From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: Repost from alt.beer(Beer laws in Texas)
Date: 27 Jan 93 14:35:53 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <1993Jan26.174658.20194@digi.lonestar.org> gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) writes:

>Fred J. McCall writes in part:

>>Personally, I think it belongs at 18, if you feel a drinking age is
>>necessary at all.  If people are supposed to be adults at 18, why
>>should they have this one restriction?  If they're old enough to vote,
>>they ought to be old enough to go to a bar and commiserate about the
>>resulting mess.  :-)

>If adulthood is a legitimate criterion for determining the drinking
>age, then at least we agree that there is some age below which it
>might be OK to ban it.  You say 18, because at that age you can vote.
>(Do you really believe in no limit at all -- that ten year olds should
>be allowed to buy and consume alcohol?) 

Why not?  Europe doesn't seem to have a major problem with this.  It's
another one of those "the state should make this decision for the
parent" things.  Geez, let people raise their own kids!  Frankly, I
think the reason we see so many problems with teen drinking is because
it is 'a kick' because it's against the rules and because they have no
prior experience with it.  Most kids WON'T drink because they don't
like the taste.  If they don't need drinking age laws in Europe, why
do we seem to need to have them here?

I say 18 because that's the HIGHEST it makes sense for it to be, if
you're going to have this kind of law.

>The point is that the setting of the legal drinking age is an arbi-
>trary process that is largely determined by social consensus.  This
>was demonstrated by the reversal of the 18 year law that prevailed
>for a while and then was reversed back to 21 with surprisingly little
>resistance.  So, I say, raise it to 55, except on interstate highways
>where it should be 65.  Here, let me grin.  :-).  Honest.

Well, one gets little resistance when one accomplishes something via
blackmail and it only affects a minority, which is exactly the case
with the 'change' back to 21.  The Feds threatened to cut off money,
and since it only affected people under 21 (who typically don't vote,
even though they are allowed to), the politicos folded.

>By the way, I don't see it as a moral issue, any more than the speed
>limit laws.  It is a social issue, and on that I am not 100% certain
>what the limits should be.  I am inclined to favor the status quo -
>drinking age 21, local dry (or damp) option on sales, and continue
>to ban sales of marijuana.  Yes any ban or restriction imposes on
>individual rights, but some rights are more important than others.
>I would be much more concerned about restrictions on freedom of
>speech or intimate behavior between consenting adults in private.
>But I can even imagine circumstances, such as war or epidemic (more
>severe than AIDS) under which the appropriateness of regulation might be
>different than it is now -- independent of the issue of enforceability,
>which should be considered separately.

I'm curious.  If this was 1933, would you also favor the status quo
then, with alcohol illegal and pot legal?  Or what about all those
other 'status quos' in the past, where various things were legal?
What makes OUR status quo so much better than the ones in the past?
And if the answer is that we're later in time and os have more
evidence to make better judgements, that invalidates the whole 'keep
the status quo' argument, since by definition changes to the status
quo would be based on more evidence so as to make better judgements in
the future.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: tx.politics