I don't get it.

[xp_wallflower]

*ponders* Anyone want to explain the facination with drinking to me? Especially illegal drinking?

Comments

[x-emplate.livejournal.com]

Additionally, an eighteen-year-old Australian is well graduated and no longer the responsibility of school staff. Nor does he ask that he be considered as such, regardless of what difficulties he himself may enter into.

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

But an 18 year old Australian should not be drinking alcohol when the legal age limit in America is 21, should he? Or is there a different rule for foreign types?

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

What you should be asking yourself is if America's law about alcohol is worth following. If an eighteen year old Australian is responsible and does not do anything unsafe, why should he or she respect such a restrictive law?

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

Because it's the law. We don't get to pick and choose which laws we follow. If you don't agree with a law, fight to get it changed but don't break it in the meantime just because it's restrictive. There's a whole bunch of things happening in a teenage brain that doesn't happen in an adult one.

Did you know that there's been some research that suggests that you don't develop the ability to judge consequences of actions till your twenties? The pathways in your brain aren't fully developed for that at all till then. Adding in a mind altering substance to something still in flux? Not exactly the smartest thing in the world.

[x-pressive.livejournal.com]

I couldn't disagree more. If a law is unjust, then it's your duty as a citizen to not follow it. It doesn't matter if it's a life-or-death human rights issue or something relatively insignificant like the drinking age. If a law restricts your freedom for no other reason than to be restrictive, then it's simply not worth obeying.

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

That's just the thing though. Who are you to say a law is restrictive just to be restrictive? Have you done research on the law in question? Looked into why it was instituted in the first place?

I'm not saying every law is right just because it's written on paper and put in place by society. But I am saying that I would not break a law just because I felt it was silly.

Unjust is an entirely different matter. I wouldn't say drinking age classes as unjust, would you?

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Europe has a much lower drinking age then your America, and also - a much, much lower incidence of binge drinking, drunken driving or alcohol poisoning.

When a law indirectly teaches irresponsibility, it is amoral and worth breaking.

[x-rahne.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I do not believe you break this one for any reason but your own pleasure. The fact that there are unjust laws or silly ones does not make it any less admirable in Laurie to have a general respect for the law and discomfort with breaking it for frivolous reasons, and I have less respect for those of you who are trying to make her feel guilty for that.

[x-pressive.livejournal.com]

People ought to learn to think for themselves and not be sheep just because "it's the law."

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

And, similarly, to not do or say things simply because it's what everyone else is saying. I think Laurie has rather proved that she has thought for herself on the matter of following laws and knows her own opinion, regardless of anyone else's take on the matter.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

Then she should refrain from dictating to others how they should consider laws and when and how to break them or follow them.

I had no particular problem with her choice in following the law until she informed all of us, and I do quote from her comment above "Because it's the law. We don't get to pick and choose which laws we follow. "

Laurie's choice is as valid as mine or Mark's or Rahne's or anyone else's. Her attempts to preach her brand of morality and ethics are only going to be met with argument.

It is not, after all, if any of us have forced her to drink illegally or break any laws. We simply point out the flaws in her reasoning.

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Well, if you objected to her informing you all of her choice, perhaps you should not have asked her "why should he or she respect such a restrictive law?" as it was basically guarunteed to elicit an opinion of some sort. It is a tad harsh to become upset with her for answering your own question.

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

:p! I am not a sheeps. But I get where you guys are coming from.

Maybe this is where we agree to disagree on certain aspects of society? :)

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

I am quite certain you'll be speaking with the Professor about the telepathy that you've developed, quite uncontrollably, to be able to read my mine and judge the thoughts behind what I say here, yes?

Until you have a grasp on this new developed power, please stay out of my head. You may find that it undoes your simplistic black and white view of morality, legality and ethics.

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

Since when is encouraging discourse by having a differing opinion "making her feel guilty"?

A general respect for the law is indeed a healthy thing. But "frivolous" is a very slippery slope. What YOU perceive as frivolous is not automatically what others might consider frivolous. Marius was the first to raise the valid point that by his own consideration, due to being legal to drink in his home country, he finds America's drinking laws frivolous. Why is Laurie's opinion automatically more admirable than Marius' in your opinion?

[x-gambit.livejournal.com]

A general respect for the law is indeed a healthy thing.

Are you still drunk, Ramsey?

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

Some peoples' respect for the law is more general than others? :)

[x-forge.livejournal.com]

Is this like my 'rules are things that happen to other people' argument? Which never works for me, I might add.

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

I dunno, maybe I'm not reading it wrong but I don't think anyone's trying to make her feel guilty. Differing thoughts on it, yeah, and seems like it's something everyone feels strongly about.

I've seen guilt trips and this really isn't one.

But here's an interesting question. Some churches give out wine for communion to folks under age. Technically, that's breaking the law though I know it's overlooked a lot (and not done in my church) since, you know, no one's getting drunk off the communion wine.

Hopefully.

So how does something like that fit in?

[x-skin.livejournal.com]

Not quite what you were saying, with the communion wine, but... uh. There's kind of a tradition among less angelic choirboys to break into the cupboard at least once in their stint.

I know. I was one.

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

...that's just funny.

You were a choirboy? Aww.

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

"Because it's the law." is not sufficient enough reason for me to follow it. Many laws are stupid, badly written - and in some places, what you propose here would keep people from living their lives as normal.

Did you know that in some places, an ummarried couple living together is breaking the law? That sexual relations when unmarried is against the law in some places? That many places in the world consider homosexual activity to be illegal?

Would you tell people not to love?

In some countries, being Catholic was illegal. In some, Muslim or athiest or any religion not that of the approved government.

Would you tell people how to worship, solely because it is the law?

In some places, a woman cannot walk outside without a male companion. Cannot hold a job, vote, drive a car, do anything except mother and raise children, and not even that fully.

Would you not work, go to school, walk freely because it is the LAW?

It is not as black and white as you like to think, and you are too young to be lecturing others - adults, in many cases, on how to properly live their lives.

[x-pressive.livejournal.com]

And it's not even such big important things like that. The point of law is to protect people's freedom to live as they please, so long as that freedom doesn't infringe on other people's. That's why you get punished for stealing or physically hurting people or dumping nuclear waste into a lake or firing someone from their job just because they don't look like you.

Drinking laws may be relatively benign compared to other things, but that doesn't make them any less repressive. Why do they exist? Because governments have hard-ons for regulating every last thing people do just so they look like they're doing something. They spread fear to make people fall in line with every last dumb decree. Hell, if I'm considered mature enough to have a say in the government if I were so inclined, then I can't I get a beer, too?

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

Way I see it - you ain't got any rights except the ones you've proven yourself responsible enough to have. If you think you're old enough to drink, then you take the consequences of doing so. If the law says you're too young, then you're responsible for whateveer comes out of it, regardless of whether you think it's a bad law or not.

But if you do something stupid, you've only got yourself to blame. Frankly, when it comes to this house, the law's going to be obeyed under this roof when it comes to that particular issue. But if people want to be damn fools out in the world, then you get to deal with whatever comes of it.

[x-pressive.livejournal.com]

If you're stupid enough to get caught, then maybe you should be punished.