Over one hundred college and university presidents recently signed a document urging us to lower the minimum drinking age to 18.  Other presidents have added their names to the list.  They cite the problem of underage binge drinking, which apparently has reached crisis proportion on campuses around the nation.  These presidents should know.  They face the liability.  And they believe our drinking laws are a big part of the problem. 

I agree.  We should lower the legal drinking age to 18. 

The age of majority in this country – and in almost all other countries around the world – is 18.  Majority is a legal term that means a person has entered adulthood.  At 18, you are fully responsible for your actions and are entitled to majority control over your life.  That’s how the law reads.  There are instances where the age of majority is skewed down, such as the legal age to go hunting (12) or drive a car and get an abortion (16).  And there are other instances where it is skewed up, as with the current legal drinking age (21) or the minimum age to be President of the United States (35).  But aside from a few exceptions, the various rights and entitlements of adulthood are bestowed at 18. 

An eighteen year-old is legally entitled to quit school, get married, buy a house, start a family, have an abortion, vote in an election, and purchase securities without needing anyone’s approval.  Many 18 year olds get a full-time job and rent their own place.  Some join the armed forces and die in combat.  Others go to college. 

It doesn’t make sense that we will give 18 year olds the right to marry and bring a child into the world – or abort a fetus if they choose – yet at the same time deny them champagne at their wedding.  That position is difficult to defend.  One is either sufficiently mature or not sufficiently mature enough for adulthood at 18.  For consistency’s sake, we should pick an age and stick with it.  Age 18 makes sense to me.  And it makes sense to most other people in the world.

One cornerstone of democracy is that we do not limit human freedoms beyond necessity.  Make a coherent case for limiting a person’s rights, or a group’s rights, and I’ll listen.  But the reasons better be good.  Maybe it could be argued that the age of majority should be raised to 21.  No marriage, no parenting, no abortion rights, no voting rights, no other significant rights without parental approval until then.  That position is consistent, even if it is ridiculous.

Laura Dean-Mooney, the national president of M.A.D.D., thinks the legal age should be left at 21.  Claiming that the presidents are poorly informed, she cites data showing that alcohol-related traffic deaths among teens have declined since 1984, when the legal drinking age was raised from 18 to 21.

That’s very useful information, but it doesn’t help us answer the question about where to set the legal drinking age.  Let’s assume that Dean-Mooney’s point is valid – namely, that as the legal drinking age goes up, the number of underage traffic deaths go down.  That’s good news.  We all prefer fewer alcohol-related traffic deaths.  So what use should we make of the data she cites?  Maybe commission another study to see how far the rate would drop if the legal drinking age was 25?  35?  55?  After all, what’s so special about age 21?  Or, if a decline in teen traffic deaths is our goal, why not raise the legal driving age to 21?  As to which of these makes the most sense, Dean-Mooney doesn’t tell us.

It’s worth noting that most traffic deaths nationwide are alcohol related, both among teens and adults.  The logic of Dean-Mooney’s argument suggests that we should ban alcohol consumption altogether.  Traffic deaths most likely would drop among all age groups if this prohibition was enacted again.  But that won’t happen, and she’s not suggesting that it should.  We’re left wanting to know why 21 is the magic number.

Dean-Mooney also points out that most adults who abuse alcohol were also teen drinkers.  That doesn’t surprise me.  Her observation is true in the same sense that fat kids usually become obese adults and obnoxious classmates in middle school become obnoxious colleagues at work.  I have some solutions for overweight and mean-spirited people, all of which are common-sensical, but they have nothing to do with the age of majority.  To what extent must we nanny this deal? 

Misguided arguments about the legal drinking age aren’t limited to M.A.D.D.

In a recent article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, journalist Maureen Downey expresses her own sharp disagreement with the college and university presidents.  She, too, thinks the legal age should be kept at 21, and she claims these school leaders are looking for an easy way out because they don’t want to challenge the powerful fraternities and sororities on their campuses, where the highest percentage of binge drinking occurs. 

I agree with Downey that college presidents need tuition-paying students if they want to keep the doors open, particularly at private schools.  As go the Greeks, so goes the budget.  But so what?  The question is not whether college presidents fear the Greek system or might benefit by a change in the law.  The question is whether the law should be changed.  Downey’s accusation doesn’t help us find an answer.

She also claims that if we lower the legal drinking age, we merely push the problem back onto high school principals.  This statement doesn’t make sense.  What alcohol abuse problem will teens have while at school between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.? 

I know that many high school students drink.  They drink before and after ballgames.  They drink at one another’s houses.  They drink at weekend parties.  They drink too often and too much, and I don’t like that fact.  Rites of passage notwithstanding, too many young people are abusing alcohol.  Adults are, too, and they’re doing it in alarming numbers. 

But Downey believes that if we lower the legal age to 18, we merely throw the problem back into the principal’s lap.  How so?  Is she claiming that high school students will binge drink at school?  Public high schools don’t board their students.  There are no dorm rooms or frat houses.  So where on campus will the binge drinking occur – in the locker room? . . . the SGA office? . . .  a hallway near the janitor’s closet?  I don’t think so.  If some kid is crazy enough to throw a keg party on school property, won’t the administrators notice?  Principals can suspend kids for bad behavior at school and send them home.

What Downey should have argued is that by lowering the legal age to 18, we would be throwing the problem of underage drinking back into the laps of parents.  And if that happens, good!  That’s where it should be thrown.

Parental influence is the best solution we have for this problem.

But that’s another issue.

I know Barack Obama. 

I know him well. Quite well. We’re actually blood brothers.

True, we aren’t related. We’ve never met. And, to use the MSM’s jargon du jour, there are some nuanced differences between us. I’m older by ten years, Caucasian, fiscally-conservative, a white Southern Baptist with an Alabama drawl, slow with a thought and less sophisticated by half.

But don’t let that throw you. Barack and I are soul mates.

You see, he’s a postmodernist.  You may not know what that means. I do. I once was one. I remember the language. And I hear it whenever he opens his mouth. 

Not that I dislike the guy. He’s handsome and intelligent and married to a girl every bit his equal. They cut a good figure for people who want to make a difference in life.  Barack and Michelle have two beautiful daughters whom they love and aim to protect. What’s not to like about them as a couple and a family? The pressure of a presidential campaign must be enormous. Forget political differences. Anyone who endures that ordeal has my admiration. 

Did I get off track?

Ah, yes, postmodernism.

The linchpin of postmodernism is the conviction that reality cannot be known.   In philosophical jargon, we lack the public criteria to validate ascriptions such as good/bad, right/wrong, or true/false. For those who skipped graduate school in favor of an honest job, it means that one man’s treasure is another man’s junk. Truth is relative. That’s basically what it comes to.

A postmodernist believes that truth is whatever your group says it is. If two groups disagree, it doesn’t mean one group is correct – or even more correct – than the other. We have no way of knowing. All we can say for sure is that the two groups hold different views. So we should practice tolerance and learn to respect alternative views. Don’t ask me why.

Want an example? Examine the theology of Jeremiah Wright. He preaches that Jesus of Nazareth morphed into a black American.  Silly, I know. Maybe the good reverend is just getting even with those who morphed Jesus into a white anglo-saxon protestant. I don’t know and I don’t care. The fact is, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. His distant ancestors were wandering Arameans who drifted over from Arabia a couple thousand years earlier. Facts are facts. 

But to a postmodern thinker, facts are nothing more than useful fictions. Science offers us one fictitious version of reality. Theology offers another. And poetry and music and comic books offer even more. Barack Obama knows as much, as he’s cool with it. Why challenge Jeremiah Wright’s claim that Jesus was a black messiah who preached 21^st century minority politics? What difference does it make? No one version of the scripture is better than another. Pick the one that works for you. Let your feelings – or your politics – be your guide.

The MSM shares Obama’s cold relativism. For their part, they don’t feel good about the word terrorist. It sounds judgmental. Divisive. And it smacks of moral superiority and yukky bad things. They prefer the term insurgent, as though terrorist and insurgent can be interchanged without remainder. Not that this should surprise anyone. Harvard cranks out more English majors than law students. Don’t get me started down that road.

Now to the other critical element. A postmodern thinker is also a cynic at heart. You have to be. If you believe there is no ultimate truth, it becomes difficult to keep an honest face while striving to live a decent life. I mean, c’mon, there are no standards of decency. Truth is relative, remember? The group you’ve joined may believe in decency – or at least their own version of decency – and you may share their view. But secretly you know better. You know there is no such thing as basic human decency. You may think you’re living a decent and honorable life, but you’re really no better than the next guy, including the terrorist . . . er . . . insurgent. That’s a terribly deflating conclusion to reach.

People accuse Barack of vague rhetoric. Of being an empty suit. A flip-flopper. On Iraq. Jeremiah Wright. NAFTA. Offshore drilling. Abortion. On and on.

And how does he respond? That’s easy. He insists that his views are more nuanced, more subtle, than we have allowed. He’s being honest when he says this. He’s explaining to America that there are no true or false answers. The trick is to say it without saying it, and to sound sincere while doing so. He’s been having a tough go with it lately.

Does Barack Obama really think this way? 

You bet he does.

Would he ever admit it? 

Not in public. And especially not in a general election. He’s too good with words. Sort of.

John McCain is not my first choice as President and Commander in Chief of the United States. I was impressed, however, with his responses to Rick Warren at the Saddleback forum. You can tell that McCain has some bedrock beliefs. You may not like them, but they are important to him. He has fought for them. Sacrificed for them. And he will state them succinctly and clearly if asked. Brevity and clarity are hallmarks of conviction. 

Barack Obama, on the other hand, labored over his answers to the same questions. He fumbled for words. Like the battleship evading the submarine, he opted to zig-zag rather than plow straight ahead. Such a strategy requires a lot of words. You could see his mind working overtime: “What do they need to hear? What answer will please everyone, or at least offend no one?” 

At Saddleback, he attempted a hat trick but couldn’t find the rabbit. Warren asked for his view on abortion. Obama answered that theology and science are distinct disciplines. True enough, but where’s the rabbit? Then he claimed that the question was above his pay grade. For those of you who don’t speak postmodernism, he was telling you that the question is above everyone’s pay grade. There is no rabbit. Rabbits don’t exist.

Not a good answer for those of us who bought tickets to the show. We suspected that he might be an illusionist. But we still wanted to see the rabbit.

I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for Barack as he struggled to tell the truth. Words are his forte. Big words, little words, he knows them all. They are his toys. 

Truth is his toy, too. He likes to play with it.

Most Americans do not.