Philip Hilton comments,
In Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, the age of drinking, voting, and generally coming into one’s own is 18. In America, the drinking age is 21, even though the voting age is 18. Why the difference? If you are responsible at 18 — responsible enough, apparently, to choose the government, and join the Army (e.g, die) — aren’t you responsible enough to drink?
This represents more than a simple, particular issue, but rather a delight in age-limits, which characterizes American politics. This is not just about teenagers who can’t keep it together, but about a more general American tendency to set age limits, even after people have reached technical adulthood. The Constitution reflects a great deal of the Fathers’ concern for age, in the form of a requirement that members of the House be older than 25, members of the Senate, older than 30, and that the President be older than 35. Apparently, according to the Constitution, full adulthood is at 35. Yet in Britain, and in most former British colonies except America, such restrictions either have never existed, or have been repealed. In the Commonwealth, when you can vote, you can govern.
Naturally, this raises many questions: is America simply ‘backwards’ (as alleged with regards to the death penalty), or is backwards really forwards, as it is for a lost man retracing his steps? Why did Britain recently (2006) repeal its restrictions on over-18 election to office? Do people reach intellectual adulthood more quickly, in these days of mass information and widely-available college education?
Regardless of their value in the (possibly less college-educated) past, do such restrictions provide real safeguards now? Is it really true that a wo/man of 23 years of age is incapable of voting wisely in the House? Or are candidacy and drinking limits alike completely obsolete? After all, it could be argued that if the voters think that a 23 year old is the best wo/man to represent them in the House — then why not? In the end, the law ought to be based, not on arbitrary decisions made by the founders, but on solid, defensible reasons, still valid today, and so it falls upon us to decide whether the law is still worthy to be upheld.
Should we defend time-honored American tradition, or look back to Mother Britannia for inspiration? What do you think?
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Posted at 5:26 am EST on the 20th of July 2010 by P. B. Hilton. Under Essays, Politics There are 10 replies. |
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See, the biggest problem with making age limits, is you can’t really judge humanity as a whole accurately by age. Some people are more mature earlier, some are not mature ever. Many teenagers really should not be driving at sixteen, whereas some are so coordinated and responsible, that they are better than some adult drivers. It really depends on the circumstances.
I’ve never really understand, though, why they have separate ages for voting vs. drinking.
I’m not sure if I really addressed what you are talking about–that’s just part of what I think. ^_^
I think that wisdom typically comes with maturity. It is unusual, and even rare to find a wise teenager. If you could find such a one, by all means elect him – but you won’t. This was true even back in the day when the founders lived, and it has become much truer today. While college has become more accessible to the masses, and we have mass information, the quality of what we teach our youths has gone steadily downhill. Go on the street and ask a teenager to read any extended passage from a classic work – say, Plato’s Republic. Will he be able to understand it, let alone summarize it, apply it to his own life, and judge its truth value? We’re still teaching college students how to punctuate, for goodness sake.
But we should also ask another question. Does the government even have the authority to mandate drinking age? Or other age limits which have traditionally been outside its authority?
I have a question. I don’t really know, but would the rate of actually following the law have any thing to add to the discussion? If we pointed out that very few 18 year olds actually refrain from drinking till 21, would that change any thing in this discussion?
Erin — I’m not sure. Clearly the law does provide some restrictions, but most kids seem to drink even before they’re 18, let alone 21. I’m not sure that it changes anything. As long as we mandate a drinking age, people will circumvent it, unless it’s under 13. The paradox is that even if after kids are apparently fully adult, they aren’t allowed to drink for another three years.
Carson — Are you asking about the Federal government? Obviously they don’t, technically, but they get around it because they can always bribe the States with federal funds.
An interesting question. Attitudes towards alcohol are certainly somewhat odd in America, even in these post temperance society and post Prohibition days, but Britain has its own problems. I think the best legal solution I have seen is Germany’s: minors are allowed beer and wine when in the company of their parents from age 14, and without a parent from age 16; at 18, they can buy any alcoholic beverage. The legal driving age is 18, so people learn to drive only after they have learned to drink.
The most important factor, in my opinion, is not some magic age at which a youth suddenly gains sufficient judgment to be trusted with alcohol, but the guidance of parents or other elders who can demonstrate responsible social drinking and help the youth to discover the peculiarities of his own metabolism. The drinking scene at American colleges, in which new drinkers are guided primarily by other new drinkers—some legal, some not—is messy, to say the least. Alcohol should not be a forbidden fruit that teenagers swipe and consume in secret, for, no matter how many legal barriers are put up, teenagers will still be able to get hold of it if they really want to. Or even make it, if they’re that desperate.
As to age limits in government, I think the writers of the Constitution were concerned lest with judgment and responsibility, which vary considerably at all ages, but with experience. The presidency is definitely not a job someone fresh from school should take on. The age limits may be rather arbitrary in that respect—some men garner in two years the experience another gains in twenty—but I think they are generally effective in preventing inexperienced and inappropriate candidates with great charisma from gaining office.
Apparently also in Germany, you can get into a club or bar before you’re 18 if your parents provide you with what’s called a Schein, which is basically a waiver.
In theory, this sounds like a good idea to me–as long as you’re under the age of legal adulthood, it’s your parents’ call whether or not you drink, not the government’s. In practice, I know that kids often forge signatures (for some reason we did a whole unit of study on this in my German Conversation class last year), and the people at the bars and clubs really don’t have any way to know whether the signatures are valid or not. I also don’t think it applied to purchasing alcohol at the store.
Once there has been established a legal age of adulthood, that should be the only age limit. To put it pessimistically, voters can elect unfit government officials regardless of said official’s age. But once a person is an adult, they should be responsible for their own choices, whether or not they are stupid. And if their choice is wrong, they should expect to be punished for it.
I agree with Miss Ten-Hove that age limits on alcohol should allow young people to learn to drink responsibly before college. In Singapore, the drinking age is 18, and Singaporean colleges don’t have the kind of drinking problems that American colleges have. (Also, all the young men spend two years after high school in National Service, so they reach college generally more mature and responsible.)
I have always found it odd that in the States, young people are allowed to smoke before they’re allowed to drink. Eighteen-year-olds may choose to do what’s always harmful, but not what’s not inherently unsafe? Isn’t that rather counterintuitive?
Well, I think it’s a critical factor that Singapore has National Service — or else one that’s based on religion or culture — because at any rate, Australia, which also has a drinking age of 18, has awful drinking problems, almost certainly as bad as America’s.
I suppose so; I don’t know much about countries other than the States and Singapore. You said ‘or else one that’s based on religion or culture’: one what?
Sorry, I meant that the reason that Singapore doesn’t have drinking problems must be based either on its policy of National Service, or else on its religious/cultural identity.