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Get off my lawn!

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jhocking:

--- Quote from: E. Spaceman on 11 Mar 2008, 23:23 ---Teachers were paid to teach me, the tuition i paid provided for their wages. They were given a payment for their services, expecting a special treatment above that seems ludicrous to me.

--- End quote ---
You obviously understand little about the economics of teaching. Teachers are paid very little, especially considering the amount of training they have to receive (well college professors anyway, maybe not middle school or something.) Certainly in my case if I didn't have a significant source of income in addition to teaching, there's no way I could afford this. And I'm not saying teachers expect to be paid more, but the simple fact is that people get into teaching for reasons outside of money. These people are consciously forgoing a significant chunk of income in order to better your life, and that deserves your respect.

a pack of wolves:

--- Quote from: tommydski on 12 Mar 2008, 05:43 ---Here in the UK, people drink for an abundance of reasons. Depression is the number one cause. Social awkwardness or shyness not far behind. Somewhere down the line is the people who actually enjoy alcohol. They are pretty much a minority. I don't think many people drink to stick it to the man. To clarify, I think the drinking age in the UK should be 21. I am not suggesting a ban here. Other countries can do as they please. Here in the UK there is a serious problem and nobody is addressing it.

--- End quote ---

I agree the UK has a problem with the level of alcohol abuse but I can't see raising the legal drinking age having much effect beyond making it more of a hassle to put on gigs (although the inevitable increase in all ages venues would be good). The only thing that would really change things is addressing the reasons people have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I see things like binge drinking as symptomatic of something larger wrong with the culture. Alterations to the licensing laws will only effect what substances can be procured when, not stop people wanting to annihilate themselves and everything around them in a sea of alcohol at the weekend.

0bsessions:
This entire thread has gone stupid and fucking hostile. Time to contribute!


--- Quote from: Patrick on 11 Mar 2008, 16:06 ---If you take away something to rebel against, such as drinking laws, young'uns will be less likely to rebel against it.
--- End quote ---

That's such a load, Patrick. Whether you make it legal or not, teenagers are still going to be irresponsible and the social stigma's still going to be there to rebel against.

I am of the mind that the drinking age is right where it needs to be. Honestly, my opinion lines very heavily with Tommy on this. Sure, kids are still going to drink, but it's going to be I want it to be as hard as fucking possible. I'll be the first to admit that I was an incredibly irresponsible teenager. Yes, many adults are not responsible either, but it's a simple fact of nature and growing up that a teenager is more likely to be irresponsible than an adult. This isn't meant as a knock towards youth, it's just part of growing up. When I was a teenager, I had a major caffeine problem. I didn't really process the effects it had on my body as I had that usual teenage invincibility complex. Nothing could hurt me and fuck the man! It took like six different doctors telling me that if I didn't curb it, it was going to lead to serious physical and emotional issues due to sleep deprivation. I wasn't addicted, per se, I just didn't give a shit cause I simply thought the doctors were wrong. It took three years of severe depression and health problems before I finally considered "Hey, maybe these guys are on to something" and I quit caffeine for a good three or four years. My health took dramatic leaps forward after that. I also developed a nascent fear of substance abuse to the point I went pretty much straight edge for a long while (I obviously didn't know my limits and decided it prudent to not test them). This was all just on caffeine, I don't even want to think about how I would've turned out if I drank as a teenager.

It's a matter of maturity, I guess. Most teenagers have that invincibility factor and a bit less foresight towards potential consequence of their actions. I won't say all teens are that way, but the majority most definitely are and I fell in that majority. It's a simple personality trait. It takes a certain sense of mortality to properly handle drinking and I really think it's that fear that keeps you in line. If you're not at least a little afraid of drinking yourself to death, it's a lot harder to be reasonable with your drinking. That's not to say one will automatically kick into it, when I first started drinking, I had one really bad summer as I went through a very harsh breakup only a couple months after I first started. Fortunately, my survival instincts kicked in and I realized that if I kept drinking at that pace I was either going to kill my liver, wind up with an STD or get someone knocked up (I don't have any figures, but I'd be willing to bet that at least 70% of teen pregnancies happen while drunk).

One of the other big things, though, is physical development. Booze is bad for you. It is, literally, poison. That buzz you feel is the poison slowly killing your brain. Once your body is fully developed, it's all damage that's going to grow back in time, but before that you can do serious, permanent damage if you overdo it. Now, I'm not sure when the female body completes its development, but the average male finishes up his physical development around twenty-two (I believe that females finish a bit younger). This actually, initially at least, had nothing to do with the drinking age, it's just baseline coincidence to my knowledge. Drinking heavily before that can cause damage that you're never going to fully recover from and can in many ways stunt your physical development, limiting your physical and mental potential (Not necessarily a definite, but you've got a decent likelihood). Couple this with the innate irresponsibility of youth and you're more likely to cause yourself serious harm drinking as a teenager. If you've gotta get yourself fucked up to enjoy yourself, smoke pot or something, that's not going to hurt you unless you're an idiot or an emotional cripple.

So yeah, like I said, i think the drinking age in the US is fine where it is. Teenagers have plenty of life ahead of them and they don't need the additional baggage that drinking brings. Yeah, it's fun, but you can have that fun when you're older.

In terms of voting/military service, I think the voting age is fine. In my experience, most teenagers responsible and mature enough to vote in a smart and informed manner account for most teenagers who actually take the initiative to vote at all (There's a small contingent who vote because someone else told them to, but a few years isn't going to get them over that attitude). Aside from that idea, though, raising it would make things even more a pain in the ass for youths who really want to vote with the infrequency of major elections. As it stands, this year would be my first presidential election (At the age of twenty-four) if they raised it to 21. As it stands, I honestly think they should lower the voting age to sixteen (Same as with eighteen, the only ones who would bother would be the ones mature enough to handle it), maybe with a limitation like requiring a high school elective on politics.

The military service age, however, is fucked. Needs to be higher. Honestly, I think it should be 21 to enlist and 25 to be deployed. Give these kids that college education these pricks are promising before you ship them off to die in a fucking sandbox. Smarter soldiers means less fatalities. Pushing the deployment age back to 25 would also mean more emotional responsibility and accountability. If we send in only heavily trained and mature soldiiers, we'll have less instances of PTSD/shell shock which means less homeless and psychiatric treatment which saves the government money in the end. Yeah, I get that disposable soldiers are a nice cheap idea to begin with, but if more soldiers survive and come back well adjusted and EDUCATED, we've got more responsible voters and more potential essential services employees for jobs that need more people (Like police, firefighters, etc). These extra workers then have to buy more shit: houses, cars, produce, electronics. You know what happens then? YOU STIMULATE THE FUCKING ECONOMY! Seriously, people. The economic boom from World War II was not a fluke. When you have a sudden influx of people who need homes, food and machines, you develop the need for more builders, farmers and engineers which means more jobs and more money and more purchases. URGH! Now I've gone and pissed myself off. I blame this hostile fucking thread.

P.S.: Teachers do not deserve respect. People deserve respect. Teachers are people, so they earn that base level of respect that should be afforded to all. From there, any additional alloted respect is based upon the quality of a person, not what job they perform. Beyond that, a title is not a measure of respect, it is a measure of authority.

Edit for counterpoint to Joe:


--- Quote from: jhocking on 12 Mar 2008, 07:03 ---You obviously understand little about the economics of teaching. Teachers are paid very little, especially considering the amount of training they have to receive (well college professors anyway, maybe not middle school or something.) Certainly in my case if I didn't have a significant source of income in addition to teaching, there's no way I could afford this. And I'm not saying teachers expect to be paid more, but the simple fact is that people get into teaching for reasons outside of money. These people are consciously forgoing a significant chunk of income in order to better your life, and that deserves your respect.

--- End quote ---

As someone who wasted fourteen grand in an abandoned attempt to become a teacher (And has been reconsidering said abandonment while I still have time to), I empathize with what you're saying, but feel you're a bit off base. Not all teachers are in it for the sheer betterment of others. I've met more than my fair share who've done it for a laundry list of the wrong reasons: not being willing to let go of their youth, craving authority (And being aware subconsciously that being a teacher is a better way of getting that), etc. Even from there, you run into the issue of some teachers becoming just plain jaded and resentful towards the very youth they initially wanted to help. Despite all the jokes we all make regarding how old you are (Read: really, really old), you're young yet when it comes to teaching. Your ambitions are noble, but can you be sure that someday you won't just develop a hatred and resentment towards your students? Looking at things from your current perspective as, I'd assume, the young and cool teacher, would you feel you're afforded that same respect were you to eventually change and degenerate into a petty prick who's essentially only teaching because it's what you know?

0bsessions:
Oh man, I would. I fucking hate all ages shows. This stems from a large amount of hatred toward teenagers and a glaring resentfulness in the back of my head screaming "Yes, you were that much of a tit when you were their age too."

a pack of wolves:
I like them myself, the ones I've been to have had far more enthusiastic and appreciative crowds than the jaded old Leeds crowd with their arms staunchly folded against fun.

Back to the booze, I see where you're coming from tommy but to me it seems to be the wrong first step. It addresses the symptom and not the cause and what that generally leads to is the symptom being focussed on at the expense of addressing the underlying problem, so it just ends up popping up somewhere else as some other issue instead. Curtail the drinking and you end up with a greater abuse of other substances, or more violence, or twocking... whatever it might be. Besides, I'm always averse to any measure which curtails individual freedoms. Once you've reached the age of 18 I'd say it was your own business what you do with your body, not the state's. Not to say that what people choose to do is always well advised, like you and so many other people who grew up in the UK I've had my own problems with alcohol in my teens, but I don't think legislation is the answer to that.

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