Quote Originally Posted by starmom View Post
Since this country is an alleged Republic, I say leave it up to each state's voting populace to determine the laws for their state, including the drinking age.
I don't agree with this, but if it fixes the problem for more people, more power to it. I am a federalist at heart and believe that we need a stronger national goverment, with less power to state and local gov's.


Quote Originally Posted by frankykeno View Post
You won't get it from me. I may be an old broad but I still am amazed at how much younger 18 is now then it was when I hit that age.

Rich, those stats are backed up for me anyways by my own experience years ago working in a small town police department. In that blue collar community, where most everyone worked in a factory, the VAST majority of our drunk drivers were grown men. Men that should have known better but just had to get that car home from the bar. Sadly we had a lot of drunk drivers back then and most were not teens/young adults. Our young poeple even back then were far better educated about drinking and driving and also grew up under a system that more heavily penalized that activity.

Look it's simple for me. You are a legal adult at age 18 for a lot of things. You can marry, fight and die for your country, enter and be held liable to a legal contract, get a credit card, sign a lease, etc. You can live as any adult does except for the ability to have a beer. I think in making this one thing illegal it just makes it all that much more interesting. For me, either you are an adult or you aren't and this ridiculous thing of making the line here for one thing but here for another just is silly.

As far as parental involvement, if you haven't taught your kid by age 18 that certain activities are just plain stupid (drinking and driving in this case) - well I don't think they are going to get it by age 21. For me and mine, age 18 means you're an adult in this house. If you want to act like a stupid kid or act one moment like a child, then the other like a grown-up - too bad for you, you'll still be expected to face any consequence like the adult you are. I love my kids but I don't intend to raise a group of living at home with mom, acting like a kid when I darn well know I delivered your butt 25 years ago pseudo-adults. I've watched some of my friends do that and sorry but I think that disrespects the whole child/parent relationship and is just plain silly.

The line should be clear....now you are a child...now you are an adult with all the freedoms and responsibilities that entails. Your job as a parent is to teach them and get them ready for that line to be crossed, celebrate that they've reached that age and then let them live it, good or bad.
I was gonna say this too....darn.

But to elaborate...I believe that the majority of the people that are mature enough to make the right choices involving alcohol at age 21 were mature enough at 18 as well, and that the majority of the people that were not mature enough to make the right decisions at 18 will probably not be mature enough at 21, if at all.