Welll I'm on a yola binge tonight and my buddy passed out so I felt creative. Took one of my papers from a few years ago and revised it. Got a writer's block writing lyrics, the freestyled a little, then decided maybe writing an actual paper may help my writers block for the music. It was worth a shot and I guess I'll find out in a bit as I don't plan on sleeping lol my unicorn has more coke and I have some beer so I think it's one of those nights/days. Please leave comments or critiques as I love to hear others opinions, however this is the first time showing any of my written work to anyone online so this kind of makes me nervous a bit. As now anyone can see it. But I would like you to read it from the perspective of my English teacher as it was a persuasive essay, not just a rant or whatever. Hope you guys enjoy the read. Not the best, but I believe the ending is the best part so don't give up half way through unless you really hate it lol.
How Old is Old Enough?
I would like to invite you to join me on a trip around the world. We’ll start in Germany, where the famous Oktoberfest is a country wide celebration! When the clock strikes twelve on opening day, in late September, “O’zapft is!” or in English translation, “The keg is tapped.” German children as young as 14 can drink beer legally as long as they’re with their parents, and can drink at 16 without their parents. While if drinking hard liquor, the age becomes 18. Our next stop is Ireland, the home of the “Ye Olde Pub.” Where everyone gathers to meet and talk about their day over a nice cold “pint” out of the tap. One of the nicest drinking cultures in the world, where if you’re out with friends you’ll be expected to buy “rounds” for everyone, or else you’ll be considered inconsiderate, and of course the favor gets returned! And the legal drinking age is 18. While there are many more areas around the world with beer and alcohol filled traditions and we would love to visit them all, we’re going to cut this tour short and come back home to the U.S. Where a man can die for his country at the age of 18 but will get charged with a misdemeanor in the court of law for as little as one beer. Wow! Having fun back home yet? Well the fun is just beginning.
The first thing that enters the mind when coming home is safety. We’re back home safe, away from these crazy Europeans with their absurd drinking ages. Speaking of safety, we are safe here, right? Per 100,000 people, the death rate involving accidents where drinking was involved, is only 26.5 (WHO). Now that’s not a lot is it? Let’s look at what our alcoholic European cousins’ death rate is, probably at least three times that, us Americans are culturally more developed and as such, hardly drive drunk. Hold on now. I'm looking at these results, and well, these “nutcases” at the World Health Organization must be wrong, both Ireland and Germany only have a death rate of approximately 11.5 per 100,000 people. Fascinating, how countries with cultures so intertwined with drinking, could have less than half of the drunken driving deaths than our own United States. I for one think this must be non-sense. I mean who pays the guys to make up these results? Well no matter, these deaths are only the cause of the irresponsible and the careless, and I suppose the United States just has more of those individuals; these immigrants have come from these other countries after all, it’s probably them, as they’re the alcoholics.
Alcoholism is a serious matter, and will not be taken lightly. By raising the drinking age we can further deter our great nation from becoming a nation of alcoholics, I mean it’s bad enough we have proven ourselves to be of the most obese countries in the world, that statistic alone is hurting the great name we’ve established for ourselves. And look what we have here, 4.51% (WHO) and 4.84% rate for alcohol disorders in Germany and Ireland respectively. There’s no way that we have that much. That’s a pretty big percent for something as serious a disorder as alcoholism. Look here, America only has a fraction of that, 5.48%! Wait, was that a higher percentage? Well to make it fair, America does have so many more people, it evens out, I think. I mean they probably only have a lower alcoholism rate because it’s so much imbedded in their culture that binge drinking and such is not something they divulge themselves with. The amount of liquor drank per individual is less, because we have less people that drink, who cares about that non-sense alcoholism?
How about this, only 4.3% (WHO) of Germans abstained, or not drank, alcohol in the past 12 months. Neither the Irish nor us could be so repulsive as to have that many people in our community running around drunk all the time. What do you know, we don’t even come close. Ireland is at 25.5% abstainers and the great U.S.A comes out on top for this one at 34.6% teetotalers. Ding! Ding! We have a win in the Red, White, and Blue corner! This can’t come as a surprise; we both knew it was coming soon. What is this you’re telling me? It’s part of their culture? I know. I know! So you want some math to show how great a win this is, don’t you? We might as well rub in our victory a bit. Only 9.4 liters of alcohol per capita is consumed by the American population, while 12.8 liters of alcohol per capita is consumed by the beer garden loving Germans. Let’s compare the consumption without putting these abstainers in the equation. Even give them the benefit of the doubt, give the Germans an even 5%. Let’s say 12.8 liters average per individual in the 95% of persons who drink, there we go, 13.5 liters per drinking individual. Now for America, take our beloved 9.4 liters for everyone in the country, and divide that by the 66% that drink, so we don't count the non-drinkers, and it comes out to roughly 14.2 liters per drinking individual. Well, I didn’t see that coming. We’re off our tour anyways, maybe it’s time to get back to talking about our great homeland; I mean, the comparison between countries overseas and our great country should be taken with a grain of salt, no matter the statistics. We should still keep this right to drink away from people under 21 because that’s what our great fore fathers and ancestors would want.
I mean these great people wrote our constitution to protect us from these foreign influences. They wanted us to have a drinking age to stay away from drugs and alcohol. I mean, we’re in a full out bomb-dropping “War on Drugs,” and alcohol is clearly a drug. I mean let’s check the history of the drinking ages in the U.S. and surely we will find our answer. Well, this doesn’t make sense, I mean, I’m looking back at these records, and it seems we didn’t have a drinking age until after Prohibition. Well I still love our founding fathers, as should you; I mean they didn’t mean harm. They were just trying to protect our Constitutional rights by not controlling what we do with our bodies, I mean it was none of their business, and we had just broken free from a country that was in every aspect of our business, they didn’t know about all the dangers that alcohol causes. Now let’s go further down our history. Here we go! The Prohibition, a time when there was no alcohol allowed at all, and that, that is alright. No matter the amount of crime and corruption it caused, we stopped this deadly poison from entering our patriots’ livers and blood. But what’s this? By 1925 the amount of public-drunkenness and similar offenses had increased to more than pre-Prohibition statistics, and the drinking rate in children and women increased significantly. We better let the public drink again, but let’s put a drinking age in place, just so these kids don’t get too rambunctious. That’s where we get our lucky number 21! Or wait, is there really more to this? After a few years of letting these treacherous individuals drink at 21, most states lowered it to 18 with the 26th Amendment adopted in 1971? This is preposterous. But again, they finally realized their mistake and in 1984 raised the drinking age to 21. Silly Congress, beer ain’t for kids.
I mean when you’re a kid, all you want to do is party hard, right? Hate to bring them back up but these people overseas must be nuts to allow all these young kids to go out and have the time of their life at 18. They still have so much to live for. By keeping the higher age, we can ensure they won’t drink, because, who really gets a thrill out of breaking the law anyway? At least we can be confident that by the time our children are old enough to throw their life away with this poison, go to clubs, bars, and other such events, they will be about to or just graduated from college. So if anything else they’ll already have a degree for when they decide to come back to reality and work. I mean let them party it up; it’s better than them finishing college and being sick of the party lifestyle, ready to drink in moderation and join the work force. Anyway, no matter what the drinking age is, in our country or overseas, the facts will still show that the few years after being able to drink legally, a person is more likely to cause or suffer a fatality from an accident, we can change the age and it won’t affect us, but why chance putting even younger people in danger even if the statistics of the amount of people dying won’t rise or fall, but stay exactly the same?
And we here in there United States don’t even have to worry about underage drinking in our society. I mean that’s what this drinking age law is for! Why, I know that these kids can’t even obtain a drop of alcohol, so why should we even worry about them? Kids won’t be drinking in our great country, and why should they? It is against every health and moral code in the book. I know none of our great patriotic citizens will buy them alcohol. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University only 17.5% of consumer spending on alcohol is alcohol purchased for the consumption of the underage. That can’t possibly be too much! Oh? It comes out to $22.5 billion on alcohol for minors alone? Well this makes no sense.
Actually none of this makes sense, but it’s not supposed to. Let’s recap; America has a higher rate of automobile deaths related to alcohol, higher alcoholism rate, and a higher volume of alcohol induced by our drinking population than other countries with alcohol intertwined with their country and culture. And to bring it back to the home front, it’s our constitutional right to do with our bodies what we want to, the effect it has on people once they hit the drinking age is hurting the work force right out of college by introducing them to the “scene” at the age that they should be focused on their careers, and the consumption of alcohol isn't stopping or slowing down due to the age requirement. Should minors be legally able to purchase and consume alcohol? Would it make that much of a difference? I've showed you facts and I've showed you statistics, enough to at least think about the legal drinking age for a minute or two. Spread the word, because the way people in America view it, the three years between 18 and 21 that the minors can't drink is helping, but is it really? There's some big differences in the statistics of the negative impact of liquor in between countries and to some degree, as I've shown, the correlating drinking age. We are Americans, and liquor is, and may well always be a problem in our great country, but if a change in the age of the legality of purchase and consumption of alcohol can help us as a whole country, with little to no real consequences if it backfires and our statistics remain the same, because in no way could they get worse, since it's proven that the under 21 year olds already get alcohol now anyways, about $22.5 billion worth of it per year to be exact, then what is the harm in trying? Trying a lower age, teaching our kids younger about alcohol by embedding it into our culture, instead of making it a taboo to get drunk and have a good time with friends at a young age. Of course the reasons for the age to not be lowered are strong, with decision making skills affected and everything else in between. But when my son is 16 or 17 I'll enjoy a beer or two with him. Not for him to learn to get hammered at a young age, but for him to learn moderation, because if I can go to the bar with my son legally BEFORE he has the chance to go and get drunk with other people who are drinking under the legal age, it will only make him that much more educated. In our culture, and almost any other culture, doing something that is taboo is almost fun, in an interesting way, at least, even expected to some degree, for we as humans are a very curious species. While we may know deep down that this forbidden act is bound to happen, we do not monitor it. Hardly ever are we as adults there for our child's first time drinking, because again, it's against the law, and we are law-abiding, red, white, and blue loving patriots. Why not? Don't you think you could teach your child moderation in drinking alcohol much better than that other 16 year old kid that stole a bottle of vodka from his father? Not even just moderation, but respect, alcohol demands respect, or it can be just as deadly as any other drug, or even more so. The drinking age needs to be lowered so that lawfully, a young person can learn that respect, in turn, it can fix many other problems American citizens have with this drug. Embed alcohol in a way such as the Germans or Irish do into our culture and that respect will come more and more naturally, with each generation. There won't be more alcoholics or binge drinkers, there will be more educated drinkers of alcohol, that respect the drug, instead of abuse it.
How Old is Old Enough?
I would like to invite you to join me on a trip around the world. We’ll start in Germany, where the famous Oktoberfest is a country wide celebration! When the clock strikes twelve on opening day, in late September, “O’zapft is!” or in English translation, “The keg is tapped.” German children as young as 14 can drink beer legally as long as they’re with their parents, and can drink at 16 without their parents. While if drinking hard liquor, the age becomes 18. Our next stop is Ireland, the home of the “Ye Olde Pub.” Where everyone gathers to meet and talk about their day over a nice cold “pint” out of the tap. One of the nicest drinking cultures in the world, where if you’re out with friends you’ll be expected to buy “rounds” for everyone, or else you’ll be considered inconsiderate, and of course the favor gets returned! And the legal drinking age is 18. While there are many more areas around the world with beer and alcohol filled traditions and we would love to visit them all, we’re going to cut this tour short and come back home to the U.S. Where a man can die for his country at the age of 18 but will get charged with a misdemeanor in the court of law for as little as one beer. Wow! Having fun back home yet? Well the fun is just beginning.
The first thing that enters the mind when coming home is safety. We’re back home safe, away from these crazy Europeans with their absurd drinking ages. Speaking of safety, we are safe here, right? Per 100,000 people, the death rate involving accidents where drinking was involved, is only 26.5 (WHO). Now that’s not a lot is it? Let’s look at what our alcoholic European cousins’ death rate is, probably at least three times that, us Americans are culturally more developed and as such, hardly drive drunk. Hold on now. I'm looking at these results, and well, these “nutcases” at the World Health Organization must be wrong, both Ireland and Germany only have a death rate of approximately 11.5 per 100,000 people. Fascinating, how countries with cultures so intertwined with drinking, could have less than half of the drunken driving deaths than our own United States. I for one think this must be non-sense. I mean who pays the guys to make up these results? Well no matter, these deaths are only the cause of the irresponsible and the careless, and I suppose the United States just has more of those individuals; these immigrants have come from these other countries after all, it’s probably them, as they’re the alcoholics.
Alcoholism is a serious matter, and will not be taken lightly. By raising the drinking age we can further deter our great nation from becoming a nation of alcoholics, I mean it’s bad enough we have proven ourselves to be of the most obese countries in the world, that statistic alone is hurting the great name we’ve established for ourselves. And look what we have here, 4.51% (WHO) and 4.84% rate for alcohol disorders in Germany and Ireland respectively. There’s no way that we have that much. That’s a pretty big percent for something as serious a disorder as alcoholism. Look here, America only has a fraction of that, 5.48%! Wait, was that a higher percentage? Well to make it fair, America does have so many more people, it evens out, I think. I mean they probably only have a lower alcoholism rate because it’s so much imbedded in their culture that binge drinking and such is not something they divulge themselves with. The amount of liquor drank per individual is less, because we have less people that drink, who cares about that non-sense alcoholism?
How about this, only 4.3% (WHO) of Germans abstained, or not drank, alcohol in the past 12 months. Neither the Irish nor us could be so repulsive as to have that many people in our community running around drunk all the time. What do you know, we don’t even come close. Ireland is at 25.5% abstainers and the great U.S.A comes out on top for this one at 34.6% teetotalers. Ding! Ding! We have a win in the Red, White, and Blue corner! This can’t come as a surprise; we both knew it was coming soon. What is this you’re telling me? It’s part of their culture? I know. I know! So you want some math to show how great a win this is, don’t you? We might as well rub in our victory a bit. Only 9.4 liters of alcohol per capita is consumed by the American population, while 12.8 liters of alcohol per capita is consumed by the beer garden loving Germans. Let’s compare the consumption without putting these abstainers in the equation. Even give them the benefit of the doubt, give the Germans an even 5%. Let’s say 12.8 liters average per individual in the 95% of persons who drink, there we go, 13.5 liters per drinking individual. Now for America, take our beloved 9.4 liters for everyone in the country, and divide that by the 66% that drink, so we don't count the non-drinkers, and it comes out to roughly 14.2 liters per drinking individual. Well, I didn’t see that coming. We’re off our tour anyways, maybe it’s time to get back to talking about our great homeland; I mean, the comparison between countries overseas and our great country should be taken with a grain of salt, no matter the statistics. We should still keep this right to drink away from people under 21 because that’s what our great fore fathers and ancestors would want.
I mean these great people wrote our constitution to protect us from these foreign influences. They wanted us to have a drinking age to stay away from drugs and alcohol. I mean, we’re in a full out bomb-dropping “War on Drugs,” and alcohol is clearly a drug. I mean let’s check the history of the drinking ages in the U.S. and surely we will find our answer. Well, this doesn’t make sense, I mean, I’m looking back at these records, and it seems we didn’t have a drinking age until after Prohibition. Well I still love our founding fathers, as should you; I mean they didn’t mean harm. They were just trying to protect our Constitutional rights by not controlling what we do with our bodies, I mean it was none of their business, and we had just broken free from a country that was in every aspect of our business, they didn’t know about all the dangers that alcohol causes. Now let’s go further down our history. Here we go! The Prohibition, a time when there was no alcohol allowed at all, and that, that is alright. No matter the amount of crime and corruption it caused, we stopped this deadly poison from entering our patriots’ livers and blood. But what’s this? By 1925 the amount of public-drunkenness and similar offenses had increased to more than pre-Prohibition statistics, and the drinking rate in children and women increased significantly. We better let the public drink again, but let’s put a drinking age in place, just so these kids don’t get too rambunctious. That’s where we get our lucky number 21! Or wait, is there really more to this? After a few years of letting these treacherous individuals drink at 21, most states lowered it to 18 with the 26th Amendment adopted in 1971? This is preposterous. But again, they finally realized their mistake and in 1984 raised the drinking age to 21. Silly Congress, beer ain’t for kids.
I mean when you’re a kid, all you want to do is party hard, right? Hate to bring them back up but these people overseas must be nuts to allow all these young kids to go out and have the time of their life at 18. They still have so much to live for. By keeping the higher age, we can ensure they won’t drink, because, who really gets a thrill out of breaking the law anyway? At least we can be confident that by the time our children are old enough to throw their life away with this poison, go to clubs, bars, and other such events, they will be about to or just graduated from college. So if anything else they’ll already have a degree for when they decide to come back to reality and work. I mean let them party it up; it’s better than them finishing college and being sick of the party lifestyle, ready to drink in moderation and join the work force. Anyway, no matter what the drinking age is, in our country or overseas, the facts will still show that the few years after being able to drink legally, a person is more likely to cause or suffer a fatality from an accident, we can change the age and it won’t affect us, but why chance putting even younger people in danger even if the statistics of the amount of people dying won’t rise or fall, but stay exactly the same?
And we here in there United States don’t even have to worry about underage drinking in our society. I mean that’s what this drinking age law is for! Why, I know that these kids can’t even obtain a drop of alcohol, so why should we even worry about them? Kids won’t be drinking in our great country, and why should they? It is against every health and moral code in the book. I know none of our great patriotic citizens will buy them alcohol. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University only 17.5% of consumer spending on alcohol is alcohol purchased for the consumption of the underage. That can’t possibly be too much! Oh? It comes out to $22.5 billion on alcohol for minors alone? Well this makes no sense.
Actually none of this makes sense, but it’s not supposed to. Let’s recap; America has a higher rate of automobile deaths related to alcohol, higher alcoholism rate, and a higher volume of alcohol induced by our drinking population than other countries with alcohol intertwined with their country and culture. And to bring it back to the home front, it’s our constitutional right to do with our bodies what we want to, the effect it has on people once they hit the drinking age is hurting the work force right out of college by introducing them to the “scene” at the age that they should be focused on their careers, and the consumption of alcohol isn't stopping or slowing down due to the age requirement. Should minors be legally able to purchase and consume alcohol? Would it make that much of a difference? I've showed you facts and I've showed you statistics, enough to at least think about the legal drinking age for a minute or two. Spread the word, because the way people in America view it, the three years between 18 and 21 that the minors can't drink is helping, but is it really? There's some big differences in the statistics of the negative impact of liquor in between countries and to some degree, as I've shown, the correlating drinking age. We are Americans, and liquor is, and may well always be a problem in our great country, but if a change in the age of the legality of purchase and consumption of alcohol can help us as a whole country, with little to no real consequences if it backfires and our statistics remain the same, because in no way could they get worse, since it's proven that the under 21 year olds already get alcohol now anyways, about $22.5 billion worth of it per year to be exact, then what is the harm in trying? Trying a lower age, teaching our kids younger about alcohol by embedding it into our culture, instead of making it a taboo to get drunk and have a good time with friends at a young age. Of course the reasons for the age to not be lowered are strong, with decision making skills affected and everything else in between. But when my son is 16 or 17 I'll enjoy a beer or two with him. Not for him to learn to get hammered at a young age, but for him to learn moderation, because if I can go to the bar with my son legally BEFORE he has the chance to go and get drunk with other people who are drinking under the legal age, it will only make him that much more educated. In our culture, and almost any other culture, doing something that is taboo is almost fun, in an interesting way, at least, even expected to some degree, for we as humans are a very curious species. While we may know deep down that this forbidden act is bound to happen, we do not monitor it. Hardly ever are we as adults there for our child's first time drinking, because again, it's against the law, and we are law-abiding, red, white, and blue loving patriots. Why not? Don't you think you could teach your child moderation in drinking alcohol much better than that other 16 year old kid that stole a bottle of vodka from his father? Not even just moderation, but respect, alcohol demands respect, or it can be just as deadly as any other drug, or even more so. The drinking age needs to be lowered so that lawfully, a young person can learn that respect, in turn, it can fix many other problems American citizens have with this drug. Embed alcohol in a way such as the Germans or Irish do into our culture and that respect will come more and more naturally, with each generation. There won't be more alcoholics or binge drinkers, there will be more educated drinkers of alcohol, that respect the drug, instead of abuse it.