Even though Robert Guest at  I was the State never returns my love (I think it’s a Texas thing), he’s got some good stuff.   His post about a  Kentucky legislator who has sponsored a bill to allow soldiers under the age of 21 to drink alcohol raises that old Vietnam War era argument about being old enough to die for your country . . .

Robert has a hate for MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, because of their knee-jerk “histrionics” against all things alcoholic.

Kentucky Mothers Against Drunk Driving executive director Angela Criswell said it’s not really a “rights and responsibility issue” ” as Floyd argues ” but instead a public safety issue.

It seems that MADD is deeply concerned with the impact of alcohol on the under-developed brains of people under the age of 18.  Unfortunately, the Mothers’ concern doesn’t go so far as to include the impact of a bullet to the brain.  I firmly believe that a bullet to the brain is harmful as well.

Maybe this is just a throwback to the old days, when somebody got the bright idea that if kids were old enough to be killed for their country, they were old enough to vote for the people sending them to be killed.  I really don’t disagree with the idea that drunk driving is a bad thing, though it has long since gotten way out of control and lost all sense of proportionality with the degree of malevolence attributed to it.

I’m not much of a drinker, so I can opine with a clear conscience.  Many otherwise good, law-abiding people drive with a drink too much in their bodies at some point in time.  They make it home just fine and go to work the next day.  A few get into accidents that harm others, and this is a horrible thing.  Of this few, there are some who are truly heinous in their abuse of alcohol, and they should be dealt with according to the seriousness of their reckless disregard for the lives and safety of others.

But allowing kids to taste the “forbidden fruit” of alcohol before they put their young lives on the line isn’t really a drunk driving issue at all.  Drinking and driving may well be a serious issue, but it’s one for all of us and there is no magic about the years between 18 and 21.  Sure, these are developing years of maturity, but there are a multitude of dumb things that kids can do for those three years that have the potential for harm.  Why is drinking different?

Criswell said alcohol affects the brain of a person in the late teens and early 20s differently than someone older. “There is a very real neurological difference,” she said.

It’s not that there is a pressing need for 18 year olds to drink.  It’s that this Mothers’ concern for the welfare of children apparently stops at the point where they pick up a gun and put themselves in the line of fire.  If you want to argue that drinking is bad for 18 year olds, then don’t be hypocritical.  If drinking is bad, bullets are worse.

As long as our society is prepared to accept 18 to 21 year olds as having sufficient maturity to serve our nation in war, then we cannot brand them as incapable of handling a beer.  Teach them safety in both arenas, but either allow them to come of age in all things or none.  If you think the possibility of dying in a drunk driving accident is bad, consider the much higher possibility of dying in a Hummer in Baghdad.  Let them be grown ups before they die.