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From: oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Legal Drinking Age
Message-ID: <63@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-Jan-86 19:50:36 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.63
Posted: Tue Jan 14 19:50:36 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jan-86 20:59:03 EST
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32


    In the mind-60s I phoned in to a radio talk show.  The  topic  under
discussion was _lowering_ the drinking age to 18 so our brave boys could
die with alcohol in their bloodstreams.  I opposed it.  My reasoning was
that society must due two things to educate its population:

		     ------------------------------
    1.  Keep the majority of people in violation of the law most of  the
time,  so  when the cops want to get them they have a convenient handle.
[Examples:  55  mph  speed  limits  (imposed  much  later,  of  course),
proscriptions   against   spitting   on   the  sidewalk,  loitering  and
jaywalking, etc.]

    2.   Inform  them  that  they  may  be legislated into a subservient
position at the whim of the legislature, and that they must  not  assume
they  have  the  right  to  oppose  or  live independently of the state.
Certainly imposing an alcohol ban on draftable people is a good reminder
of unprivileged status.
		     ------------------------------

    The host argued vigorously with  me,  claiming  that  the  great  US
society  did not indulge in such treatment of anybody, let alone its own
citizens.  [That in 1965 - voting rights had  been  legislated  but  not
implemented  for  Blacks  across  the  south,  let  alone  any issues of
desegregating Boston schools.  Heh heh.]

    My belief in those tenets grows stronger, year by year.  What's YOUR
excuse?
-- 

Oded Feingold     MIT AI Lab.   545 Tech Square    Cambridge, Mass. 02139
OAF%OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA   {harvard, ihnp4!mit-eddie}!mitvax!oaf   617-253-8598