Quotation for Today – Paedophobic Wowserism
Then there’s raising the drinking age again. This is another attempt to turn back the clock, but while it will no doubt be popular with the old (who like to see alcohol as a youth problem and avoid responsibility for their own behaviour), there is a fundamental problem: these people are adults. They can get married or civilised, fight and die for their country, vote – and Palmer thinks they’re not adult enough to drink? This is simply paedophobic wowserism. Discrimination on the basis of age is as despicable as discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or gender. 18 year olds are full citizens (give or take a few old laws which no-one has bothered to fix yet because they’re irrelevant in practice), and they should be treated as such.
Idiot Savant @ No Right Turn on Geoffrey Palmer’s Report on Alcohol and the Law.
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Apparently Nick Clegg, currently highly fancied in the UK, has apolicy of giving the vote to 16 year olds.
????
Well I am not surprised at the comments, which I suspect reflect much of the conversation around the nation.
However, I am in Auckland, I have just returned from a bar in the Viaduct, which at 12:30 am was lively and full of people enjoying themselves, but no apparent drunkeness.
I doubt if anyone there was under 20.
I believe that the problem is around parental example.
Changing the rules will not deal with that.
18 year olds are full citizens … and they should be treated as such.
Well, yes, but are 16 year olds? What happened when the drinking age was lowered to 18 is that alcohol found its way into schools (in much greater quantities) and to 16 year olds and lower. EDs now see 5 times the number of drunken 16 year olds and an alarming number of younger children. The last one I attended was 11.
Problem is things are going in different directions.
Girls mature sexually earlier but have but two babies in their 30s. An 18 year old was probably the 21 year old of yesteryear and so on.. really its Society thats changed.. its much older and less patient with the young who are proportionately less of the population than they were.
Personally I think we grin and bear the yoof.. as they will have to grin and bear.. and pay for us in our dotage.
JC
I don’t want it “both ways” Paul. Getting married is relatively harmless…a mistake there seldom kills or cripples. And I’d certainly support raising the joining age for the Army to 20.
As for voting, it appears that changing the gang in power makes stuff-all difference anyway. It’s a whole different question but my personal feeling is: no job, no vote. Why should those on welfare be able to vote themselves larger “entitlements”?
To return to the subject of the post, the hospital I work at its plagued every Friday and Saturday night with drunken, aggressive teenagers. Sure, we get the occasional adult drunk but they’re far, far less likely to be aggressive.
It takes time to learn to handle alcohol and a certain amount of life experience for probable consequences to penetrate the fog of alcohol.
It may not be “fair” to raise the drinking age, it may not be observed widely enough to make a difference,but the effects of mixing booze and teenagers are indisputable.
I’d much prefer to see a tough and realistic education campaign but like all governemnts, this one will go for the easy fix–which will be no fix at all.
True–up to a point. But the fact remains that youngsters dont handle alcohol as well as older people. The brain’s development isn’t complete until around age 22 or so and that leads to a higher incidence of risk-taking behaviour.
An 18 year old is not developmentally equivalent to a 20 year old.
In which case should we not also stop them from getting married or fighting for their country or voting etc? You can’t have it both ways.