If you can go to war at 18, you should be able to drink at 18

The minimum age to purchase alcohol in the USA is 21. Many states have exceptions for religious reasons and in the present of parents.

Sounding old, again…………
Back in the Viet Nam war era…the chant of young men subject to the draft was: “Old enough to die, old enough to vote.
So Congress passed and the states ratified a constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to 18. Then the cry went out: ‘Old enough to die, old enough to vote, old enough to drink’

Many states such as Connecticut lowered the drinking age to 18. NY was already 18.
In a short period of time the number of automobile fatalities caused by teen-aged drunk drivers skyrocketed and there were calls to raise the drinking age. The draft and Viet Nam war had ended.
Only states can set drinking age, no national law would be constitutional, so Congress used the power of the budget. If a state did not raise its legal drinking age to 21, the federal government would withhold Federal highways funds from that state. Thus an almost universal 21 drinking age in the US.

CTL: I thought it was the purchasing age that was tied to the federal funds, not the drinking age. National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (23 U.S.C. § 158)

(a) Withholding of Funds for Noncompliance.—
(1)In general.—
(A)Fiscal years before 2012.—
The Secretary shall withhold 10 per centum of the amount required to be apportioned to any State under each of sections 104(b)(1), 104(b)(3), and 104(b)(4) [1] of this title on the first day of each fiscal year after the second fiscal year beginning after September 30, 1985, in which the purchase or public possession in such State of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is lawful.

(B)Fiscal year 2012 and thereafter.—
For fiscal year 2012 and each fiscal year thereafter, the amount to be withheld under this section shall be an amount equal to 8 percent of the amount apportioned to the noncompliant State, as described in subparagraph (A), under paragraphs (1) and (2) of section 104(b).

Armies, especially if they couldn’t conscript people, often relied on strong drink to get enllistments (the recruiter paid for some drinks at the pub, and you woke up in the morning to find out you had enlisted). So far, the US relies on patriotism and perhaps economic self-interest to recruit soldiers.

” If a person is considered responsible enough to be issued a lethal weapon with orders to kill enemies and be prepared to die himself, why isn’t he considered able to drink in moderation responsibly, such as a 21 year old adult is permitted?”

But a military recruit goes through several weeks of intense training, during which he is supervised 24 hours a day. Even in combat, soldiers at the lower ranks are always supervised by NCO’s or officers.

Drinking alcohol, on the other hand, can be done without any training or supervision.

DovidBT
If you read any military books
you will see that there is no supervision 24/7
our armed forces have a proud tradition of drinking
Many, Many, SEALs, special forces, Marines etc spent their nights after training getting drunk. Many get in trouble, arrested etc.

Simple answer: If you are a soldier in war, you should be allowed to buy. No reason some 18 year old antiwar protester shnook should be allowed to buy. End of story

It’s an arbitrary cutoff point, like the voting age. There’s a drive in the UK to lower the voting age to 16, and in the Scottish independence the voting age was indeed 16. for obvious reasons, this is led by the left-leaning parties. It makes sense to just pick an age that denotes adulthood and stick to it. In the UK, you become an adult at 18, and can therefore do everything, from drinking to soldiering to voting. 17 for driving and 16 for marriage, supervised drinking and smoking, and joining the army, but not fighting. Basically, in my opinion there should be an age where you’re not subject to age limitation. In today’s juvenile world, where adolescence basically continues into the twenties, then 21 probably makes more sense than 18. But random age distinctions based on ad hoc reasoning is a little weird.

Either you’re an adult or not.

Joseph:

I’m pretty sure that training and tests are required before you get to drive cars and trucks.

But if the minimum age for driving were raised to 35, I would have no objection. That wouldn’t be feasible for the military, though.

No. I support raising the drinking age to 35, with an exemption for religious practice.

daas
I believe Joseph’s deductive reasoning is more logical

I think the correlation between blowing your nose and piloting a commercial aircraft is as strong as the one between going to war and drinking (i.e. there is none; they’re both separate things and should be judged on their own).

but, point of fact
actually there are no restrictions on a 3 year old piloting a plane

This is not true. To pilot a commercial aircraft in the U.S., you have to be 23 (besides training and experience requirements).

Aren’t you being hypocritical by supporting 18 year olds killing and dying for their country while opposing 18 year olds trained and tested for drinking from drinking?

Just as hypocritical as saying you need to be 23 to pilot a commercial aircraft but can blow your nose at 3.

How to Deal with a Request for a Shidduch Picture

You tell me, in your own words, why it should be 18 rather than a different age. Don’t tell me because they can go to the military, because the reasoning behind military age is not relevant to drinking age.

They’re two different things. Why do they have to have the same minimum age?

The military probably prefers the younger recruits – they are more likely to be molded and influenced by their superiors, making a better soldier who will do as he is told and take orders without question. The older and more educated, and more opinionated the recruit is, the harder it will be to train him. So it’s not about trusting him with a weapon, it’s about the ability to turn him into a non-thinking, follow-orders soldier.

The point of age restrictions is safety, and the reason we don’t make insanely high age restrictions is because we balance utility against it.

Whatever the proper balance is for a particular endeavor, it shouldn’t be affected by the fact that a different endeavor has a different age at which the balance is struck.

If you’re so concerned about the lomdus of being m’chalek between a child and an adult, let the age of adulthood be 21, but we’ll let 17 year old kids drive, and 18 year old kids go to the army, but don’t compromise on safety or utility for some relatively arbitrary number (arbitrary because it’s not the best number for a particular law, but chosen because it’s appropriate for a different one).

NeutiquamErro: Why do you say that? The laws banning underage participants in any activity isn’t because they don’t have rights as children, but because it is deemed dangerous and they are not considered capable of looking after themselves in this area.

If it could be proven (which is irrelevant to your point, I think) that humans aged 20+ were capable of driving responsibly but were not able to drink responsibly until they were 22, why would you be against a law tailor for maximum safety? To prohibit this 21 year old from driving would be ridiculous, because he is capable, but to allow drinking would be irresponsible and damaging.

Are you against laws that protect people when they are adults? Do you feel all drugs should be legalized to adults, because they are capable of making their own decisions?

I don’t know why you look at ‘adult’ as a boolean attribute. It is entirely relative.

Yekke, criminalizing drugs has worked as well as Prohibition. Recently the Israeli Anti-Drug Agency recommended following the Portuguese system where substance abuse is treated as a public health problem. However, one really must ask how far the nanny state can go. What about Blomberg banning large cokes in NYC. Those in the US who support federalism should also oppose laws that punish states for not setting the age Nanny Sam wants. As for the army, halachically it should be 20-60 although one rav suggested that 18 is a horaat shaah.

Drugs fall into a difference category because they have a wider negative affect on society as a whole, and are therefore illegal for every citizen. I believe that drugs which only affect the user should be legal, from a purely libertarian standpoint, although I don’t think that drug exists.

And yes, I believe the issue is a binary one. If one is to be deemed by the state and adult, then that person should no longer be bound by laws that discriminate by age. I simply believe that should be the definition of an adult. If that age is deemed to be 21, then so be it. But I don’t believe the state should be allowed to tell some of its subjects that they are not yet responsible enough for a particular activity. I’m fine with the law deciding that children over a certain age are generally mature enough to do things like drive or get married, but I’m not okay with the statutes doing the same for adults. To take this argument to its logical conclusion, if there were a scientific, peer-reviewed, double-blind study showing that people aged 40-46 are 32% more likely to be involved in an automobile accident, would there be a case from restricting the right to drive for people in that age bracket? I would argue certainly not, and ages 18-21 should be no different, unless we legally consider them children.

If one is to be deemed by the state as adult, then that person should no longer be bound by laws that discriminate by age.

Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron to say that you can only discriminate against children by age?

I simply believe that should be the definition of an adult. If that age is deemed to be 21, then so be it. But I don’t believe the state should be allowed to tell some of its subjects that they are not yet responsible enough for a particular activity.

I can hear a case for the law not interfering in people’s personal danger zones, but that case would legalize drugs. If you agree with the state using legislation to protect it’s citizens, then why wouldn’t you understand an age where things become legal?

To take this argument to its logical conclusion, if there were a scientific, peer-reviewed, double-blind study showing that people aged 40-46 are 32% more likely to be involved in an automobile accident, would there be a case from restricting the right to drive for people in that age bracket?

Driving is the one thing which is logical to restrict; people more likely to cause accidents are more likely to kill others. This isn’t protecting people from themselves, this is stopping them harming the public. This is like restricting guns. The way you present it, is requiring drivers to pass some form of test to prove their driving capability wrong?

I would argue certainly not, and ages 18-21 should be no different, unless we legally consider them children.

How do you justify monitoring children?

How about you lower the drinking age to 13 but ban drinking again as soon as one reaches the age of driving?

But then social Darwinism will take over.

The world get confused between Human rights and human privileges.

All humans have rights to live, and to live like mentches. So any form of racial distinction is both illogical and morally wrong. Youre right to live grants you rights to live where you want, to travel on the same buses, to visit the same parks, and to marry whomever you want.

Your right to live does not, however, grant you the ability to make decisions you are not qualified to make. Anything which involves decision making – voting as far as I am concerned is only a minor issue; court jury service is much more problematic – should need basic qualifications to prove you sane, fairly intelligent and of the ability to make decisions.

As far as voting is concerned, this is impossible; in a democracy, we need the voice of the people. If the people are stupid, then their voice may be equally stupid, but it is the voice of the people which counts. If you don’t like that, do away with democracy.

When it comes to decisions in courts, where a jury can decide “guilty” or “innocent” just because the defendant looks sinister or because the alleged victim has a cute smile, no human with a conscience and a sane mind should allow half the country to decide the fate of another person with such impunity.

yekke2: So would you have some sort of system to disqualify voters deemed incapable of making an informed decision? I didn’t vote in the European referendum because, despite having an A Level in politics, and having read extensively on the subject from all sides of the debate, I simply couldn’t make my mind up. I disliked the EU on principle, but I couldn’t decide which side had a more convincing argument on the economy. So I withheld my opinion. What confuses me is that I would consider the vast majority of those who voted less ‘qualified’ than I to come to a decision, so how where they all so certain? The fact that whether a question in a referendum is posed in a positive or negative manner can lead to a decisive vote swing provides further evidence that nobody really knows anything. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. America ended up with a decision between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, for crying out loud!