First, they came for our 100-watt bulbs

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote:

FredHayek wrote: Both Republicans and Democrats like to strip away our freedoms and options.

Well... that's a loaded and open ended statement that is not founded in any truth. So... do you consider our legal code, which has been defined and refined over all these years by various members of our political parties, to have striped away our freedoms and options? Your broad-brush has painted nothing meaningful.

Examples? Raising the drinking age to 21 and making it illegal even for parents to give a sip of beer to children. So young adults learn to drink on the sly stealing hard alcohol from the home and other places, instead of learning to drink. When I wa young in Colorado, you could drink 3.2 beer at 18 in special bars. Pretty expensive to get wasted. Now kids sneak out a bottle of vodka and get alcohol poisoning.

FredHayek wrote:

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote:

FredHayek wrote: Both Republicans and Democrats like to strip away our freedoms and options.

Well... that's a loaded and open ended statement that is not founded in any truth. So... do you consider our legal code, which has been defined and refined over all these years by various members of our political parties, to have striped away our freedoms and options? Your broad-brush has painted nothing meaningful.

Examples? Raising the drinking age to 21 and making it illegal even for parents to give a sip of beer to children. So young adults learn to drink on the sly stealing hard alcohol from the home and other places, instead of learning to drink. When I wa young in Colorado, you could drink 3.2 beer at 18 in special bars. Pretty expensive to get wasted. Now kids sneak out a bottle of vodka and get alcohol poisoning.

If the kids feel a need to sneak around grabbing a drink, then it's the parents fault for not instilling a better moral compass in their kids. Between 1966-70, I lived in a state were full strength drinking was legal at 18... we lost 23 kids from our school in those 4 years. I don't want kids drinking before they are 21. too many of the kids we are popping out of school now a days are dumb as rocks... and I don't want those rocks behind the wheel of a car drunk. If if they want to drink and drive, I can only hope they do it alone and drive themselves off of Windy Point as soon as possible. Clean up that gene pool.

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote: I don't want kids drinking before they are 21. too many of the kids we are popping out of school now a days are dumb as rocks... and I don't want those rocks behind the wheel of a car drunk. If if they want to drink and drive, I can only hope they do it alone and drive themselves off of Windy Point as soon as possible. Clean up that gene pool.

Are you serious? Do you have children? nieces? nephews? friends? How about friends in the fire department, that have to respond to those crashes? Education is key. Responsibility is learned. I am floored by your statement. I hope you are not and have not been actively breeding

Hoot Owl wrote:

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote: I don't want kids drinking before they are 21. too many of the kids we are popping out of school now a days are dumb as rocks... and I don't want those rocks behind the wheel of a car drunk. If if they want to drink and drive, I can only hope they do it alone and drive themselves off of Windy Point as soon as possible. Clean up that gene pool.

Are you serious? Do you have children? nieces? nephews? friends? How about friends in the fire department, that have to respond to those crashes? Education is key. Responsibility is learned. I am floored by your statement. I hope you are not and have not been actively breeding

You don't educate them by letting them drink... which was the suggestion above that I was responding to. Educate them to drinking... are you nuts.

Responsibility and intelligent thinking are not automatically bestowed upon anyone at some magic age. They are learned.

IMO they are best learned by having good role models (parents) who show and explain the concepts of responsibility and consequences, and gradually provide more responsibility as the lessons are learned.

Expecting anyone to automatically become responsible drivers, drinkers, or anything else at some magic age is foolish, and doomed to fail.

jf1acai wrote: Responsibility and intelligent thinking are not automatically bestowed upon anyone at some magic age. They are learned.

IMO they are best learned by having good role models (parents) who show and explain the concepts of responsibility and consequences, and gradually provide more responsibility as the lessons are learned.

Expecting anyone to automatically become responsible drivers, drinkers, or anything else at some magic age is foolish, and doomed to fail.

I agree 100 percent... but you don't teach them responsibility when "parents to give a sip of beer to children" as Fred Hayek suggested. Booze is a drug. You don't educate them by giving them doses of drugs. That's why the law is 21. If they want to start drinking at 21, then they can. No body is expecting that there is some magic age for anyone to become responsible. But 21 is a great age to transfer the responsibility from the parent to the adult child. And then at that point, if the child wants to get drunk and drive themselves off Windy Point, that's their problem.

I have a problem with laws that say they are old enough to die for their country at 18, but not old enough to drink until 21.

The military used to, before they made the legal drinking age for all alcohol (sometimes in the mid-'80's), look the other way. Now, there are a lot of punishments given if someone is in possession of alcohol or has imbibed or if an of-age individual has provided alcohol to an under-age individual.

Then again, there are quite a few people in the military who are alcoholics...largely because of the stress incurred when in uniform...and the environment is one that may not overtly encourage drinking, but it sure doesn't discourage drinking.