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Cant buy/drink a beer when youre 18?

5K views 65 replies 37 participants last post by  DisgruntledPatriot 
#1 ·
Thats crazy. Makes no sense that you can join the military and go to war but can drink a damn beer at that same age.
The fact that the minimum drinking age is 21 is just stupid. Dont college kids drink? A lot? In Germany, at 16 you can drink both beer and wine, 18 for white spirits.
 
#8 ·
Back in the day the drinking age in TN was 17 for beer & wine, it was a short drive to the border back then......no clue who decided one should be able to die for the USA but not drink @18 though . I'd bet it was political more than anything. I "should" remember the changing but I was likely living my life & not paying attention as I was > 21 by then anyway.
 
#9 ·
Drinking age was 18 in the 80's for a bit. I turned 18 & could legally drink for 3 months or so then the law changed to 21. Didn't really care though as I had gotten my biggest drinking days over with by the time I got out of high school. To this day (54) I still don't drink as much as I did from 13-16 as a stupid kid trying to "Be Cool."

When you're 18 you can also vote & go to prison rather than a juvenile detention facility. If you're legally an adult you should be able to buy a hand gun & drink as well. I say raise legal adult age to 21 "OR" lower the drinking age & hand gun buying age to 18. Double standards are BS.
 
#11 ·
The age of being an adult under the law needs to be a single age, nationwide.

Most kids leave home by age 18. i think this should be the age of being considered an adult under the law.

Legal for consensual sex, drinking, serving in the military, being responsible under the laws as adults.
Any crimes tried as an adult.
 
#15 ·
The age of being an adult under the law needs to be a single age, nationwide.

Most kids leave home by age 18. i think this should be the age of being considered an adult under the law.

Legal for consensual sex, drinking, serving in the military, firearm owership, being responsible under the laws as adults.
Ant crimes tried as an adult.
Consensual sex should be determined by the age gap between the two parties. Most teens are sexually active between 15 & 17, at least that's what my memory of being a teen in the 80's was. My buddy's younger bother went to prison @ 18 for having sex with his 16 year old girl friend & her parents pressed charges. When he got out, she was 18 & they got married & he ended up living with her at her parents house because he couldn't find a job as an ex-con. LOL!

I understand that NOBODY wants their teen age daughter to be sexually active but, that's what teens have been doing for thousands of years & it takes a special kind of STUPID to think they're going to stop because of a law. I'm all for 30 year old's going to prison for nailing a high school girl but, if there's only 3 or 4 years age difference, that's basically the natural, normal selective order of our species. If a teen age girl is sexually active/gets pregnant within her peer group, the failure rests squarely on the parents shoulders & not the teen age/early 20's Kid who was out of his mind due to hormones.
 
#20 ·
The real problem was during the VN war. An 18 yr old could not legaly drink, but he could be drafted and sent to war, with very little training. Basically 18 yr old cannon fodder.

Fortunately these laws have changed and the US has a volunteer military now. So our soilders first must choose to serve. Last time I checked you needed a HS diploma before the military would accept you, and they invest a lot more time and training our before sending them into combat.

I can see the argument for a nationwide age of consent, where the kid must either reach a certain age, or complete high school, or obtain parent approval in order to have the full rights as a US Citizen. Rights like voting, gun ownership, mairrage, contracts, drinking.
 
#25 ·
My high school senior son is 18. Found out last month he cant even sign himself out for a dr's appt. I had to show up to sign him out so he could drive himself there. Well that ****ed me off, and I contacted the school board, and said I was thinking of filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of their students for civil rights violations. Got a call back in an hour that they changed the policy.
 
#28 ·
I both went to an university at age 33 and then became a cop there. So about 26 years experience witnessing college kids drinking. They drink. Kind of what we did in the military though I was 21 by then so it was legal for me. But when I was on active duty, the club gave us draft 3.2 beer regardless of age. The younger guys drank that stuff up.

But I do remember the whole push for dropping the law to 18 for drinking. I think I was just about to turn 20 when they did it but may have been younger by a few months. Kids won't stop drinking because of a law. They will find a way to do it.
 
#30 ·
I started drinking at a local bar when I was 16, but everyone thought I was in my mid twenties. My son 16 this last summer now 17 was working for a local construction company and the bosses wife brings him a beer with his lunch assuming he was old enough to drink... John is like, uhhh I am only 16 mam...

When I joined the Navy at age 18 I was able to legally drink on base and over seas. When I was out on the town at bars I would show my military ID and they would see that I wasn't old enough but would always let me in anyways.

I am not sure when they changed the drinking regulations in the military, but I know that in 90 and 91 none of the bootcamps on the Battleship Wisconsin ever had any trouble with drinking even though they were 18 and a couple of them actually 17 years old. I was actually assigned three bootcamps to babysit on their first liberty in Bahrain and they got so plowed I had a hell of a time getting them back to the ship, the one idiot is wrapping the sheet on the back seat around his head pretending to speak in Arabic, the other is trying to smoke cigarettes in this taxi drivers brand new Mercedes while the other one is hanging out the friggin front seat passenger window whooping and hollering and blowing faces on the back window beside me... I thought for sure we would end up in jail and I was imagining just how "fun" the discussion with the Captain was going to be. We managed to make it back to the ship and with a lot of profuse apologizing and a good tip the taxi driver stopped yelling and left. I managed to get each of them to walk across the quarter deck under their own power so no trouble with the quarter deck watch, one of these guys was 17 and the other two were 18. What the rules state and what is actually allowed can often be two very different things in the military.
 
#36 ·
Alcoholism runs on both sides of my family. I don't know where he got the idea but my dad believed the earlier you let your kids drink would somehow keep them from becoming alcoholics. My dad, GOD rest his soul, became one, my mom almost.

I remember drinking alot growing up but by the time I was 20, I was over it. Being married to 1 sobered me up fast. My little brother went the other direction and spent most of his younger years into his mid 40's drinking a lot but since he had to have gastric bypass surgery he has calmed down a whole bunch.

I used to have a picture of him when he was around 2 with a beer in 1 hand and a cigar in the other.
 
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#38 ·
My dad started offering me copenhagen at around age 3 and by age five would always give me a beer out of the case of beer in the seat of the truck as we were driving, telling me... just keep it down when cars are coming son... Some of the ranch hands and a number of the loggers in logging camp used my little brother and I as weekend entertainment, they would get us drunk and then have us fight. They would hoot and holler and laugh as we stumbled around attempting to just stay on our feet let alone fight. I drank a bit in HS, I kept a six pack stashed on the way to work and I would commonly stop and drink a beer on the way to work and stop and drink one on the way home. I never really was a party drinker as I have the Asian alcohol intolerance gene and I effectively couldn't hardly get drunk as I got full sized, and if I drink much it causes my skin to turn bright red and makes my joints and muscles hurt like hell.

Even by five years old though I knew that dad was a great example of what "not" to be when I grew up. While I do drink it really isn't much, I drink about 6 beers a year maybe 8 beers some years. Not that I try "not" to drink, I just don't have any real desire to drink.
 
#41 ·
When I turned 18 I lived in a state that required 21 for drinking. But I lived near the MD state line and I could go there to hit the bars or buy beer to go.
The law changed to 21 sometime after but since I was already able to I was grandfathered in. Same with when I moved south to VA/WV. I was still legal. I didn't know there were states that made you legal and then illegal again. That sucks.
I think that 18 is a good age for adulthood. If you are old enough to vote and go to war, then you are old enough to decide if you want to buy guns, drink and smoke, too.
I believe that one of the problems we have these days is not making kids be responsible at a younger age. 16 is good for driving but too young for the rest (drinking, military, etc)

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
#43 ·
I don't know if it changed but in TX you could drink in a bar at any age if you were married. IIRC the age of consent was 14, possibly 13 with parents permission.
 
#45 ·
Drinking age was 18 for me, 21 for liquor. Then it went up to 19, then 21. If I remember correct the states changed their laws due to the feds requirement to get fed tax dollars for highways/infrastructure in the 80's. Same as seat belt laws. A bribe if you will.
 
#46 ·
We used to drive across the NY border and hit the bars as it was 18 in NY at the time. Even back then before it became a thing, we had a designated driver. Then MAD stepped up and boom- the drinking was raised again.

That was after Vietnam was over and the draft ended. I was 21 and in in the service so I really didn't pay much attention to it. But the first time I got back to CT, I found out they had done it.

Seemed to me at the time if an 18yo could not drink, they were too immature to vote also but that wasn't changed. Both had happened about the same time. Take away one and leave the other. It seemed wrong.
 
#47 ·
I think the disparity between German & American driving accidents/drunk driving rates is due to several factors...

1. As mentioned, driven mileage per year is a significant factor. Deutschland is a seriously urban/suburban environment, populated by ~80 million, and only about 1/28th the size of the USA. 'Bout the same size as Colorado and Maine combined. You can drive to anywhere in that country and arrive before sundown, unless there's a Stau (massive Autobahn traffic jam). Not that many people do, because...

2. They have a terrific (reliable, fast, affordable) rapid transit rail/bus system that goes to almost all locations (including rural areas). People use it instead of driving for a lot of daily commutes or for trips to distant locations.

3. Gasoline/diesel is frightfully expensive (by American standards). Up to $5.80 a gallon as of Fall 2019. That cuts down on actual annual mileage for most. Driving is an expensive privilege.

4. German kids benefit from a looser tolerance of alcohol at a much younger age (both legally & culturally). By the time most teens start to hit the club circuit, they've been able to drink at home (family meals, outings, festivals, etc.) for years. Many years. There's no great mystery attached to alcohol as a "forbidden fruit". Honestly, they're just better social drinkers than peer group Americans at that age. Less over-indulgence and more previously tested ability to handle it. German kids learn to drink first... then to drive. The opposite of what we do with our kids.

5. Young Germans pay through the nose for expensive (and legally required) Driver's Ed training. Easily $2000 spent before being allowed to obtain a license. That training makes a mockery of most courses in other countries. Among other things, they are required to competently handle Autobahn speeds, superbly handling cars, and a culture disdain for incompetent drivers. Germans regard Driving the way many Americans regard the 2A. As a creator-given Right. They're simply better trained drivers than young Americans. And a sure way to lose that freedom of the road... is to have an alcohol incident while driving. Courts are not very lenient. DUI penalties are pretty severe.

6. Mechanical inspection standards for vehicles are much higher in Germany than in the USA. No rusted out or mechanically unsound Hoopties allowed. You either keep your vehicle in annual inspect-able Autobahn-worthy condition... or you ride the train. People have to spend a lot on their vehicle maintenance, a lot on fuel, and a lot on insurance. They tend to guard their investment by driving competently. Faster than Americans, but generally more competently.

The ironic thing is that all-out Autobahn speeds are mostly a myth these days. The place is so congested with traffic, that speed limits abound. So do traffic jams stretching to the horizon. There are still a few locations where you can wind it out, but fast moving traffic around many big German urban enclaves is about what you'd encounter anywhere else in the world. Just a bit faster on average. Say 90-100 mph instead of 70-80 mph. Or simply bumper-to-bumper at a crawl.

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When WWII American hero 1LT Audie Murphy first returned to US shores, he was denied a drink at a bar because he was still under-aged. Medal of Honor, battlefield commissioned combat officer, Infantry Company Commander, etc. But too young to buy a damn drink. Go figure.

If (at 18) you're old enough to vote, get married, drive, buy real estate, run for political office, have your own children, go to war, sign contracts, pay taxes, be employed, or be convicted in court as an adult... you're damn well old enough to drink. Or own/carry a gun for that matter.

In past eras, 18 year old "kids" have reigned over literal kingdoms. It's about how you raise them, not some magical cutoff age. Thousands of years of human history (and biology) says that folks are already adults at 18. Sometimes a lot earlier.

In the modern West, our societies mistakenly extend the legal childhoods of our young people. But have no problem using them as cannon fodder for war. That's a bunch of crap.

Anything an 18 year old fails to do in an adult-like manner is as much a reflection of societal/parental upbringing as it is his/her maturity & experience. Treat people like children and they'll remain children. Demand that they behave as adults... and (in the main) they will. As young as you force them to do so.

I've seen teenagers assume life and death responsibilities, demonstrating fine judgement and steadfast performance under pressure. Also met insufferable 45 year old "adults" who still act like children.

Our societal problems aren't really about things like 18 year old people drinking. They are about failing to train 18 year old people to do so responsibly. And holding them accountable when they screw the pooch.
 
#48 ·
THE BIG difference is..
YOu do NOT turn an 18 year old loose with weapons of war without some serious adult supervision and only after a LOT of serious training on how to deal with weapons of death.

OTHERWISE

an 18 year old with a six pack and no adult supervision and no experience with drinking and access to a vehicle is just a prescription to disaster. That car is a weapon of mass destruction if used incorrectly.

The law change allowing drinking at 18 greatly increased the DUI work load and bar fights and such because you had these newly liberated kids engaging in activity where they thought they were adults and thy couldn't handle it.
 
#53 ·
Depends on what kinds of under-21 people you have around.

People toss around a lot of idyllic stats and factoids about Iceland. It's been described as kind of Utopian ever since I was a kid.

Remember reading once, though, that they're very permissive and enthusiastic about drinking over there. Saw an anecdote about a 13 y.o. spending the night passed out in the street after heavy drinking, lol. Kid woke up safe and unharmed next morning, as expected, and walked home. Thing was, the book where I read this was presenting it as an example of what's common and permissible in Iceland. What's considered very bad in one part of the world is something you don't have to worry about in another.

Now things are changing, though. Iceland is one on the long list of places that are yielding to refugee immigration and diversity. Tragically, I've seen stories about sexual assault and spread of STDs there due to these new people. Might be a smart time to change some rules and customs.

The rules of Eden and the rules for fine, gentle people do not have to be the rules outside of Eden, or the rules for troublesome people.
 

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