Posted On: August 30, 2006, 1:11 pm CDT

Posted By: scofflaw

Nonsense - our drinking age is higher because of the all-pervasive Puritan ethic that still saturates our country. Europeans learn NOT to binge drink because alcohol is no big deal for them by the time they leave home. They also learn NOT to freak out at the sight of (gasp!) a breast, which is altogether too much for fragile moralists like our former attorney gen'l Mr. Ashcroft. Fact is, we're a nation of prudes, always have been, and we legislate out morality onto the populace en masse. My kids could drink with us - at table only, as an adjunct to meals - as children, and guess what? Neither of them became drunken partiers when they went to college - their friends' antics were old news and a bad idea to them. A party full of teenage drinkers, though, is obviously another thing, and should be legislated differently - only I can decide if MY children should be allowed a drink. Viva common sense!