{"id":1654,"date":"2007-11-19T13:09:27","date_gmt":"2007-11-19T18:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2007-11-19T13:52:45","modified_gmt":"2007-11-19T18:52:45","slug":"bottoms-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1654","title":{"rendered":"Bottoms Up, Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chad at the Fraters notes notes one of the things Europeans have consistently gotten right<\/a>\u00a0– drinking.\u00a0 Specifically, drinking laws.\u00a0 Chad notes the lethal effect (on few, but tragedy has no minimum threshold) of the 21 minimum age:<\/p>\n

Instead of trying to come up with a largely arbitrary age (why twenty-one and not twenty or twenty-two?) when you let people drink legally, why not make it the same age that we legally consider people adults, eighteen? But instead of making it a milestone for being able to drink as much as you want, let’s return it to an event that carries with it added responsibility along with its freedoms.<\/p>\n

You’re eighteen. It’s time to grow up and act like an adult. It’s time to be serious about your life. You can drink and have fun, but you’ll be expected to drink like a adult.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can vote and join the military at 18; you can help determine this nation’s governance, operate a machine gun (in the military), become a cop in some jurisdictions, start training in any number of medical and emergency-response trades…<\/p>\n

…but you can’t drink?<\/p>\n

In Europe, the “forbidden fruit” aspects of alcohol just don’t exist – and the punishments for inappropriate behavior are sure and strict (you don’t <\/em>want to get busted for drunk driving anywhere in Europe).\u00a0 Sure, Italian and Scottish footie fans get drunk and obnoxious – but does anyone think that imposing and jacking up a drinking age would change that?<\/p>\n

Part of this would involve introducing alcohol at an earlier age in controlled settings. There’s no reason a sixteen-year-old shouldn’t be taught how to enjoy a glass of wine or beer with the family at dinner. Alcohol shouldn’t be a taboo and drinking shouldn’t be all about getting loaded and acting stupid. Kids should be taught both the positive side and the peril of drinking. The message shouldn’t be all or nothing, that you’re either a teetotaler or an alcoholic. The path of moderation is one that far too few Americans discover until well past the time they should have.<\/p>\n

What we’re doing now is clearly not working. You can further infantilize society by move the drinking age out again, you can prohibit people from drinking at midnight on their twenty-first birthday (as Minnesota does), and you can warn people all you want about the dangers of binge drinking. But until you change the culture of drinking in America and teach people how to drink responsibly before they reach adulthood, it’s not going to make a difference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chad is right.<\/p>\n

On that anyway.\u00a0 On the other hand<\/a>\u00a0(emphasis added)…<\/p>\n

Eric Felten is a cocktail connuissuer<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’d be Connoisseur<\/em>.\u00a0 I mean, if you’re gonna be a foodie<\/strike> boozie, you’re gonna have to get that<\/em> one straight, at least…<\/p>\n

I’m all about the learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chad at the Fraters notes notes one of the things Europeans have consistently gotten right\u00a0– drinking.\u00a0 Specifically, drinking laws.\u00a0 Chad notes the lethal effect (on few, but tragedy has no minimum threshold) of the 21 minimum age: Instead of trying to come up with a largely arbitrary age (why twenty-one and not twenty or twenty-two?) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-geekery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}