<p>oh yeah my cousin (from belguim) also went on a field trip to paris and during the lunch break the teachers were OFFERING beer to the 12 year old kids. NO JOKE.</p>
<p>^^ belgium is NOT WHOLE EUROPE.....I know for a fact Britain has a drinking age of 18....so your earlier statement is invalid.....about europe not having a drinking age.....because Britain is part of Europe</p>
<p>haha, excellent...</p>
<p>r u serious? england is probably the country with the most drinking.</p>
<p>but they have a drinking age....your statement is about europe not having a drinking age.....i was just correcting you what was technically incorrect</p>
<p>i dunno...french love their wine, and germans...oktoberfest, enough said (note, not intending to be a generalizing...you know...but it really seems like that sometimes, i've been both places, lived in europe for a bit)</p>
<p>i drank in england and scotland when i was 15. I drank in germany and austria when i was 14. They really don't care over there. As long as you're not acting like an idiot or are, like, 8, it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>in essence, don't act like their stereotypical american ;-)</p>
<p>drinking can be a good time, especially if it's controlled and with people who you know will stay controlled. The only drinking rule to me is don't let anyone leave (driving) if they have had anything to drink. it's really not a big deal and people only get all crazy and uptight about it because people make it a big deal. It doesn't have to be a declaration of whether u just don't conform to what "everybody" is doing. People who make it that type of thing **** me off.</p>
<p>It seems like many drinkers complain nondrinkers for being closed minded, while there are drinkers who are really opinionated and accuses nondrinkers for being "goody-goody" or whatever the term they use...</p>
<p>Lesson 1:
Myth: For all non-drinkers x, x are closed minded.
Fact: There exists a non-drinker x, such that x is open minded.</p>
<p>Lesson 2:
Myth: For all drinkers y, y is bad.
Fact: There exists a y such that y is good.</p>
<p>I'm sure people on here would understand what I meant:) And in fact some of them point out the mistakes! Hopefully there won't be a counterexample:/</p>
<p>P.S. This is what the new drinking Law that should be adapted in the US</p>
<p>For all people x in US, if x is 21 years old or 18 years old with highschool diploma, then x may drink.</p>
<p>^ Nice job on clarifying.</p>
<p>I am that open-minded non-drinker x.</p>
<p>but why should a home-schooled person who chooses not to accept the pointless burden of a high school diploma be denied his/her right to imbibe? What about people that leave early to join the army? Are they old enough to drive a tank, die for our country, but not trusted to have a beer? What about a dropout who goes on to have a successful and focused career. Were they not to be trusted because they lacked a piece of paper? I just worry about the arbitrariness of using a high school diploma as the standard. But considering what I see around the world, and even in america, no offense to MADD, but it doesn't seem like 18's such a bad idea, except for denying college patrolmen their God-given right to ticket underage drinkers!...peace</p>
<p>and i lay claim as well to the open-minded non-drinker title</p>
<p>The problem with the highschool diploma strategy is that it will lead to massive parties once all the graduates get their drinking certification at the same time. These parties will inevitably lead to fatalities due to irresponsibility of many first-time drinkers in the same place, and we'll be right back where we started.</p>
<p>I would think a better idea is to have drinking at the first birthday after a highschool diploma has been received. Or just make the drinking age 18. Is it not ridiculous that one can fight a war but not drink a beer?</p>
<p>Drinking is gross, I hate it when people drink.. </p>
<p>It's my personal preference, and yes I guess I am "too moralistic" to drink, and there is nothing wrong with that. People can drink all they want to but it won't stop me from looking at them differently (though I won't outwardly express it).. maybe it's because my best friends are all steadfast nondrinkers and we hate the concept of binge drinking. I hope you don't take this as me or my friends being "losers" or something because I actually have many friends who both drink and don't drink.. I just don't drink. If people look at me differently because I don't drink then I think I have as much right to look at people differently when they do binge drink. And when I talk about "people" in this case I mostly mean underage binge drinkers who drink to get drunk.</p>
<p>See here's the thing. I don't look at you differently because you don't drink, that's fine, I don't care. But I question the rationale of anyone who somehow equates temperance with morality.</p>
<p>Well the thing is, when it says specifically in one's religion that one is not supposed to drink and should not under any circumstances, that falls under morality.. this is the case with me.</p>
<p>And I appreciate that you don't look at me differntly because I don't drink, but the thing about cc is that you will find that most of hte posters here are very mature - it comes naturally from the motivation/intelligence that a lot of these students have; I am sure this is hte case with you. However, in the "real high school" world and even college where you get a huge mix of people, people do look at you differently if you don't drink and oftentimes equate that with loserness/unwillingness to have fun just as often as nondrinkers think things about drinkers</p>
<p>Ah. If it's a religious concern, then that's different I suppose. It just irks me that some people think it's immoral to drink underage simply because the US government has deemed it illegal.</p>
<p>Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. But then again, I guess morality is all relative so what is a moral decision to one person may not be to another.. it's crazy</p>
<p>well, at the same time, you say that kids will binge at graduation...consider the first college party of the year at most schools...not always the prettiest site...i don't want to qualify the age by educational advancement, that just seems silly and arbitrary, but being 18, like smoking, seems logical...and also, some people believe that they have a moral responsibility to obey the laws of the land they don't consider grossly unfair, so as to promote the common good, so i could see where they were coming from.</p>