In light of the thread on teen curfews, I thought this one might be a good one to refresh...
I don't know what I wrote before, but I'm pretty 'liberal' on drinking age. I think a person old enough to vote and serve in the military ought to be old enough to drink.
I heard it suggested once, half jokingly, that we Americans have the order of things backwards. We allow driving first and drinking last, and maybe we ought to reverse it.
I also think that having such an old age for legal drinking just makes it forbidden fruit. I never enjoyed drinking so much once I became legal as I did when I was doing it illegally -- using fake ID, sneaking, etc. That's a big part of the fun of it.
Good point. I do also think that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. If you can vote and go to war, you oughta be able to drink.
Of course, politically, there is no incentive to lower the age, since most older people support keeping it higher, and they vote far moreso than 18-20 year olds who would benefit from lowering it do. By the time most of the younger folks get old enough to really start caring about voting, they are old enough to drink, and don't care enough about the issue anymore (or may even reverse their position).
