The Dumbest Thing Is Continuing Prohibition -- Just For A Certain Age Group
As I and other grumble, you can go die for your country at 18, yet in some states, you can't legally drink a beer.
What we can't have, we always want more -- and this is likely so many on campuses drink like they'll never get a drink again.
I credit my parents -- especially my dad -- for my moderate drinking. I think I once accidentally got drunk at college (because somebody's frozen drinks were tasty), but it really didn't have a lot of interest for me.
Well, now, as a side-effect of our dumb drinking laws, a bunch of students are in trouble after the fake IDs they ordered from China went to the college dean instead of a student named "Dean." (Sounds like they also share a last name.)
From Philly.com, Mari A. Schaefer writes:
The incident came to light when the unidentified dean opened a package from Guangzhou, China, that contained a small lime-green picture frame. Further examination discovered eight realistic - but fraudulent - identification cards made for four 18-year-old male students inside the back cover. The dean contacted authorities.The false identification cards, looking very much like official documents from Maryland and Connecticut, were to be used to get into bars, said Lt. Christopher Flanagan of Radnor police.
Police are not identifying the students or the university, Flanagan said. Villanova University, Cabrini College, Eastern University, and Valley Forge Military Academy and College are all in the township.
"It's more than underage drinking," Flanagan said.
Similar high-quality identification cards have been used in other crimes, including credit card or check fraud, and forgery. Flanagan said such documents can also be used to fill out credit card applications, as identification in scams on the elderly, and occasionally in terroristic crimes.
Oh, please.
They can also be used to pick your teeth or scrape your windshield, but I'm guessing students just want to be a little less impeded in getting a keg or a six-pack.
More from the story:
The students have been offered counseling, and they could face sanctions for violating school codes, Flanagan said.
Counseling? What a crapload.
Here's counseling: Next time you order a fake ID, suss out whether you're buying it from a total dipshit who's too cheap and stupid to get an off-campus mailbox.
via @adamkissel
Deny, deny, deny.
Claim whomever it was that ordered them set you up by having the fake IDs deliberately sent to the dean and you had nothing to do with it
lujlp at February 23, 2015 11:16 PM
Smart. Paying in cash and not Paypal would have been smart, too.
Amy Alkon at February 24, 2015 5:22 AM
I am surprised you haven't called this out for another reason.
How did Bank of America give your money up, again?
How do you tell the TSA inspector who you are?
If you can use a fake ID, you can engage in ID theft.
Not just about drinking.
It might be useful to address the entire "age of majority" idea, especially since this blog contains so much about helicopter parenting.
Radwaste at February 24, 2015 6:01 AM
Anyone care to wager if those fake IDs would have gotten a person past the TSA grope point?
I R A Darth Aggie at February 24, 2015 6:25 AM
Steve Chapman points out the perils of a lower drinking age in Reason:
http://reason.com/archives/2008/08/21/the-perils-of-a-lower-drinking
Excerpts:
Since 1988, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drunk-driving deaths have dropped in all age groups. That's due in part to stricter enforcement and changing public attitudes about drinking and driving. But they dropped most among those younger than 21. In that group, the number of alcohol-related fatalities has been cut nearly in half—even as the number of non-alcohol-related traffic deaths has been stable."
AND
There are other arguments for lowering the age. Maybe the most popular is that if you're old enough to join the Army and die for your country, you're old enough to buy a beer. But there is a good reason to avoid such blind consistency. Among the qualities that make 18-year-olds such good soldiers are their fearlessness and sense of immortality—traits that do not mix well with alcohol.
Besides, we don't have a single age threshold for adulthood. We give driver's licenses to 16-year-olds, but a 20-year-old Marine returning from Iraq will find he may not buy a handgun or gamble in a casino. Why permit 18-year-olds to vote but not drink? Because they have not shown a disproportionate tendency to abuse the franchise, to the peril of innocent bystanders.
Another reason is that extending the vote to 18-year-olds doesn't let even younger people gain illicit access to the polls. But if high-school seniors could legally patronize a liquor store, sophomores would find it much easier to get party fuel. Raising the drinking age to 21 reduced alcohol-related traffic fatalities not only among 18-year-olds, who lost the right to drink, but 16-year-olds, who never had it.
Conan the Grammarian at February 24, 2015 8:26 AM
(1) This is what happens to a plan when you don't think through everything that can go wrong.
(2) I wrote yesterday that there were fewer drinking problems on campus when the drinking age was lower. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Cousin Dave at February 24, 2015 8:48 AM
Really? Dean?
And somehow the campus mail system sent a package that was presumably addressed to a student's dorm room to the administration building instead?
This college has got more problems than students ordering fake IDs.
Conan the Grammarian at February 24, 2015 9:01 AM
☑ Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at February 24, 2015 8:26 AM
For a long time it's seemed like America's vague and often-hypocritical approach to youth drinking was actually a good and thoughtful approach to an individual acceptance of responsibility too variant for standardization.
And as with rape, I think concentrating on campuses in consideration of this problem is smug and backhanded.
And on-campus or off-, I think a lot if not most youthful problems with alcohol are about the terrors of sex, not the allure of inebriation.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at February 24, 2015 1:36 PM
Why permit 18-year-olds to vote but not drink? Because they have not shown a disproportionate tendency to abuse the franchise, to the peril of innocent bystanders.
65 yrs and up have, as well as welfare recipients do, should we take away their franchise
lujlp at February 24, 2015 3:57 PM
Why does everyone think the "old enough to die for his country" consistency is brilliant? These things are unrelated. Eighteen year old brains react differently to alcohol than 21 year old brains. Alcohol alters judgment disproportionately in younger people. Even the U.S. military has flipped on letting soldiers under 21 drink in places where it's legal because the arrests were out of control.
Also, people who enlist in the military are signing up for a job that (in some cases) is dangerous but also is trained under rigid supervision. They are carefully taught judgment and specific rules in relation to that job, for which they must qualify. No one is simply telling them to jump out of a plane and make smart choices.
Insufficient Poison at February 24, 2015 8:45 PM
Insufficient: Check your claims about alcohol and teenagers against those countries where it's normal for much younger kids to drink - apparently with much less of the problems that occur when young people start drinking after legal adulthood.
markm at February 26, 2015 11:46 AM
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