Not everyone has to push back against the desire to abuse alcohol because not everyone has a desire to abuse alcohol or to even use it to begin with, but intelligence and self-control are not connected to someone's age. Someone under the age of 21 is therefore not lacking in self-awareness and self-control simply because they are younger than 21--if they even wish to drink alcohol at all. Biases against teenagers and young men and women because of their relative youth have simply convinced many Americans that a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is necessary due to slippery slopes.
Indeed, slippery slopes are all that MLDA proponents can appeal to besides mere feelings, preferences, or agreement. The mere possibility that someone under 21 could abuse alcohol is often all it takes for a MLDA to be encouraged. Deterrence is often the objective, even though deterrence does not make a law just; it is a happenstance byproduct of laws regardless of whether or not they are just, and whether they deter someone is a purely subjective matter. Subjectively discouraging people from merely using alcohol before their 21st birthday is incapable of being a legitimate foundation for law.
A minimum drinking age law does not prevent teenagers or young adults from using alcohol if they have the opportunity and desire, but laws, by their own nature, have no power to override anyone's will. Even if drinking age laws could somehow prevent violation automatically, though, it is asinine to treat laws as if they have any basis unless they reflect moral obligations that deserve to be codified by legal systems. Utilitarian concerns, emotional security, conscience, personal preference, and collective agreement are philosophically invalid reasons to erect a law to begin with.
Biases against the young are just as erroneous as biases against the old, and the belief that everyone under 21 is incapable of handling alcohol in a morally and personally responsible way is a clear example of a bias against the young. Assumptions and stereotypes, being irrational and fallacious, have nothing to do with what ideas should be codified into a nation's legal system. Setting a minimum legal drinking age at 21 is arbitrary, unhelpful, and, most importantly, inherently irrational. There is no particular age past which anyone is intellectually, morally, and spiritually mature.
Biases against the young are just as erroneous as biases against the old, and the belief that everyone under 21 is incapable of handling alcohol in a morally and personally responsible way is a clear example of a bias against the young. Assumptions and stereotypes, being irrational and fallacious, have nothing to do with what ideas should be codified into a nation's legal system. Setting a minimum legal drinking age at 21 is arbitrary, unhelpful, and, most importantly, inherently irrational. There is no particular age past which anyone is intellectually, morally, and spiritually mature.
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