I never claimed that a persons argument was wrong based on who they are or their occupation. What I implicated was that someone who goes ranting on about what's morally right shouldn't go preaching on how their sense of morals are better than everyone elses if their own set of morals heavily contradict each other. If a persons sense of belief's cannot hold up even consistently then why should they go around assuming their morals are more important than everyone elses?

I'll even argue that my argument is set up to destroy ad hominem as opposed to really being one. I'm no stranger to ad hominem, people use it on me all the time. Because I'm an atheist they say I'm not religious and because I'm not religious, they say I'm not moral. Therefor, because I'm an immoral Atheist I shouldn't have a say on what's morally right or wrong.

Essentially, that's an ad hominem, right?

My arguments however doesn't invalidate what people say over their beliefs or their occupations. It merely warrants them to follow their beliefs more consistently. It's not ad hominem to point out hypocrisy, it's ad hominem to discredit over belief/occupation.

Since this is Lite Discussion, you get a lite response.

Beer is nasty tasting. Laws are just fine by me.

Now for a serious answer worth of Serious Discussion at 4 in the morning:

My father is a drunk. Dunno where he is, what bridge hes sleeping under, or who he kills or fucks for cash to buy more. But I do know this much: because of this, I have a moral to never want anything to do with any sort of beverage that would make me act in this manner, and I whole heartily believe others feel the same way because of this. For example, getting raped as a child by an uncle, that person is more likely to give a shit about a donation pertaining to helping kids removed from cruel, sick people like this and put into foster care. Same concept applies here, parent drank, probably abused child or spouse, came home late, had excuses for everything, started forgetting birthdays, all the way to the point of completely leaving the child and causing them a traumatic experience.

Personally I never experienced it, because I was 4 and didnt know better. But as I aged I learned quite well what this substance does to people, and how not to live your life. Biased I know, but thats my two cents on this. I think the laws are right, because if the age was any lower, boys would drink and fuck their female friend, and the teen pregnancy rate would plummet to 13 as a common age, rather than say 16. Like all drugs, drinking irresponsibly leads to more nastier habits or behavior, which is why you'll often hear others classify Alcohol as a drug, because of the patterns it shares with them.

I can drink to that, pun intended. Beer is actually healthy when it's consumed responsibly, so I figure it makes more sense to promote responsibility through the parents as opposed to hoping and crossing our fingers that the individuals drinking them selves are responsible. Wouldn't it be just a bit awesome if we lived in a world where everyone drank about one bottle a day?

Obviously most of the people who preach that underage drinking is wrong were the ones drinking when they were young, because they learned from their mistakes. (Most adults are not still excessive drinkers.)
The reason many young people don't listen is because there are a lot of other factors saying that drinking is not that bad. (Which it isn't, to a point.)
However no young person can understand when to stop drinking on their own. (And everyone makes mistakes learning some thing new. Yes, drinking is a learned skill to do so controllably.)
The best solution is therefor to let a more experienced drinker lead the youngsters into a more controlled habit.
For some reason though, drinking with parents is out of the question in many places. Any insight?

The answer, IMO, is not to have everyone drink a bottle a day, as a bottle can mean very different things to different people, but to teach people to know their own limits before they just start testing out for themselves how far they can go. This unguided initiation is what inevitably leads to the "competitive" style of underage drinking, where each must prove themselves cool by binging.

I disagree with everything you say Shadow.

Because I was so smart, that when I was drinking underage, I could feel myself growing more idiotic with every sip.

Low underage drinking will possibly drain society's supply of geniuses, and thus fail to provide the future with enough anti-idiocy. We will all be doomed. DOOMED!!!

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

I'm well aware that morality and law doesn't always go hand in hand. That's actually irrelevant to the issue at hand. You're saying that because you can join the army and kill enemy soldiers at age 18 or die "for your country" but cannot drink alcohol.

Let's start with the misleading comment, "... you're allowed to be trained to kill someone by eighteen ..." This point is irrelevant and moot. You may be trained to kill someone at any age. There are a plethora of martial arts open to minors that will teach techniques that will kill. Hunting, another sport open to participation by minors, also has skills that translate well. And then your dad may be an ex-ranger and teach you how to kill someone. The latter is open to all ages, without any governmental restriction.

Next: "... that you're even allowed to kill someone by eighteen ..." Yes and no. Soldiers do not have a license to kill unless ordered to do so. Authorization of lethal force is required. Military grunts, therefore, are not simply "allowed to kill" willy nilly. They don't get to make much of a decision who to kill and who not to. Also, one may join the military at 17 with parental permission.

You continue, "... you're not allowed to have even one beer." With this we can boil down your argument in an easily understood form.



It turns out that this argument, as it stands, is completely inane. You have to rely on an assumption (i.e., a premise that was not included in the argument) to create a valid argument. The assumption requires that anyone who is permitted to kill should also be permitted to consume alcohol. Adding this to the premises would help validate the argument, but you would be far from creating a sound argument (a valid argument with all true premises and a true conclusion). However, your argument would still suffer from the fact not all 18-year-olds are permitted to kill, so it takes the following form:



This is a logical fallacy, for obvious reasons. Using a counter-example we can demonstrate why:




So should anyone permitted to kill also be permitted to consume alcohol? You must prove this statement correct before advancing your argument.


Part II


You still haven't proven that the 18-year-old drinking age is the right thing to do, or even the moral thing to do.

Socrates was killed because he asked too many questions, not because he was right. He was wrong about a number of things. To be quite honest I don't understand these statements at all. They don't prove or establish anything other than some lame reference to Socrates to justify the position that being disliked implies one is correct. Either way, it doesn't work that way.



Killing is objectively wrong? Good luck with that one. This is also a fallacy. Just because killing is wrong does not mean underage drinking isn't.



This is a very textbook example of ad hominem. I could have 30 DUIs and it would not invalidate any points I make on this issue.



This is your first point that isn't logically flawed and supported correctly. But reviewing statistical data, we can see how raising the drinking age managed to lower DUI-related deaths. And based on this statistic, congress can pass a statute that states having a legal drinking age lower than 21 will lose a state its federal road funding.

Additionally, schools do advocate these types of programs, but the problem is that drinking is so wide-spread that they've focused not on eliminating drinking, but eliminate drunk driving. And I don't see that culture changing anytime soon.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Sep 1 2011, 6:03 am by Sacrieur.