A good point from James Lileks:

It’s the birthday of Rudy “Rudolph” Perpich, governor of Minnesota. Among his notable accomplishments: he sent the National Guard to calm down the bitter Spam Strike of 1986, and he signed the law that bumped the drinking age up to 21. It’s a cliché, yes, but it’s still a reasonable argument: if the state will trust you to herd strikers with a rifle when you’re 18, why won’t they trust you with a beer?

I’ve been making this argument for a while.  If an 18 year-old kid can be trusted to drive vehicles from hatchbacks to semi trucks, own weapons, fight for his/her country in the military, vote and be held legally accountable for the contracts he/she enters into...why in the world can’t the kid have a beer?

And why should we assume that someone who can’t handle alcohol responsibly at 18 is going to suddenly find that responsibility three years later at 21?  Or even 13 years later at 31?

I still maintain that most of our problems with underage drinking, and even college-age drinking, are stemming from our prudish refusal to charge kids with the responsibility of alcohol at a younger age.