Saint wrote:Reagan, who ran on the platform of shrinking gov't, instigated the single biggest piece of federal legislation to impact my life when he and that bitch Liddy Dole forced states to raise their drinking ages to receive highway funding.
Congress passed this bill because young people (and ALL of them had cars) were acting like a bunch of drunk animals. Reagan just signed it into law because he was sick and tired of seeing so many dead motorists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_M ... ng_Age_Act
Remember, any state is free to set whatever drinking age they want. But what the states want is federal highway dollars, not highway deaths. By 1984, we had an abundance of data showing how irresponsible young people were with the drinking. So Congress did what the data told them to do, try to financially motivate the states to raise the age for people to purchase alcohol.
There is actual talk at Capitol Hill about changing this back to 18. The logic behind this is that cars and trucks today (unlike in 1984) are designed with so many lifesaving measures that reducing the drinking age is unlikely to have any real meaningful impact on increasing the number of drunk driving fatalities. Hell we have over 100,000,000 licensed and registered vehicles on the road today and we have far fewer road fatalities than we had with just one third the number of registered cars and trucks.
The impact of this legislation dramatically impacted higher education in this country. It was pretty much unheard of at college or university campuses where anyone was asked for "ID". That just wasn't necessary. Today, when the 18 and 19 year old kids hook up with a slightly older student, they encourage that student to hit the package store and buy for everyone encouraging the dangerous "binge drinking." So, University presidents strongly want Congress to undo that 1984 highway funds act reducing the drinking age back to 18.
http://www.amethystinitiative.org/
Moreover, the entire ritual of college March "Spring Break" to Florida, was a much bigger, much more meaningful adventure when even college freshmen could go and drink. 300,000 kids at Ft Lauderdale was evidence of this. Lookie here....
[youtube]vQ6BOKq45uM[/youtube]
....this type of event would mean absolutely nothing to college freshmen today, not one thing. It harkens back to a time when no one checked IDs. Today, Ft Lauderdale is lucky if it gets even 5000 Spring Breakers. Daytona Beach, simply because it is easier to get to by car, might get 20,000 breakers if they are lucky. The kids want to drink, or they wont go. Lowering the ages of Florida night clubs to be 18-and-up has not had any meaningful remedy on the Spring Break crowd. College kids go on Spring Break where they can drink (Mexico.)
Feminism: Eve eats ALL the apples, gives God the middle finder when He confronts her, and has the serpent serve Adam with an injunction ordering him to both stay away from her AND to provide her food and shelter because he dragged her out of the Garden.
