Our country is under attack! All eighteen year-olds on deck, shoot to kill... But if you so much as look at a handle of beer, we will fine you and the supplier up to $10, 000
I don't know if anybody has been following Parliament's recent idea to change the drinking age back up to twenty but it really pisses me off. There has been a lot of media hype around the topic for a little while now but it is not all objective journalism. These camera crews travel up and down New Zealand looking for scumbag teenagers who can't handle their booze and can't control themselves. Sure, there are plenty of these bastards around but the fact is that the people reporting on it never actually mention that there are plenty of responsible teenage drinkers around. This then creates a public panic, making all of the old people, parents and politicians get truck loads of sand in their vaginas and look at changing the law. That really fucks me off how these people rely on the media for all of their information and use it as their sole basis for decision making. The reality is that a most media sources are just out for a good story and they take the angles that will give them the most attention.
There have also been a number of parents whose children have been in alcohol related car accidents and died or become seriously injured, who have teamed up with the media to tell their story. If you read some of these in the paper, you will soon realise that the parents have filled their story not with legitimate information and facts but more with huge amounts of blame placed on the government, off license stores and other people. I find this interesting. Instead of taking responsibility for their own child’s actions and recognising he/she was actually to blame, they rip everybody else apart.
Things like drink driving accidents, alcohol poisoning deaths, etc, can be easily prevented. If children were exposed to alcohol at a younger age and their parents took a more active roll in teaching the responsibilities and risks that coincide with drinking alcohol, people would grow up being more informed about it. I see a lot of people who have been so sheltered from alcohol and the like that when they gain a little more freedom and approach the legal drinking age, they go crazy and drink beyond their hearts content. Then when they decide to drive home absolutely shit-faced, crash and die, their grieving parents turned to the media and scream things like “Why did the government lower the drinking age? I always knew it was a bad idea!" Yeah right you fucking idiots, that’s why you never said anything until it actually effected you.
I think having the drinking age at twenty is bollocks. When you are sixteen, you can legally have sex and leave home to fend for yourself. When you are eighteen you are recognised as a legal adult. You can watch porn. You can get married without parent consent. You can fight and die for your country. You can vote... Yet if this bill is passed, you will not be able to drink. That is a complete double standard. I think if the shit-headed government will allow you to enter the army and die for your country at eighteen they should fucking let you go out and get on the waste. Who's with me?
By Critch
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