In Defense of "Underage" Drinking

Mercurial Times ^ | March 1, 2002 | Aaron Armitage

[A.J.Armitage]

The situation is already bad enough. Every state in the union has already been forced by federal blackmail to raise the drinking age to 21. Now a group called the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse is trying to whip up hysteria about the evils of people drinking a few years before they get government permission. They came out with attention getting claims that 25 percent of alcohol consumption is by "children", which to them apparently includes a number of potential voters. It turns out the real number is 11 percent, including, it should be noted, people over 18. The headlines ought to be shouting the shocking news that college students account for less than 25 percent of the drinking in America. My generation is a bunch of slackers.

The 25 percent figure was what Thomas Sowell calls an "Aha! statistic". Like the bogus statistic that domestic abuse increased on Super Bowl Sunday, it existed to boost a particular political agenda; whether it happens to be true is fundamentally beside the point. In this case, the political agenda is more warfare on substances (as if the war on drugs wasn't insane enough). The organization's web site, which greets visitors with an alternating graphic of someone smoking the devil-weed, a middle aged corporate manager type having what, by the looks of him, is a well deserved drink to relax after a hard day at the office (they're evidently so inhumane as to begrudge him this), and a girl smoking a cigarette, quotes their head control freak as saying, "This report is a clarion call for a national mobilization to curb underage drinking," while calling for various authoritarian measures such as holding parents legally responsible, "stepping up" enforcement, and, of course, higher taxes on alcohol. What fun.

One of the arguments advanced by opponents of the 21 year old drinking age is that you can't expect people to learn to drink responsibly by not letting them drink at all and then one day letting them drink all they want. Instead, children should learn to drink wine or beer with meals, as they do in Europe. There's a lot to this argument. You wouldn't expect a 16 year old to drive perfectly without practicing in parking lots first. But it's not my reason. These are my two main reasons for opposing the drinking age.

First, the government has no business telling anyone, whatever his age, what substances he can consume. Yes, that includes crack cocaine. Yes, that means no drinking age whatsoever. I got drunk on champaign on New Year's Eve when I was one year old with no ill effects. Restrictions on what a peaceful person can own, consume, sell, or produce are simply outside the proper sphere of government. Government necessarily operates by force, so the proper sphere of government is the proper sphere of force. Drinking before a certain age is not a reason to use force against someone, but if it is, which age? What sets drinking at the age of 20 apart to a degree that requires force, which is to say violence or the threat of violence, to stop it? Does it apply to 20 year olds in Canada? Did it apply to 20 year olds before the federal government imposed the 21 year drinking age? The truth is, nothing whatsoever except the law itself sets drinking by 20 year olds apart. That law is groundless; it exists as arbitrary will and nothing more. If it had pleased the makers of the law, the age would be set at 30.

Second, drinking is fun. Here, I suspect, my reason for supporting it is the very reason they oppose it. There's a significant proportion of the population that instinctively regards anything enjoyable as a sin and something the government ought to do something about, at which point they resemble the "Islamo-fascists" we've been at war against, who also hate drinking. H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Now, this is grossly unfair to the Puritans, and the Reformed tradition as a whole, but that type of person existed in Mencken's time, and exists now. Far from being theological Puritans, they tend to be social gospellers or non-Christians altogether. In place of a Christian zeal for salvation, they have a zeal for social perfection.

Unfortunately, a zeal for coercively achieved social perfection always ends badly.

[LibertyGirl77]

There really doesn't seem to be any reasoning with shellylet, so let's just let shelley stew in her own over-emotionalism and constitutional apathy.

[A.J.Armitage]

You can't simply equate the Puritan legacy, especially as it pertains to the government, with what they tried at first. In the first place, IIRC, they did try a kind of commune and abandoned it. That abandonment came long before the American Revolution. In the second place, the Puritans were part of the radical protestant tradition in England, which was the context for political factions such as the Levellers.

[NittanyLion]

You may be able to sit in your dorm and have a drink and it's no big deal, but there are many teens who would not be able to handle that responsibility and other people end up paying the consequences.

You're talking about drunk driving, I presume?

[Illbay]

Hm. I don't see anything there about anyone being forced to raise the age. I just see where the states have allowed the Federal government too much power.

But I remember how, when we lived in Alabama in the early 80s, the debate went on and the voters overwhelmingly approved it via state referendum.

[A.J.Armitage]

Why do you have a problem waiting until the legal age to drink?

Yeah, that's it. I'm just really curious to find out what alcohol tastes like. I'm so eager, but the law's stopping me. Also, I have a bridge to sell you.

[shellylet]

Well call me a smart-a$$, but I think you're a dumb-a$$ if you believe young people are going to sit in their homes and drink and never end up getting into a car to drive it! You're not so old that you shouldn't remember doing stupid things when you were younger!

I'm just saying I'd rather err on the side of protecting innocent victims from immature, irresponsible people!

[Texaggie79]

The First Amendment did not apply to the states until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.

I believe it did, and I believe the founders agree with me. Why make a BoR that only applies to the Fed gov, which is supposed to be a very small faction with little function. The states are where criminal laws are tried. Why address cruel and unusual punishment, when the STATES are the majority of the prosecutors? The BoR have always applied to the States. The 14th just solidified that.

[shellylet]

You didn't answer the question!

[shellylet]

Now that response was mature! I'm hurt!

[July 4th]

Instead, children should learn to drink wine or beer with meals, as they do in Europe.

My (Wisconsinite) parents drink wine with dinner nearly every night, and I frequently did so too. When I went off to Madison for college - one of the nation's binge drinking meccas - I had no desire to do the same thrashing of my liver as so many of my classmates did. I had a different view of what alcohol was "good for."

Now, as for the people who saw it as their duty to be drunk for 72 hours starting Thursday night, even they aren't worse for the wear. By senior year, they no longer got drunk all of the time, and for the most part were intelligent enough to refrain from driving or jumping off of balconies.

(Most) People (eventually) learn about alcohol. Why not give them the opportunity to do it at a younger age, and under the supervision of their parents?

Tack that on to the argument that this is one area of policy that the government doesn't need to dictate, and I think you have reason enough to kill the National Minimum Drinking Age. After all, it's limited prohibition.

[tpaine]

"I just am saying that the people of a state/city/community have the constitutional ability to prohibit 18-20 year olds access to alcohol. They have the constitutional ability to prohibit alcohol completely even. The Constitution does not prevent stupid state laws." -TA79-

And THAT I absolutely agree with. -LG77-

A question. -- The 14th amendment says, [in part] :

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

-- Does this section of the 14th apply to stupid, unconstitutional, prohibitive laws that deprive persons of property such as alcohol without due process?

[JediGirl]

(Most) People (eventually) learn about alcohol. Why not give them the opportunity to do it at a younger age, and under the supervision of their parents?

Because that would make entirely too much sense.

[A.J.Armitage]

But I remember how, when we lived in Alabama in the early 80s, the debate went on and the voters overwhelmingly approved it via state referendum.

Where does the right of the majority to pass laws like that come from?

[LibertyGirl77]

Oh, that we could outlaw stupidity....

But we can't!!!! And any attempts to try usually just take freedoms from law-abiding, non-stupid people. After all, stupid, irresponsible, immature kids are going to drink NO MATTER WHAT the law says. Just like with guns -- if we outlawed guns tomorrow, only criminals would have guns. Would that make you feel safer?

[stanz]

LOL!

[Pappy Smear]

I agree with your fight a war, and drink a beer stance. Personally I prefer that if you are old enough to pay taxes, you are old enough to drink beer.

I was 19 when I got out of tech school and got a job with Motorola. The next spring when doing my taxes, and signing off a boatload of money, I could not drink a toast to celebrate my entry into adulthood by signing my 1040. 16 years later, it still torques me off.

[LowOiL]

deprive any person of life, liberty, or property

And which of the above is drugs exactly. Property?

[LibertyGirl77]

Yep. You have the right to fight them just as vehemently as you do the Fed, but you lose the constitutionality argument. And if you REALLY don't like the laws in your state, well, that's why we have more than one state in these United States. You are free to move to one you like better. That's what I did.

[sheltonmac]

"...the government has no business telling anyone, whatever his age, what substances he can consume."

I agree to a certain extent. True, the federal government doesn't have that right but, in keeping with the spirit of the 9th and 10th Amendments, the various state governments should be allowed to decide these issues. That is the true essence of federalism. If Minnesota wants a drinking age of 45 and Nevada wants a drinking age of 3 months, that should certainly be allowed to happen in a constitutional republic. Of course, being a Minnesotan who likes Sam Adams (the beer and patriot), I would fight that kind of law tooth and nail!

[RaceBannon]

If you're not gonna outlaw it for all, then those who are in the military should be able to drink