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Post by jj on Aug 19, 2008 8:16:23 GMT -5
Will VU's Heckler join with the presidents of Duke,Dartmouth,Ohio State (it doesn't surprise me about Gordon Gee,we had a few pops together when he was president of Brown)and about 100 others in support of the Amethyst Initiative? Probably not, it would put the VUPD out of business.
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Post by okinawatyphoon on Aug 19, 2008 8:50:12 GMT -5
This is an interesting story. For those of you who don't know what the Amethyist Initiative is, here's a link to a story about it. www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405766,00.html It'll be interesting to see what comes of this. I'm not sure of all of the statistics behind the drinking age and drunk driving and whatnot, but one thing's for sure -- The drinking age is not helping to curb underage drinking, and it is causing underage kids to take more life-threatening measures to get away with it. My guess with President Heckler is that he won't sign it because the Board of Directors probably won't like it. Or I could be making that up....I really have no idea.
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Post by valporun on Aug 19, 2008 8:51:25 GMT -5
We know Alan Harre never would have read this initiative. He would have seen the objective and trashed it. I do not know President Heckler myself, but I hope for the good of the university, he stands tall on the reasons for why 21 is the drinking age. If college freshmen want to drink, they'll find ways, but I don't feel it is appropriate on the Valparaiso University campus to seek a change to the drinking age.
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Post by valpo04 on Aug 19, 2008 9:22:17 GMT -5
I will tell you one thing, as a graduate who didn't turn 21 until April of his senior year, I am behind this 100%.
Nothing like not being able to go out with your friends or head to a bar during your last ever Spring Break!
And lets be honest, if 10% of their highway funding wasn't going to be withheld, many states would be 18 today.
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Post by valpo04 on Aug 19, 2008 9:30:41 GMT -5
If college freshmen want to drink, they'll find ways This is exactly what the presidents who have signed are saying. Wouldn't you rather them be drinking in a more controlled environment, or out pounding liquor and then trying to find a way home? If they are going to drink no matter what, I would think the logical thing to do is to make sure the risk of them drinking and killing themselves or others is minimized. Legalizing it and not driving it underground would do that. It's at least something that should be discussed.
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Post by rlh on Aug 19, 2008 9:31:48 GMT -5
This is the same old argument that is used to legalize marijuana. If they're going to do it anyway, and they're old enough to die for our country....come on, those are not good arguments. I don't know if the age should be lowered or not, but I do know that there should be some reasonable compelling reasons to do so, and those I've heard over the years don't cut it.
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Post by vu72 on Aug 19, 2008 9:46:35 GMT -5
I think some minor changes can happen on campus. Certainly being personally responsible is part of maturity and growing up. Underage drinking is against the law but so to is harassment.
As a fraternity member, I certainly would change the current policy of not allowing kegs or drinking in the houses. It is hard to imagine that an alumni can't come back to campus and have a beer and a brat at his house at homecoming. That is overkill. The policy should be that drinking is allowed in the houses (they are private property) and that if underage drinking is found to have occcured there that consequences follow including repeal of drinking rights. This creates one of the lessons learned through self governance.
It may be nieve to believe that this will work but it seems that a frat house should be no different than any other private residence. Drinking is allowed but if you are found to be serving underage people the law will come down on you.
Forcing kids to seek other places to drink also creates problems including drunk driving.
As for chcking peoples breath, give me a break.
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Post by valpo04 on Aug 19, 2008 9:50:33 GMT -5
This is the same old argument that is used to leagalize marijuana. If they're going to do it anyway, and they're old enough to die for our country....come on, those are not good arguments. I don't know if the age should be lowered or not, but I do know that there should be some reasonable compelling reasons to do so, and those I've heard over the years don't cut it. These people see them as good arguments: www.amethystinitiative.org/signatories/Let's face it, 21 isn't a magic number. We all don't become more responsible and look at drinking differently just because we are now 3 years older. How can there be European countries that don't have alcohol restrictions on minors? Are they more mature and safer about drinking by nature?
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Post by stlvufan on Aug 19, 2008 12:23:06 GMT -5
but one thing's for sure -- The drinking age is not helping to curb underage drinking, and it is causing underage kids to take more life-threatening measures to get away with it. If you meant to say, "it is *tempting* underage kids to ..." then my first response is: Yes. My second response is: So? What else is new? Underage kids are perennially temptable, to say nothing of homo sapiens of all ages. "Causing" No. Look up "Post hoc, ergo proptor hoc" on a website about logical fallacies. Wikipedia has it, for one. I think this is a bad idea, same as for legalizing drugs, and distributing condoms in schools. At the very least, please don't kid yourself that you can say, "Well, they're going to do it anyway, so we might as well let them" while also continuing to say "it's not healthy." That's a logical contradiction. I understand the dilemma, but lowering the drinking age is akin to surrendering the high ground completely. It may not seem to make things any worse, but I absolutely believe it will *not* make things one darn bit better either. I think if anything, law enforcement of underage drinking needs to be strengthened (in constructive ways, mind you, not in some incarnation of Big Brother), not weakened. Either that, or these College Presidents just became 24-hour parents to their students and deserve all the crap that comes their way when their "children" screw up.
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Post by okinawatyphoon on Aug 19, 2008 13:19:24 GMT -5
but one thing's for sure -- The drinking age is not helping to curb underage drinking, and it is causing underage kids to take more life-threatening measures to get away with it. If you meant to say, "it is *tempting* underage kids to ..." then my first response is: Yes. My second response is: So? What else is new? Underage kids are perennially temptable, to say nothing of homo sapiens of all ages. You are correct....that's closer to what I meant. This problem requires more creative thinking, and here's an idea that I read in some magazine article a few years ago. Basically, once someone turns 18 they would be able to take a course and written test (much like a driver's test) on alcohol safety. If someone passed this test, they would receive a "license to drink", much like a driver's license. So while it is lowering the drinking age to 18, at least it is encouraging those to drink legally, giving them respect for the law and receiving critical alcohol education. Is this idea too far-fetched or problematic?
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Post by stlvufan on Aug 19, 2008 13:55:25 GMT -5
If you meant to say, "it is *tempting* underage kids to ..." then my first response is: Yes. My second response is: So? What else is new? Underage kids are perennially temptable, to say nothing of homo sapiens of all ages. You are correct....that's closer to what I meant. This problem requires more creative thinking, and here's an idea that I read in some magazine article a few years ago. Basically, once someone turns 18 they would be able to take a course and written test (much like a driver's test) on alcohol safety. If someone passed this test, they would receive a "license to drink", much like a driver's license. So while it is lowering the drinking age to 18, at least it is encouraging those to drink legally, giving them respect for the law and receiving critical alcohol education. Is this idea too far-fetched or problematic? Maybe not. Actually, the one part I agreed with (but didn't bother to say so) is that indeed the drinking age is arbitrary. It is a "guess". Not everyone who is 21 or older is able to handle alcohol, and there may well be some who are under 21 who *are* able to handle it responsibly. Certainly, there's nothing magic about the number "21", though I would readily assume that it was not simply dreamed up out of left field, either. I would assume that 21 was a decent attempt to insure very high odds that such a person would have enough maturity to handle it responsibly. Unfortunately, I know people twice that age who should be denied liquor for the rest of their natural life, so it certainly is no guarantee. So I guess my position would be this: If you've got a better way of preparing young people for responsible drinking than a birth certificate, I'm all ears Simply lowering the drinking age doesn't cut it in my opinion.
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Post by valpo04 on Aug 19, 2008 14:14:10 GMT -5
Simply lowering the drinking age doesn't cut it in my opinion. I think a point lost among many media outlets that are reporting on this is that the presidents don't necessarily want to lower the drinking age, but want to have a discussion on it and want the Federal government to at least consider repealing the National Minimum Drinking Age Act so that states could at least try different approaches (one being lowering the age) to try and figure this thing out. Right now, no state is going to risk that funding to try different methods of curbing alcohol abuse among minors.
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Post by valpofan56 on Aug 19, 2008 14:42:27 GMT -5
I would say that for the most part, college aged kids drink to get drunk. They don't sit down and have a glass of wine with dinner because it enhances the flavor of the food. Therefore, whether the legal drinking age was 18 or 21, students who want to get drunk are going to. With the drinking age presently being at 21 most college students who drink are under that age and as a result are far more careful with the law, so as to avoid underage consumption charges. If the drinking age were lowered to 18, I think that it would create an extremely higher amount of fatalities due to drunk driving. Just look at how many DUI/DWI charges occur everyday with people who are over 21. Add in a large percentage of the over consuming population (that currently happen to be under 21) and those numbers become devastatingly huge!
In short, yes college kids who are going to drink will do it no matter what the legal drinking age is. Not as many of them, however, will take the chance of driving while underage compared to if it was legal.
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Post by valpo04 on Aug 19, 2008 16:08:36 GMT -5
In short, yes college kids who are going to drink will do it no matter what the legal drinking age is. Not as many of them, however, will take the chance of driving while underage compared to if it was legal. But what if lets say, a campus could decide to open a bar for students to drink at, so they didn't have to drive and "hide" their consumption?
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Post by valpo04 on Aug 19, 2008 16:14:44 GMT -5
I just found this post on another website discussing the issue. It pretty much sums up the point I am trying to make:
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