However, there is an important caveat. If you are in the military, and under 21 (but over 18), you can drink. Granted, you have to buy the alcohol on base (if I understand correctly). So yes, you can die and drink at 18, but you have to be in the military.
When your country no longer tells you that you have to die for it, but asks, it's a little ridiculous to make your statement.
i was simply pointing out that little restrictions open the door to greater restriction. i am not suggesting deregulation of everything.
lets go back to the drinking age example. i know that you can set the age to 21, and have less problems in society because of maturity levels. now, we could argue that a person can be 45 and have the maturity of the average 17 year old, and that you have those that are 17 that have a maturity level closer to the common maturity levels of 35 year olds. but its useless because what is the average maturity level for being able to drink responsibly is well past the age of 21.
the argument is more about at what age do we allow citizens to be considered free adults, with the capacity to make their own judgements? if you ask many lawmakers, they may reply: "never".
it is my opinion, that the leaders of our society consider the free people of this nation incapable of makeing descisions for themselves, if they differ from the lawmakers opinion of what we should be allowed to do, or not do.
for instance, the seatbelt law, which is the issue im really most annoyed with, is valid in the eyes of many, because lives are saved. but we could save lives if we stopped playing fotball too. or skydiving. or any other dangerous sport that boasts a high injury or death rate. but people must die for our planet, or our race of man to survive. the planet will not get larger as we grow in population. its rescources shrink as we grow. eventually, as we live longer, we will destroy the balance of the planet and will end in either: mass deaths from starvation, war, crime, and natural disaters and desease. or; the populations of the planet will be limited similiar to china. in that a couple may only have 1 child.
now i am bothered with the need for such an act to befall this planet. either the former or the latter, and would hope instead a slow down in population growths, to be a little less or equal to the global population (balanced). the rate we die, is just as important. but none more important than HOW we die. if by our own discision, be it foolish, or unlucky, then it is our death and not murder. and if in no danger to another, we should be allowed to decide the risk for ourselves.
that is a freedom. i believe i should have. to play football. to go skydiving. to parachute off buildings or cliffs. to drive my car without wearing a seatbelt. IF it is MY car. the exeption to the rule, should only be if children are in the vehichle. then the adults and the children should be in seatbelts. because the children do not have the capacity to make the descision themselves, and the adult if not in a seatbelt could bounce around and hurt children who are in their seatbelts, if the adult is not in theirs in the event of a wreck. the justification here, is the childrens lives would be put in danger if the adult was not in a seatbelt and i can see the law in that, justifgied.
again tho, for a single driver, being grown, should have his/her own choice when no others are in any danger.
i just fear what our society is going to be like 40 years from now. when everywhere you step youll vbe on a camera. spy devices for sound and heat vision devices become as common as a watch, and we the people of america at the mercy of a goverment we no longer have the ability to combat in the event we lose control over it. thats all.
keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides
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