The Amethyst Initiative

[Arrian]

The inclination thing... ok. So it's not that I respect laws against tax evasion, it's that I'm not inclined to evade my taxes. Thus, laws against tax evasion do not affect me? I suppose...

So what you mean by respect for the law is really respect for the consequences. So wait, I forget, are you pro-DP?

-Arrian

[Thoth]

Lower the drinking age to 18 and raise the driving age to 21.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
The inclination thing... ok. So it's not that I respect laws against tax evasion, it's that I'm not inclined to evade my taxes. Thus, laws against tax evasion do not affect me? I suppose...

So what you mean by respect for the law is really respect for the consequences. So wait, I forget, are you pro-DP?

-Arrian

I'm strongly anti-DP and strong punishment in general.

[Nugog]

The real problem is not the legal drinking age - but your drinking culture.

NZ has a drinking age of 18 currently - it was lowered from 20 about 5 years ago.

The real problem was not 18 year olds getting booze for the first time - they already could get it. The real problem is the binge drinking culture amoungst young people in NZ.

This was suddenly un-ignorable anymore as it was now happening in bars/clubs rather than private homes.

I suspect the same would be true for many parts of the US.

However in many parts of Europe this binge drinking culture does not exist. It quite possibly has to do with the fact that children are given watered down wine with meals, and alcohol is treated as an every day/nothing special kind of thing.

[Arrian]

We have some technology now that could help with the DD thing. We could, if we chose, mandate that all new cars include the "blow into this tube before the car will start" thingy. No, it's not perfect, but I'd wager that it would have a pretty powerful impact on drunk driving.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I'm strongly anti-DP and strong punishment in general.

Ok...

But you appear to be arguing that people only respect laws that affect them if there is a harsh punishment attached. Ergo, the DP (harshest possible punishment) would result in more respect for laws against murder. This is a key pro-DP argument. I don't really buy it, but it seems you do.

-Arrian

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Arrian
We have some technology now that could help with the DD thing. We could, if we chose, mandate that all new cars include the "blow into this tube before the car will start" thingy. No, it's not perfect, but I'd wager that it would have a pretty powerful impact on drunk driving.

-Arrian

And I see some enterprising sober person making alot of money from expelling their breath for a fee.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian


Ok...

But you appear to be arguing that people only respect laws that affect them if there is a harsh punishment attached. Ergo, the DP (harshest possible punishment) would result in more respect for laws against murder. This is a key pro-DP argument. I don't really buy it, but it seems you do.

-Arrian

In this context I mean "respect" like Stalin or Hitler were respected by their people.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Nugog


And I see some enterprising sober person making alot of money from expelling their breath for a fee.

Which is why it isn't perfect. I don't think that will happen as much as you might think, though. It involves a person conciously deciding to help someone drive drunk.

Will some people do it? Yeah. But I think the numbers would be small.

-Arrian

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Thoth
Lower the drinking age to 18 and raise the driving age to 21.

They arleady hvae to lwoer it to 14 in some places because people need cars in the US to get to work.

JM

[chequita guevara]

Lower the drinking age to 18 and raise the driving age to 21.

[Elok]

While I can't claim to entirely understand the college binge-drinking culture, being a stranger and all, it seems to me that the problem is not age so much as a complete lack of experience combined with no good education on the subject.

I mean, I had wine with company starting around age nine. I got to appreciate and respect the power of alcohol. I got used to gauging its effects on myself and others. I also learned, in a perfectly controlled and safe environment, that there's a certain point at which you stop drinking, because past that point it just ain't fun.

Then I got to college and was horrified by the morons competing to see how much booze they could handle. It's like these kids have a fundamental disconnect with reality. They appreciate that it gets you hammered but...idunno what, it's like they think it stops doing anything once you start giggling. That you can just drink the stuff like water and the worst that can happen is a bad hangover. The inevitable biochemical facts of the situation seem to elude them entirely.

And of course, what have they been told about alcohol as teenagers? "Don't drink even once or your liver will explode and you'll lose your job! Drinking bad! BAD! Never mind that your parents have a beer with dinner every night." That's all they know. It's strange how plenty of people object to abstinence-only sex ed but don't even blink when we try to feed kids this preposterous crap.

[snoopy369]

Elok is probably at least in part correct. However, I think it's also something uniquely American - our self-indulgent culture (which is presumably an offshoot of the 'hippie' movement). But who knows...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Elok is probably at least in part correct. However, I think it's also something uniquely American - our self-indulgent culture (which is presumably an offshoot of the 'hippie' movement). But who knows...

You do know they have alcoholics in every country don't you?

[snoopy369]

It actually brings to mind an interesting question for myself.

Neither my girlfriend nor I drink (at all, ever), nor have either of us (at all, ever) except for church as a child/young adult.

I generally agree with Elok, that raising children to entirely abstain from alcohol probably will cause them - or at least an appreciable fraction - to become worse drunks than if they have some exposure to it.

However, both my GF and I abstain entirely (and likely will forever, or at least for a long time), due to various reasons. I do not necessarily expect my children to do so, however, and probably won't even teach them that they should - I will tell them why I do, and why my GF does (or, rather, she will tell them), but I suspect that they won't make the same choice (as they didn't have the experiences that caused both of us, separately, to make that choice).

Fortunately it will be 15-20 years before I have to make this decision, but ... how do I raise my children to be comfortable with alcohol, when I do not partake of any myself? I don't plan on having it around the house ... so my choices are:

a) Get alcohol at times specifically to give it to my kids, without having it myself, and realistically not knowing exactly what it's going to do to them (since I have never partaken myself)
b) Send my kids over to someone else's house, who drinks, and let them teach my kids (this is only a possible solution if this imaginary person exists who I would trust with this)
c) Tell them about alcohol, but don't actually give them any

C) seems particularly dangerous, unless I'm really, really certain of my kids' mentalities ... but neither a) nor b) are really great options, either.

This is where I hope for option D (prohibition) but don't really expect it (nor really hope for it, of course, for the obvious reasons)...