to apply this very same logic to alcohol consumption. Why would this be true for driving and not to alcohol consumption? -------"Well, to answer this Youth drinking rates have DECREASED shown by the 2006 monitoring the future study has shown since the law has taken into effect 8th grade drinkers have decreased 38% 10th grade drinkers decreased 23% and 12th graders decreased 14% and continues to decline. " >>Con has failed to show how these statistics are relevent to his case. As I have shown, with reliable sources, binge drinking remains unchanged on college campuses. He states that rates have decreased in those aged 14-17. Once again, correlation does not equal causation. During the same era, schools instituted a more aggressive alcohol and drug education policy. It seems much more plausible that education has had more affect on this decline than age restrictions. However, these statistics are irrelevent to my opponent's case that the age restriction should remain as a means of protecting society from drunkards and drunk driving. -------"My opponent stated that drunk driving related deaths went down due to the police cracking down on drunken driving. Well, lives were saved nonetheless am I right?" >>Here my opponent concedes that it is more likely that police crackdown was the cause of a decline of alcohol-related vehicular fatalities, and that it was not the age restriction on alcohol. This is particularly damning for his case. Yes, lives were saved, but not because of age restrictions on alcohol. CONCLUSION My opponent did not address brain development in round 2. Indeed, he seems to admit that alcohol consumption should be left up to the individual. Instead, he bases his case on protecting society. However, he has offered no evidence that the age prohibition has protected society in any significant way. Con has one final round to state his case, which he has heretofore failed to do. I challenge him to offer relevent support to his claims, and to use reliable sources.