OK You Win. You Have Convinced Us.

(NOTE:  Read this to the very end!)

Well, after doing some deep thinking and soul-searching, it looks like the pro-21 crowd was right all along for the most part.  And thus we have decided to join them in their long and noble fight to save lives and protect the next generations.  We have even decided to attempt to join MADD, if only they would have the mercy to forgive us for our decades of obstinate contumacy against them. 

Our recent "come to MADD moment" hit us like a ton of bricks the other day:  the science on the 21 drinking age is at least as settled as the science on climate change, if not even more settled.  Therefore, those who deny it are just as bad as climate deniers.  That is true not only for its effect on drunk driving, but also the state-of-the-art findings about the adolescent brain from some of the finest neuroscientists in the world as well.  Like C.S. Lewis in regards to Christianity, we've been spending decades trying to debunk and disprove the truth, only to end up discovering the truth all along.

As corny as it sounds, if it saves even ONE life, it's worth it.

Our ONLY gripe with MADD today is that they still refuse to welcome their founder, Candy Lightner, back into the fold after her ignominious ouster long ago.  If anything, they should seriously be canonizing her as a secular saint!

Channeling the late, great Thomas Hobbes, we have also come to realize that the 21 drinking age, though far from perfect, is most analogous to a palliative treatment for a hopelessly incurable disease.  But even then, we will work to hopefully defy what are taken for granted as the laws of human nature to not only reduce, but thoroughly eradicate the horrible and deadly scourge of underage drinking.  And we must of course exorcise the ghosts of John Locke and especially the fiendish John Stuart Mill as well.

We are still keeping the legacy name "Twenty-One Debunked", of course.  That's because we think the current 21 drinking age is if anything too LOW.  It needs to be raised to AT LEAST 25, yesterday, with NO grandfather clause and NO LOOPHOLES.  May MADD accept that as our penance.  And while we are at it, we should seriously consider bringing back Prohibition for all ages, this time with teeth!

Because we have also learned that, actually, Prohibition was a success according to the best evidence.  And had it been properly enforced, and not sabotaged by those who put personal gratification ahead of the common good, it could have been even more successful to this day.

And all of the above shall apply a fortiori to cannabis and tobacco as well, by the way.  Those should never have even been legalized at all.  Thus, we need to redouble our efforts and renew the War on Alcohol And Other Drugs, and stop our "retreat and defeat" strategy.  Yesterday.

And finally, dear reader, as a wise college administrator once said, we DARE NOT let alcohol or any other substance blemish your bright promise.

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APRIL FOOLS!

Of course we would never in a million years agree with any of what we said above, not one iota.  We will never, EVER sell out like that!  But you have to admit, with that sort of satirized sophistry, we sure had you, didn't we 😉