On Monday 03 December 2007 16:57, Carlos E. R. wrote:
The Monday 2007-12-03 at 16:05 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
...
from Illinois driving up to Wisconsin on weekends to party. Finally, in part under pressure from Illinois citizens and legislators, Wisconsin changed its drinking age to 21 for all alcoholic beverages.
Here (Spain) the... how do you say? the age to be of age? Ok, they are adults at 18, for all things: driving, drinking, voting, owning property, marrying, going to prisons (as inmates)... I believe there are some exceptions, like heavy load, dangerous substances (like gasoline), driving, that require two or three years of previous heavy load driving, I think. You can not drive a car not being of age, not even accompanied.
Well, among the many ways in which the U.S. of A. (the best damned country ever or even possible, of course) is ... "confused" is the age of majority vs. the age at which one can legally purchase and consume alcohol. The age of majority, at which one is deemed able to give full consent, vote and be held to (almost) all standards of adulthood is 18. But one may not buy alcoholic beverages until one reaches age 21. What's more, we allow judges to decide whether minors may be tried (and sentenced) in criminal proceedings as adults. In fact, the age of majority in the U.S. was lowered from 21 to 18 under the argument that if you could be conscripted into military service at age 18, you should be made a full member of society at the same time. We've since suspended (though not truly eliminated) the draft, but the age of majority remains 18 and the legal drinking age remains 21. (Neuroscience, by the way, is now discovering that many parts of the brain, including those associated with moral agency, do not mature fully until one's later 20s!)
And a few years back there was no minimum drinking age.
Well, everyone knows Europeans countries and peoples are, as societies, adults, while the U.S.A. remains at best an adolescent. An adolescent with too much money, a charge card and very dangerous toys... Who knows how to classify the officially theocratic states...
-- Cheers, Carlos E. R.
RRS -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org