Should There Be a Minimum Drinking Age?

[Scomagia]

And yet, for whatever reason, that wasn't your first response to my question. If you actually thought that was a good answer, why did you dodge the question?

Anyway, it's a false equivalence. The biology of sexual activity is pretty obvious. Teenagers masturbate, so they know the sensations involved. Then sex ed goes over the risks involved, which is basically filling the gaps left by our evolutionary-intuitive understanding of sex.

The biology of drug use not only has less evolutionarily precedent, but the education system has tarnished its own credibility on the matter with its lies about cannabis. Kids hear crap like "weed's addictive" and smoke weed and find out it isn't. They know they can trust personal experience more than that lobbyist-influenced health curriculum.

Of course, all this is still putting aside the harm that unsupervised drinking does that supervised drinking might not.

But weed is addictive...

Marginally and only for some people.

[Orange-Transvaal]

And yet, for whatever reason, that wasn't your first response to my question. If you actually thought that was a good answer, why did you dodge the question?

Anyway, it's a false equivalence. The biology of sexual activity is pretty obvious. Teenagers masturbate, so they know the sensations involved. Then sex ed goes over the risks involved, which is basically filling the gaps left by our evolutionary-intuitive understanding of sex.

The biology of drug use not only has less evolutionarily precedent, but the education system has tarnished its own credibility on the matter with its lies about cannabis. Kids hear crap like "weed's addictive" and smoke weed and find out it isn't. They know they can trust personal experience more than that lobbyist-influenced health curriculum.

Of course, all this is still putting aside the harm that unsupervised drinking does that supervised drinking might not.

Because consent is a dealbreaker for me whatever the supposed 'educational' benefits, hence why that was my first response. A kid destroying his body without the mental competence to consent is bad regardless of whatever 'incidental side-benefits' or 'good consequence' you can point to. But clearly your response showed me you, amazingly, shockingly, you don't regard it as a moral deal-breaker for someone's body to be physically-injured without their consent, so I decided to shift to my even-if argument (ie even-if you think it's okay for kids to destroy their bodies without consent, here's why your argument's still wrong), why even then I don't agree with your alleged beneficial consequence.

Secondly, the fact that current information about weed is wrong doesn't get away from my argument that you don't need to give a kid poison to teach him how to handle that poison in a less-dangerous fashion in future. Teach your kid about the importance of drinking slowly (although obviously if you're a responsible parent you should discourage your kid from drinking in future, but naturally add that if he's gonna drink he should not it in a way that minimises harm to himself), testing his limits, not going too fast, keeping track of the impact one shot has on his mental faculties, does he feel nauseous, don't drink on an empty stomach, none of this requires giving an underage kid who can't consent to the physical injury of his own body the poison in question. In the same way as you don't need to physically have sex with a kid to explain how to have safe sex or how consent works. You just teach him all the important facts.

In my opinion, your first argument don’t make any sense.
Giving your kid a bit of alcohol to desensitize them makes it so they don’t get drunk all the time when they become the age of consent. Sure, alcohol does kill some brain cells, but it’s better than getting a rockstar death from getting drunk on your 18th Birthday (I’m Canadian).
I get your second one looking from your point.

[USS Monitor]

If your solution to irresponsible drinking is to teach people how to drink responsibly from age 12, then the legal drinking age should be 12.

Or maybe a couple years younger for people that want to get a bit of an early start.

[Black Moon Sodality]

You probably actually do need to have sex to get the gist of it, you just don’t physically demonstrate for... other.... reasons.... but most people probably do have sex the first time with someone they would be comfortable doing it with. Alcohol, well, would make just as much sense to have already done it in a safe environment.

[Ifreann]

We can't have 15 year olds getting drunk? Have you been living under a rock?

It's actually a bad thing for 15 year olds to get drunk. While a lot of them do, a lot don't because it's a shit thing to do with zero payoff.

Em, no, not zero payoff. Getting drunk can be a lot of fun. People, especially adolescents, definitely do use alcohol and other drugs purely our of peer-pressure and a desire to seem cool and mature and all that, but alcohol and other drugs are fun on their own merits. Or at least they can be. YMMV.

[Purgatio]

Because consent is a dealbreaker for me whatever the supposed 'educational' benefits, hence why that was my first response. A kid destroying his body without the mental competence to consent is bad regardless of whatever 'incidental side-benefits' or 'good consequence' you can point to. But clearly your response showed me you, amazingly, shockingly, you don't regard it as a moral deal-breaker for someone's body to be physically-injured without their consent, so I decided to shift to my even-if argument (ie even-if you think it's okay for kids to destroy their bodies without consent, here's why your argument's still wrong), why even then I don't agree with your alleged beneficial consequence.

Secondly, the fact that current information about weed is wrong doesn't get away from my argument that you don't need to give a kid poison to teach him how to handle that poison in a less-dangerous fashion in future. Teach your kid about the importance of drinking slowly (although obviously if you're a responsible parent you should discourage your kid from drinking in future, but naturally add that if he's gonna drink he should not it in a way that minimises harm to himself), testing his limits, not going too fast, keeping track of the impact one shot has on his mental faculties, does he feel nauseous, don't drink on an empty stomach, none of this requires giving an underage kid who can't consent to the physical injury of his own body the poison in question. In the same way as you don't need to physically have sex with a kid to explain how to have safe sex or how consent works. You just teach him all the important facts.

In my opinion, your first argument don’t make any sense.
Giving your kid a bit of alcohol to desensitize them makes it so they don’t get drunk all the time when they become the age of consent. Sure, alcohol does kill some brain cells, but it’s better than getting a rockstar death from getting drunk on your 18th Birthday (I’m Canadian).
I get your second one looking from your point.

Do I need to cite the study again? I think I do.

http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/news/news/2018/09/there-is-no-safe-level-of-alcohol,-new-study-confirms

The whole idea of 'alcohol in moderation' has been debunked, there is no such think as a 'safe' level of alcohol. So you are basically defending giving poison to someone not mentally-competent to consent to taking poison. Just saying.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I don't believe in a drinking age, but then again I don't believe in a voting age either. The only thing I really agree with in terms of this sort of thing is that we need an age of consent.

[Purgatio]

I don't believe in a drinking age, but then again I don't believe in a voting age either. The only thing I really agree with in terms of this sort of thing is that we need an age of consent.

So why are kids not mentally-competent to consent to sex, but mentally-competent to consent to physically-injuring themselves?

[Black Moon Sodality]

The whole idea of 'alcohol in moderation' has been debunked, there is no such think as a 'safe' level of alcohol. So you are basically defending giving poison to someone not mentally-competent to consent to taking poison. Just saying.

You’d also want to argue that a disabled person should never be allowed to drink. Which i suppose might be the case if they could never be responsible with it, which a non-disabled person might be as well. I would think the point would be to encourage responsibility. The idea that a person under 21 can never be responsible just isn’t true.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I don't believe in a drinking age, but then again I don't believe in a voting age either. The only thing I really agree with in terms of this sort of thing is that we need an age of consent.

So why are kids not mentally-competent to consent to sex, but mentally-competent to consent to physically-injuring themselves?

The small level of injury from alcohol can be considered part of the background cost of living in society these days.

[Purgatio]

The whole idea of 'alcohol in moderation' has been debunked, there is no such think as a 'safe' level of alcohol. So you are basically defending giving poison to someone not mentally-competent to consent to taking poison. Just saying.

You’d also want to argue that a disabled person should never be allowed to drink. Which i suppose might be the case if they could never be responsible with it, which a non-disabled person might be as well. I would think the point would be to encourage responsibility. The idea that a person under 21 can never be responsible just isn’t true.

Depends on what you mean by 'disabled'. Not everyone with a mental disability lacks mental capacity, the test for capacity under the MCA is not always easy to apply but it certainly doesn't apply to all with a mental disability.

There are some with a mental disability so severe that they lack mental capacity to consent, such that they are not allowed to do things like get married or have sex because it would be rape on the part of the other guy, in which case I don't see why they'd be able to consent to physical injury on themselves through the medium of a substance

[Purgatio]

So why are kids not mentally-competent to consent to sex, but mentally-competent to consent to physically-injuring themselves?

The small level of injury from alcohol can be considered part of the background cost of living in society these days.

It really isn't, alcohol is a voluntarily-ingested substance, there's nothing about living in a society that makes alcohol an inevitability like, idk, being exposed to traffic noise when you leave the house. The onus is on you and others who support your position to argue why consent isn't important when it comes to an unnecessary ingestion of a physically-injurious substance with negative health ramifications. When it comes to adults, the justification is the adult is consenting to the injury to his own body by voluntarily ingesting alcohol, but that argument holds no water with children.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

You’d also want to argue that a disabled person should never be allowed to drink. Which i suppose might be the case if they could never be responsible with it, which a non-disabled person might be as well. I would think the point would be to encourage responsibility. The idea that a person under 21 can never be responsible just isn’t true.

Depends on what you mean by 'disabled'. Not everyone with a mental disability lacks mental capacity, the test for capacity under the MCA is not always easy to apply but it certainly doesn't apply to all with a mental disability.

There are some with a mental disability so severe that they lack mental capacity to consent, such that they are not allowed to do things like get married or have sex because it would be rape on the part of the other guy, in which case I don't see why they'd be able to consent to physical injury on themselves through the medium of a substance

I have become increasingly opposed to the MCA over the last year or so. The standards for capacity that it sets out are just too rigid, and don't take into account the patients individual circumstances to an acceptable level.

[Purgatio]

The whole idea of 'alcohol in moderation' has been debunked, there is no such think as a 'safe' level of alcohol. So you are basically defending giving poison to someone not mentally-competent to consent to taking poison. Just saying.

You’d also want to argue that a disabled person should never be allowed to drink. Which i suppose might be the case if they could never be responsible with it, which a non-disabled person might be as well. I would think the point would be to encourage responsibility. The idea that a person under 21 can never be responsible just isn’t true.

Also I never said I supported a drinking age of 21. Earlier in this thread I made clear I think someone who is 15 or 16 is probably mentally-competent enough to consent to injuring their own bodies (and that's the age of consent for sex in a lot of countries anyway).

[Greater vakolicci haven]

The small level of injury from alcohol can be considered part of the background cost of living in society these days.

It really isn't, alcohol is a voluntarily-ingested substance, there's nothing about living in a society that makes alcohol an inevitability like, idk, being exposed to traffic noise when you leave the house. The onus is on you and others who support your position to argue why consent isn't important when it comes to an unnecessary ingestion of a physically-injurious substance with negative health ramifications. When it comes to adults, the justification is the adult is consenting to the injury to his own body by voluntarily ingesting alcohol, but that argument holds no water with children.

I got injured on a water slide aged 4 once. Should I not have been allowed to go on it? We've got to let children live a little.

[Purgatio]

Depends on what you mean by 'disabled'. Not everyone with a mental disability lacks mental capacity, the test for capacity under the MCA is not always easy to apply but it certainly doesn't apply to all with a mental disability.

There are some with a mental disability so severe that they lack mental capacity to consent, such that they are not allowed to do things like get married or have sex because it would be rape on the part of the other guy, in which case I don't see why they'd be able to consent to physical injury on themselves through the medium of a substance

I have become increasingly opposed to the MCA over the last year or so. The standards for capacity that it sets out are just too rigid, and don't take into account the patients individual circumstances to an acceptable level.

I genuinely don't see the issue with it, the MCA test is issue-specific and essentially looks at whether the person has the mental capability or competence to understand the implications and relevant ramifications of the act in question, be it sex or marriage or whatever else it might be, the MCA test is finely-tuned and issue-specific.

Regardless we shouldn't go too far on this cos it might be a threadjack. Let's keep the focus on children here.

[Black Moon Sodality]

There are some with a mental disability so severe that they lack mental capacity to consent, such that they are not allowed to do things like get married or have sex because it would be rape on the part of the other guy, in which case I don't see why they'd be able to consent to physical injury on themselves through the medium of a substance

To my knowledge disabled people are “allowed” to have sex. If some are not, that should be considered problematic. That person would have to fight for their rights. And some people considered disabled do end up fighting for their rights.

That would not of course mean preying on them.

[Purgatio]

It really isn't, alcohol is a voluntarily-ingested substance, there's nothing about living in a society that makes alcohol an inevitability like, idk, being exposed to traffic noise when you leave the house. The onus is on you and others who support your position to argue why consent isn't important when it comes to an unnecessary ingestion of a physically-injurious substance with negative health ramifications. When it comes to adults, the justification is the adult is consenting to the injury to his own body by voluntarily ingesting alcohol, but that argument holds no water with children.

I got injured on a water slide aged 4 once. Should I not have been allowed to go on it? We've got to let children live a little.

Dude this is a blanket argument for removing all child protection laws entirely, like literally this is the kind of thing paedophile defenders on YouTube like Amos Yee says

[Samudera Darussalam]

There should be a regulation on alcohol consumption, and a set of minimum age for drinking like in many countries would help.

[Purgatio]

There are some with a mental disability so severe that they lack mental capacity to consent, such that they are not allowed to do things like get married or have sex because it would be rape on the part of the other guy, in which case I don't see why they'd be able to consent to physical injury on themselves through the medium of a substance

To my knowledge disabled people are “allowed” to have sex. If some are not, that should be considered problematic. That person would have to fight for their rights. And some people considered disabled do end up fighting for their rights.

That would not of course mean preying on them.

Most mentally disabled people are allowed to have sex. The problem is if a person genuinely lacks the mental capacity to consent, then they are not being 'prohibited' from having sex, its just that since they can't consent anyone who has sex with them is raping them, which is a problem, I'm sure you'd agree.

But again, this is only if a person is mentally-incompetent and hence unable to consent to sex. The majority of mentally-disabled persons don't lack mental capacity.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

There are some with a mental disability so severe that they lack mental capacity to consent, such that they are not allowed to do things like get married or have sex because it would be rape on the part of the other guy, in which case I don't see why they'd be able to consent to physical injury on themselves through the medium of a substance

To my knowledge disabled people are “allowed” to have sex. If some are not, that should be considered problematic. That person would have to fight for their rights. And some people considered disabled do end up fighting for their rights.

That would not of course mean preying on them.

I'm quite an active campaigner for disability rights. I understand that, unfortunately, to gain more freedom for disabled people we must lose some protections. That's absolutely fine by me.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I got injured on a water slide aged 4 once. Should I not have been allowed to go on it? We've got to let children live a little.

Dude this is a blanket argument for removing all child protection laws entirely, like literally this is the kind of thing paedophile defenders on YouTube like Amos Yee says

No it isn't. We are capable of applying context to these things.

[Cekoviu]

I don't believe in a drinking age, but then again I don't believe in a voting age either. The only thing I really agree with in terms of this sort of thing is that we need an age of consent.

You don't believe in a voting age? Such that a 6-year-old could vote?

[Orange-Transvaal]

In my opinion, your first argument don’t make any sense.
Giving your kid a bit of alcohol to desensitize them makes it so they don’t get drunk all the time when they become the age of consent. Sure, alcohol does kill some brain cells, but it’s better than getting a rockstar death from getting drunk on your 18th Birthday (I’m Canadian).
I get your second one looking from your point.

Do I need to cite the study again? I think I do.

http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/news/news/2018/09/there-is-no-safe-level-of-alcohol,-new-study-confirms

The whole idea of 'alcohol in moderation' has been debunked, there is no such think as a 'safe' level of alcohol. So you are basically defending giving poison to someone not mentally-competent to consent to taking poison. Just saying.

Did you even read what I said?
I was saying that it is better for them learn to drink in “moderation” (lose some brain cells) than getting blackout drunk, falling asleep, and vomiting only to choke on it and die because “I’m 21 time to get f***ing wasted” mentality of people who have never had booze before.

[Purgatio]

To my knowledge disabled people are “allowed” to have sex. If some are not, that should be considered problematic. That person would have to fight for their rights. And some people considered disabled do end up fighting for their rights.

That would not of course mean preying on them.

I'm quite an active campaigner for disability rights. I understand that, unfortunately, to gain more freedom for disabled people we must lose some protections. That's absolutely fine by me.

Speaking of 'rights' is a misnomer if we're talking about being mentally-incapable of consenting. Its like saying a 'right to be raped' or a 'right to get mugged'. It makes no sense. If a person can't consent to sex his or her 'rights' aren't being protected by allowing others to have sex with someone unable to consent. There's no such thing as a 'right to get raped'.

If a person can consent and they are being denied the right to have free, consensual sex, then that's an actual violation of rights.