Bush Daughters alcoholics?

[RedWolf]

Loaf... i absolutely agree.

I've always said tongue in cheek that if they reduced the drinking age vandalism would go down greatly in this one horse suburbanite town.

Here's my reasoning:

Young teenagers in this country STILL manage to buy alcohol. They steal it from parents or have older friends buy it for them. THEN they go to a park... get drunk, break stuff and and start fires.

HOWEVER once you are old enough to legally drink you go to bars due to the social aspect of the whole thing. You go and drink, maybe get tipsy (but not falling down hammered because they can't serve to intoxication) then when you either run out of money or the bar closes you go home and sleep it off.

Although i'm joking around it actually DOES make sense... there isn't much to do around here and a lot of kids (although not all) that can't go to bars (even pool halls have to start checking ID's after 9PM) end up on the streets causing trouble...

[This message has been edited by RedWolf (edited June 04, 2001).]

 

[Loaf Warden]

Totally. I'm not saying everyone who is of age drinks responsibly, and every minor drinks irresponsibly. But if there were known percentages, I'm sure the proportions would be such that it would prove that making it illegal creates more problems than it solves.

My thought is, if they lowered the drinking age in the United States to, let's say 18, there would be an outbreak of major problems. People from 18 to 20 would be so excited about the prospect of being able to obtain the stuff legally, they'd go wild and have major parties. A lot of damage would probably be done, and I imagine some lives would be lost.

Briefly.

Then things would settle down as they got used to it. Once the novelty had worn off, they would stop drinking just for the sake of getting drunk. They would start going to bars and drinking socially rather than anti-socially, as it were. They'd learn to be more responsible, and there would be less destruction, fewer deaths, and fewer problems all around. In the long run, it would be beneficial to American society to lower the drinking age.

Maybe they could take some of the edge off the period of chaos by doing it gradually rather than all at once. Maybe lower the age one year for every year or two that passes until it gets down to wherever it would stop. 18 seems reasonable. Or 17. Not 16, because it seems a little too dangerous to me to give kids the right to drink and the right to drive at the same time. Better to let them get used to them individually rather than experiment with it all at once. . . .

Of course this is all a fantasy. For all its power, the American government is notorious for being unreasonable. Heaven forbid any of our laws should actually make sense.

 

[RedWolf]

Loaf,

I'm not sure how it happened that i started off this thread arguing with you... only to find that my thinking is right along the same lines as your own. <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif" border=0>

[This message has been edited by RedWolf (edited June 04, 2001).]

 

[Loaf Warden]

I don't see where we were ever arguing. You called my country's policies a crock of ****, and I agreed with you.

I try to defend my country against unreasonable attacks, but I've always felt the same way you seem to about the drinking age. It's just another of those out-dated Puritan morality regulations that I think should be abolished for the good of the country. I believe that now, at age 20, and I'll still believe it at the end of next month, when I'm 21. Too many of my country's laws are just ridiculous and, frankly, indefensible.

 

[Supernaut]

I agree with both of you. My country has quite a problem with alcohol. Not so much becaue of drinking age (18), though there are plenty of teenagers drinking cider or alcopops in parks in suburban towns around the country. But we do have quite a restrictive puritanical attitude towards it. For example, all pubs in England close at 11pm, which is way too early. This leads to people rush drinking to get as much in them as possible, then they all leave the pub at the same time, which is when fights and other trouble breaks out. When English people go on holiday in the rest of Europe (especially Spain, which is a popular and very English-friendly holiday destination) they find the bars are open all night, so they go completely over the top. Then you get disgusting scenes of public drunkeness which really make me ashamed of my countrymen. If we had more of a culture of drink being a normal thing which you can enjoy in moderation, then we'd be nicer people to know.