JENNA IN A BOTTLE
You know what? I’m actually glad Jenna Bush, George Dubbya’s nineteen-year old daughter, got busted not once but twice for trying to buy liquor despite her lack of chronological qualification. I’m rather pleased that twin sister Barbara got popped along with her.
It’s not any desire to cast stones that leads to my happiness over the whole situation. I honestly don’t feel a single twinge of what the Germans refer to as "schadenfreude", which is best defined as "guilty pleasure at another’s misfortune." What I am pleased about is that maybe now we may actually get some reasoned debate over the relative sanity of our federally imposed drinking age. After all, if it’s the cute, clean, well-dressed and well-read daughters of the President that wanted to put morality and honor back in the White House that are quaffing a few at the campus pub, how bad can it be?
In the interest of full disclosure here, I confess to my loyal readership that I drank a beer or two while I was in college. I am sure this comes as a shock to some of you. But in those glorious days of my misspent youth, there was a sort of unspoken agreement in society that, if you were old enough to move away from home, get married, join the Army, get a job and otherwise act like an adult, then it was okay for you to have a few cold ones at the closing of the day (or, if you stayed up as late as I did sometimes, at the dawning of the day, but that’s another story.)
Then everything changed. The Reagan Administration, aided and abetted by a willing Congress, pushed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 down our suddenly parched throats. That Act required all states to raise the age for purchase and public possession of alcohol to 21. States that didn’t knuckle under faced losing funds under the Federal Highway Aid Act. This use of Federal Highway Funds as a club to bring the states into line was not innovative, of course; it was the same tool used to enforce a 55 mile an hour speed limit. (One of Rhoades’ Inarguable Rules of Life: when politicians, Republicans or Democrats, talk about "returning power to the states," they don’t mean it.)
You see, some 18 to 21 year olds used that freedom to do some stupid things, and I’m not just talking about going to parties wearing a bedsheet toga or joining PETA. Some of them went out and got themselves killed in drunk driving accidents or did similarly reckless and ultimately fatal things under the influence. Of course, an awful lot of over- 21- year-olds got themselves killed in the same way, during the same period. No one seriously suggested banning alcohol for them. There was a crucial difference, however: 18 to 21 year olds didn’t (and still don’t) vote. They could if they had wanted to but they never did. Therefore, it was easy to jerk them around to gain political capital with the type of people who would, quite frankly, just as soon return to the days of total Prohibition. Even Dubbya himself jumped on the bandwagon, signing a "zero tolerance" policy for underage drinking into law in Texas in 1997.
So what happened? Just like Prohibition, and just like the 55 mile an hour speed limit, the laws raising the drinking ages to 21 came to be seen as something to be gotten around, not obeyed. A cottage industry in fake ID’s sprung up. Or, like Jenna Bush, people borrowed friend’s ID’s to get into bars. When booze gets outlawed, it may be only outlaws who get booze, but suddenly there are a lot more outlaws, even the President’s daughters.
Fortunately, all is not lost for the Tippling Twins. A radio station in Edmonton, Alberta has offered to take the Bush girls out for a legal night on the town, even offering to spring for the plane tickets. In Canada, you see, the legal drinking age is 18, because they treat their adults as adults.
Of course, I’m not foolish enough to imagine that any politician is going to have the political courage to even hint that maybe the current drinking age is unreasonable, unenforceable, and inconsistent with reality. Therefore, what I’m suggesting is that we bring some consistency to the treatment of our 18 to 21 year olds. If we’re not going to grant them the right to make their own decisions about alcohol use because they’re not ready, then maybe we shouldn’t let them join the Army. Or own firearms. Or vote. Or get married. In fact, let’s have parents keep their kids home with them and under parental protection until their 21st birthday. I’m sure this would be a minor inconvenience to the parents of seventeen year olds who were anxiously awaiting getting their homes to themselves again, but hey, if they’re not ready to be adults, they’re not ready.
Dusty Rhoades lives in Carthage, practices law in Aberdeen, and has previously opined that college coeds and beer are the greatest combination since the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
OUR GRACIOUS HOST (BOOKS-N-BYTES)
COPYRIGHT 2001 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.