Quote:
Originally Posted by zineeditor
Too many people can't think for themselves and/or don't want to think for themselves. And government wants too much control over our lives and they use any excuse to justify putting those controls on us. Case in point, I was right outside New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina. Most people have no idea how weird it got around here. The way the authorities acted was darn scary. You'd think we were being taken over by some foreign entity.
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From my perspective the problem was that people did think for themselves. Some decided to stay to loot; some were forced to stay and then forced to loot (if I am in a place with no food shops open, but I need food and know that some is stored in a boarded up shop...).
The authorities probably did overstep the mark; but on balance I would have though it better they intervened rather than just stepped back and watched. Despite how weird things got, I can't imagine that the authorities set out with the intention of doing evil.
Controls are tools for keeping order. And drinking age is one such tool. The problem with an absence of control is that groupings of people don't tend towards harmonious living. Governments need to govern peoples living.
I am of the opinion that there should be one legal point of coming-of-age, where voting, drinking, smoking, enlisting, and copulating are permitted. It won't suit everyone, but what law ever does?
But I see DUI's as a different argument. How is it so accepted in America? It sounds as casual a label as a speeding ticket would be in the UK. We may have a lot of things wrong here, but drink-driving is widely condemned: it is as unacceptable as murdering someone or defecating in the street.
As for our age of drinking at 18, it hardly seems to work. People can get served alcohol long before that, and it can be commonplace for groups of young teens to sit around drinking. And we are not responsible with alcohol; there are lots of young people destroying their health through heavy binges, and there are lots of older people that daily drink more than they ought as a lifestyle. Self-destructive alcoholism is not so commonly seen here, but it is probably quite well masked by common culture. And personally I wonder if the best regulation of peoples drinking habits would be to raise the cost of drinking so that it is only afforded as an occasional luxury.