Lowering the Drinking Age: It's Not Just for the Left Anymore

Twenty-One Debunked, a subsidiary of the True Spirit of America Party, is generally on the political left, or more accurately, at the intersection of progressivism and libertarianism.  Or as we prefer to call ourselves, "progressive libertarian".  Thus, we are certainly not a right-wing organization.

But did you know that one can easily make a conservative case as well for lowering the drinking age, or even abolishing it entirely?  That is what British author Wayland Ellis argues in his new provocatively-titled book:  Abolish the Drinking Age:  The Conservative Case Against Alcohol Regulation.   His old-school conservative argument centers on the idea that the 21 drinking age is in fact a form of paternalism, as is alcohol regulation more generally as well.  And that paternalism is actually not right-wing, but rather left-wing or even socialist.  (Progressivism and even socialism need not be paternalistic, of course, but I digress.)  He certainly does not believe that the federal government has any business dictating to the states what the drinking age should be, and indeed his position does in fact jibe with old-school Republicans (not to be confused with the radical right, neocons, theocons, etc. that now control the party).  As for letting the states decide, he realizes the political infeasibility of abolishing the drinking age overnight, and would be fine with first lowering the drinking age to 18, then 16, and so on as pragmatism shall dictate.  As for other alcohol regulations, he is generally against them, with the notable exception of taxation--like us, he believes alcohol taxes should in fact be raised significantly.  But otherwise, he feels regulation does more harm than good for the most part.

Twenty-One Debunked, on the other hand, argues from a progressive libertarian and youth-rights perspective, that the 21 drinking age violates the guarantee of equal protection of the law.  There is no good reason for the legal drinking to be any higher than the age of majority, period. And while we are not actually opposed to lowering the drinking age further (say, to 16, or abolishing it entirely) after it has been successfully lowered to 18, we no longer consider such a goal to be worthwhile at least for the near-term.  It would be a LONG time before it would be politically possible to do, and doing it too quickly could indeed have unintended consequences.  But lower it to 18 we must, yesterday.  As for other alcohol regulations, we (unlike Ellis) generally do not oppose them as long as they are reasonable and not ageist or otherwise discriminatory.

Anyone reading this needs to show this to their conservative friends and family.   As unpalatable as it may be to form a "big-tent" coalition with conservatives over the issue of lowering the drinking age, it will most likely be our only hope in succeeding.   Even if we have to hold our noses.  For the same reason, we need to rely not just on libertarian or individualistic arguments for lowering the drinking age, but also on communitarian arguments as well.  Even "law and order" arguments can work in our favor as well, in fact.

So what are we waiting for?