As much as the opinion is logically correct, I'd love all the proponents of it to stand behind the bar with me as the 24 year-old groom struggles to sign his credit-card tab through his "responsible consumption" haze while his new bride patrols the lobby outside the bar, casting hateful looks at him for his disrespect of the big day.

Dealing with people of ANY age who don't understand responsible consumption is one of the things I really dislike about my job.

As you can tell, I am very conflicted on this issue. I agree with it, and don't, both at the same time. I guess that makes me human.

I empathize Bartending. But an age limit of 21 doesn't mean kids will start drinking at 21, only that they will start legally drinking at 21. But I still feel that if you can put a gun in a young person's hand and tell them to kill the enemy, then they should be able to legally drink a beer.

I think the argument has more validity in the case of of a draft being imposed. Until then, it doesn't hold the same water. More correctly, it would be military personnel under the age of 21 who have a reasonable claim.

Have you ever seen to angry drunken women fight at 2:00 a.m. BB? Yes you have, and its kind of funny, until you have to break them up, and then it gets really ugly, and I have the bite marks and scratches to prove it. Guys either posture or throw wild punches, those are easy to break up, mots of the time, unless they sucker punch you, then its call everybody in, 'cause its on!

I too agree with the logic but would be even more afraid to drive on the streets of the us if the legal age was 18. I know to to many people that are of age that seem completely responsible until they get 1 drink in them them at which point a 6 year old has more sense of responsibility. So, no, I don't want the age to be reduced, ever, in hopes that the extra 3 years does do some good. Yes, I know that many many people drink under age, in fact I don't think I know a single person that hasn't, but I do know that underage drinkers do far less driving under the influence than the of age drinkers do and I think that is great reason for keeping the age at 21.

They should raise the age of killing others to 75. By then
your to damn old to fight.

They should just change the law so that anyone who joins the military will be legal to drink no matter what age they may be. I'm surprised Bush has not thought of this yet to try and get more kids for his bloody little war. Sorry, bloody big war.

If you can be trusted to fight and die, and vote, for your country, you can be trusted to buy a beer.

In the military I was in, you could. You could consume both beer and liquor ON BASE legally. Also 3.2% beer was widely available, albeit watered down. Our airmens club was right across the street from our barracks, so we didn't even have to worry about designated drivers. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but It most likely is. So I could vote, drink and fight at age 18 legally.

The drinking age was 18 in Wisconsin when I turned that age, and there are two things I remember distinctly about that:

My sister was insanely jealous because she had to wait for 21 and I didn't.

A lot of high schools started having problems because the 18-year-old students were buying for the younger ones.

The former problem didn't have an effect on society at large, but the latter did.

Make alcohol illegal and legalize pot - if the nation needs a mood altering drug make it one that leads to the munchies rather than multiple death vehicular homicide. Fast food restaurants profit, people mellow out, no more drunken brawls on the weekends, and those people who have illness that pot helps out in controlling won't be harassed by tight ass police who should be focused on more important issues.

I hear you Ort, but they tried that once, it was called prohibition and it didn't work!
Ha, Cptenaud! I'm with you!

It didn't work because there was nothing to fill the gap. One could argue that there is currently a prohibition against cocaine, LSD, and heroine ... does that mean we should legalize it simply because people have formed a black market on it and it is still quite easy to get?

I wonder what statistics would show if you compared the yearly income of alcohol vs the various illegal drugs, the amount of medical cost to treat patients of alcohol vs illegal drugs, and the number of casualties indirectly related (people hurt/died from drunk drivers, drug deals, etc) between booze and drugs.

Anyway, my comments to make booze illegal was flippant anyway. Was just trying to point out the hypocrisy of the law on this matter.