Arguments in Favor of Drinking Age 21 Rebutted Series: Introduction

Hello everyone. I have decided to make my case against the unified drinking age of 21 in what is supposed to be the freest country in the world. I am about to work on a project in my video class and the theme is In My Opinion. I also have to have sponsors. I can name the following contenders for sponsors: Choose Responsibility, National Youth Rights Association, Coors Beer, Libertarian Party, International Police Chiefs Association, a few very very famous and beloved celebrities and public figures. I will rebut and debunk the horrible, disgraceful, false and embarrassing law that extorts states into enacting a legal drinking age of 21 with strict authoritarian enforcement under threat of losing 10% of transportation funds that the states themselves paid through taxes. I will argue against the highway funds “incentive” in one of my blogs in this series later on. I will also make non-rebuttal arguments and common-sense and well thought out alternatives and solution that does not infringe on popular sovereignty and people young and old’s ability to become more responsible. MADD which is abbreviation of Mothers Against Drunk Driving is the primary tyrannical, powerful and self-centered lobbying group with six-figure paid lobbyists. I will use my sponsors and friends to put twice to thrice more pressure than MADD on public officials and the courts to repeal and strike down the legal drinking age and hand the issue over to the parents! With Congress, I will intensly lobby Congress with the brave help of concerned citizens and allies to pass a law prohibiting conditional funding when it requires restricting individual behavior. Hopefully, bribing the states and people with their own money will be repealed entirely. History speaks for itself that prohibition did not work and the lessons of prohibition are not yet learned today.

Ron Paul Gains Momentum, Pawlenty leaves race and Rick Perry Throws Hat Into the Ring in 2012 Presidential Race

Ron Paul placed 2^nd in Iowa straw poll just less than 1%(<200) of votes behind Michele Bachmann with Tim Pawlenty placing in third. Rick Santorum and Herman Cain placed in 4^th & 5^th. Pawlenty left the race last week and Rick Perry entered just hours before Pawlenty’s withdraw from the presidential race. I say good riddance to Tim Pawlenty. I hope the same goes for all others. Texans actually prefer Ron Paul over Gov. Perry and despite media neglect, Ron Paul is gaining momentum and if this keeps up, Paul will eventually win the Republican nomination for presidency. The three major candidates as I see it now are Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry. Ron Paul actually did better this year than Mitt Romney did in 2007. Mitt Romney is starting to become a lost cause in the race and is being ignored more and more by the media and public every day. It’s likely that if Romney keeps being ignored like a lost cause, then Romney will drop out of the race like Tim Pawlenty, which would be awesome considering the fact that the last thing we need is a pretender like all of the major candidates in the race except for Ron Paul. There are other neglected candidates like former Gov. of New Mexico Gary Johnson. But I’d like to expose the “anti-establishment” candidate Michele Bachmann. Bachmann in the past has supported bailouts and reckless spending and neoconservative causes like Bush-Era foreign policy. Bachmann has improved since the Tea Party movement started and even wrote a bill to repeal Obamacare the same month after it was signed into law. The only candidate I can trust is Ron Paul because he has ALWAYS truly kept his word and is the most honest well known politician I have ever known. Smooth talking pretender politicians are the last thing we need. Debt is $14.5 trillion, the debt ceiling was raised and America’s credit rating was crapped down, despite what Obama claimed would happen should default happen. Printing of money devalued the dollar to the point of raising prices 22.5 times in the past century. TSA engages in molestation and degrading searches at airports which were unjustly upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit. WTF! Troops are being sent to fight in undeclared and unjust wars which are unconstitutional. About one third of the US military are 18-20 year olds who are treated like children but punished like adults in terms of alcohol and firearms other than rifles and shotguns. The US military’s favorite presidential candidate is Ron Paul due to the fact that Paul’s views on non-interventionalist foreign policy is very popular with the military of the US. Most US military personel are 2^nd amendment supporters and crusaders of the US constitution. The 2^nd amendment protects the individual right to keep and bear arms. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann fully support the 2^nd amendment but Ron Paul also supports the ninth and tenth amendments which limits the federal government to enumerated powers. Bottom line is Ron Paul is the only trusted candidate who can do the job right. For a running mate, I believe Gary Johnson is the best running mate Ron Paul can have. I hope to see the Ron Paul-Gary Johnson ticket win Republican nomination and defeat the Barack Obama-Joe Biden regime ticket next year so that America and the World will not have to end after 2012. This is the last chance for voting to actually work. I hope to see the other candidates drop out of the race and support Ron Paul, the strongest candidate against Obama!

Medical freedom and the Constitution

"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will be in as sorry a state as are the souls who live under tyranny"

 -Thomas Jefferson

Prohibition...goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded."- Abraham Lincoln

            What do the War on Drugs, 18^th amendment (prohibition of alcoholic beverages), Drinking age of 21(or any drinking age for that matter), and Obamacare and the individual mandate to purchase healthcare insurance or face financial and even criminal sanctions for civil disobedience of these laws have in common? They all restrict your constitutional right to control your own body and make medical and even non-medical decisions over your health so long as it does not come at the expense of someone’s life, liberty and property, including financial property. For anyone concerned about children the parents are responsible for their so called “minor” children and parents have a right to decide what medical care their children receive and what are children eat & drink unless the actions of the parent(s) are actually harming the child or will imminently harm the child. The following constitutional amendments protect our right to do with our bodies what we want to do:

 Fifth Amendment

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. ”

Eighth Amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

 Tenth Amendment

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Thirteenth Amendment

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Fourteenth Amendment

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

The 5^th and 14^th amendments require due process before life, liberty and property can be taken away. Prohibition strips you of your right to eat & drink as you please and your body is your ultimate priceless property. Without self-ownership, you have no identity and no life of your own. The right to life means not only the right to be alive and free from unwanted harm, but to pursue one’s life as he/she pleases even if the lifestyle the individual chooses is unpopular. Our creator has given us life and man cannot control the creator who is also Mother Nature.

          Another authoritarian approach to socialized healthcare is forced vaccinations. Massachusetts once had them under the Devil Patrick regime where children would be vaccinated against the will of the parents and the children themselves. That’s Stalinist totalitarianism there for you. Governor Rick Perry or should I call him Prick Perry of Texas currently seeking nomination for Republican candidacy for US president created an executive order forcing young school girls against the will of parents and children themselves. Prick Perry’s dictator decree was overruled by the legislator of course.

          Anti-Drug crowds would say that drugs and underage drinking are a public health issue and the authoritarians believe it is their right to regulate the health of people and develop healthy lifestyles throughout the land. This sounds like Obamacare ideology where government controls your health and healthcare through one size fits all and bureaucracy and there is no rational basis for forcing someone to abide by a certain lifestyle. Government justifies legal drinking age of 21 on the grounds of curbing drunk driving and alcohol abuse. The best way to deal with drunk driving is to go after drunk drivers, not social responsible drinkers under 21 because drunk driving and underage drinking are two different things. Using the legal drinking age of 21 to combat drunk driving is like putting Muslim-Americans in internment camps to combat terrorism. To combat terrorism, go after the terrorists or conspirators of terrorist attacks, not Muslim-Americans who have done nothing wrong. Imposing a legal drinking age against someone’s will is not the best way and certainly not the least restrictive way to solve the problem of drunk driving and is preemptive and presumes Mr. and Mrs. Twenty and under guilty and irresponsible because they COULD POTENTIALLY drive drunk and abuse alcohol. Even water can be abuse by drinking too much of it and you can even die from water intoxication and our civil liberties might as well be thrown into the grave in order to fight crime like in North Korea where people are parented by a tyrannical nanny-state regime where people suffer from famines due to extreme government regulation of agriculture. Government is a necessary evil that should only secure the blessings of life and liberty. The preamble of the constitution endorses this.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

General welfare does not mean individual welfare like entitlement programs and government funded projects. Domestic tranquility does not mean legislating the health of the people and assuming the role of the traditional parents. Using the state to interfere with the lifestyle choices of the people and the parents is an act of violence against the people. Our US troops have been fighting for our freedoms oversees and are getting killed and hundreds of under 21 year old troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and never had the chance to legally drink alcohol and buy handguns from FFL dealers. These troops were treated as children in terms of alcoholic beverages and handguns as well as carrying concealed firearms but punished as adults in war and were considered adults and responsible under criminal law. Treating someone as a child and punishing them as an adult violates the principle of justice that our founders established and it violates due process because if someone is considered an adult in a court of law and can be either charged as an adult for most or all violations of criminal law and/or be sued in court, that person is responsible to make adult decisions. Any decisions made on the behalf of the child are made by the parent or guardian. Brain development is a very complex study and everyone’s brain develops at different paces and does not magically develop fully at the age of 21 or any other fixed chronological age, so all efforts to use brain development to justify age based limits.

Why Using Science, Statistics and Studies to Justify Government Policies and Laws Is Disasterous

“Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: What one Christian does is his own responsibility; what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.” --Diary of Anne Frank, 22 May 1944.

            Throughout the history of civilization, politicians and special interests have often deceived the targeted public into supporting an agenda using manipulation of fear, propaganda, false or misinterpreted junk science, statistics and studies, and stereotypes of grouped people. Jews have been most notably targets of anti-Semitism throughout most of the 2^nd millennium, which lasted possibly since the crucification of Jesus Christ in 33 A.D. and some people claimed that Jews were responsible for Christ’s death and used fear-mongering tactics to rally people into supporting anti-semitism. The Nazi’s used junk science and fear to rally Germans into hatred of Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the Disabled and other “undesirables”.  Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s second in command as I call him, rallied the German people to boycott Jewish businesses and Nazi Germany enacted laws up to the late 1930’s making Jews second class citizens with no rights and completely at the mercy of the Nazi government, and the German people of “master” race agreed with Hitler, though mostly through fear and state terrorism. The Nazis forcibly relocated Jews into overcrowded, disgusting, and barricaded ghettos on grounds that they along with others considers by Nazis to be “undesirables”. Nazi propaganda claimed Jews were disease carrying parasites who needed to be walled up in order to protect the public from the alleged deadly diseases. The “final solution” came in 1942 when Nazis planned to deport Jews from ghettos to extermination camps where the Jews along with targeted groups were to be exterminated. Over 6 million Jews (2/3 of Jewish population in Europe.) as well as some other “undesirables” were killed by numerous methods of genocide by 1945, the end of World War II.

Governments have always been the no. 1 killers of all time because they have power and armies stronger than all the gangs and organized crime families combined, and usually the victims of genocide were disarmed through being tricked into giving up their right to keep and bear arms under condition that police will protect them. Usually non-compliant gun owners would be disarmed through force, forcing dependence in terms of safety and unable to protect themselves from outside harm. Most notably this happened in Rwanda in the mid 1990’s under the Hutu regime where their first step was to disarm the people and deceive them into thinking they don’t need to own firearms because the police would be able to protect them.  You can’t rely police to protect you from criminals in an emergency situation. In Washington DC, USA, each police officer would have to protect 17,000 people if police had the duty to protect individuals in a similar fashion as bodyguards. Is the government always right in deciding who needs what? Individuals and caregivers of disabled persons are best at deciding their needs. Government deciding what people’s needs are is a nanny state. Big Brother babysits the subjects of the government and is in control like a parent and dictator. An example of paternalistic societies comes from George Orwell’s famous novel 1984 in which Big Brother rules with an iron fist as an absolute dictator and guardian and is accountable to nobody but himself, therefore giving him the “authority” to do whatever he desires, including genocide of undesired persons and erosion of freedom. Winston Smith is a character who has his freedom stripped and is forced to accept that 2+2=5. This constitutes a dictatorship where government serves itself and people must obey the government without question or face bloody consequences. Under United States of America principles that our founding fathers laid out, government always serves the people. The US constitution’s first three words say “we the people”. It does not mean the majority but means the people, minority and majority alike. Majority rule leads to a disastrous result as there has never been in the history of civilization a democracy that has not committed suicide. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what to have for lunch. The sheep is defeated and eaten by the two wolves by two votes out of three. The majority could easily be used as a weapon for political and special interest agendas. When tragic events occur, emotion can run powerfully and to the extent that human freedom is injured. Most notably in American history, this happened after Pearl Harbor bombing of December 7, 1941 during World War II. Americans across the nation supported US military involvement in World War II at the drop of a hat. The US declared war on Japan within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In February of 1942, three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordering Americans of Japanese descent in pacific states in the western united states to be relocated to US internment camps. A young man named Fred Korematsu defied that unconstitutional order and was arrested for refusing to be interned. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to five years of exile from pacific states. In Korematsu v. United States, the US Supreme Court ruled that the internment order was constitutional by a 6-3 vote. Truthfully, it was unconstitutional on these grounds:

·        Congress has the power to suspend Habeas Corpus and the president simply can’t do this on his own. Abraham suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War just like a dictator would. Even in times of crisis, military dictatorship is never justifiable because it states congress has the power to suspend habeas corpus in times of extreme crisis. In no way is military dictatorship in America justifiable. By that I mean in terms of presidential powers.

·        Frank Murphy’s dissent: I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must, accordingly, be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment, and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

·        Robert Jackson’s dissent: A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period, a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes. Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here he is not law abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived. [...] [H]is crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, different than they, but only in that he was born of different racial stock. Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable. Even if all of one's antecedents had been convicted of treason, the Constitution forbids its penalties to be visited upon him. But here is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign. If Congress in peace-time legislation should enact such a criminal law, I should suppose this Court would refuse to enforce it.

The government could not prove Korematsu was unloyal to America. The US Supreme Court ruled the very same day unanimously in Ex Parte Endo that anyone loyal to America could not be interned. He was being punished along with more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans for something the Empire of Japan did at Pearl Harbor, which as Robert Jackson pointed out is unconstitutional to group punish people belonging to the group of a person who committed a crime and happened to be of a certain group. People cannot be punished because someone in their family committed a crime or treason.

            I’d like to point out the most oppressed group of citizens in America. America’s youth. Incarcerated felons have twice more rights than youth do. People can’t help being young and can’t be deterred from it as well. The role of parents in raising their children and instilling values in them has been slowly shifting towards centralized government control in the past more than a century, since as early as the late 19^th century to early 20^th century. Our founding fathers intended for children to be raised by parents, free from state interference except in cases where children are actually being abused in certain ways. Our founding fathers recognized children as human beings who needed guidance in life to become independent and function, contributing members of society. Children are not property of anybody but parents are simply mentors who do a better job at guiding children to the path of success and contribution to society. Children are society’s most vulnerable and should be treated with love, compassion and respect and this creates healthier and happier families. Limiting the freedoms of young Americans instead of education on responsibility and real world life skills damages their ability to be responsible for themselves and forces dependence on someone else, something the founding fathers feared would happen and feared that government would make the people dependent on them for support. Judging individuals by skills and abilities they have makes better employees and produce more responsible individuals financially and socially. Government can only create an ineffective one size fits all approach when it comes to trying to create a healthy society through centralized planning, something our founding fathers feared would happen. History has proven government has failed all attempts to create economic and social prosperity through spending and centralized planning. Government cannot effectively legislate good health because it uses one-size-fits all approaches to all of its issues. Even if government could try to legislate the health of the people individually, bureaucrats would be in charge of what care certain people should receive and puts the government in total control of what healthcare people should receive and makes government the master, contrary to what our founding fathers believed. Obamacare supports bureaucratic red tape healthcare and centralized planning that puts the government first. The patient comes first because they are being served. Socialized medicine is funded through borrowed and taxed money, often in high amounts. Healthcare is best left to individuals and free markets where competition and incentives for great quality prevail. Free enterprise is what made the United States the Freest country on Earth. FDR’s New Deal imposed burdensome regulations, wasteful spending and high taxes like in Marxist Communist countries like the former Soviet Union, North Korea and Cuba.

            Obama is a big spending corporatist, communist traitor to American values and principles this country was founded on in the late 18^th century. He is using the fear of higher interest rates if default on the debt were to prevail. The progressive-liberal media is promoting the socialist approach to debt issues and will use fear to get people to support their agendas. Extreme and dramatic spending cuts alone are the only way to solve the debt problem. Solving debt with debt makes no sense logically. Obama might invoke the 14^th amendment and abuse executive power. The debt ceiling was recently raised and no serious spending cuts will be made under this sad compromise.

            I also like to say that correlation is not the same as causation. Correlation can only suggest and speculate causation but cannot point out actual causation. Example would be ice cream sales and shark attacks being correlated. But, this is illogical and are associated with warm weather. Our founding fathers favored logic over correlation and stated that government’s only legitimate purpose is to protect the life, liberty and property of the people, popular or not. We don’t need to use science to justify making murder a capital crime. Murder is the deliberate taking of someone else’s life against the will of the victim being murdered. The only legitimate crimes are crimes of violence, against property and disturbing the peace and posing an imminent threat to the public. In order to protect the principles our founding fathers fought for, we must reject all attempts to justify science and statistics for making government laws and use logical reasons instead that protect liberty & justice for all.