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August 15, 2007
Joined Up Thinking
There must be some previously unidentified strain of puritan prohibitionism running through the UK:
In an interview with Channel 4 News last night, Mr Fahy called for the legal drinking age to be raised to 21.
So, let's run through this shall we? Man is killed by drunken teenagers....those teenagers already being below the legal age to drink. The response of the Chief Constable of Cheshire is that the legal age of drinking should be raised.
Anyone else still grasping for the connection here?
August 15, 2007 in Idiotarians | Permalink
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Comments
It's not booze per se that killed him but rather a cowed population and a cretinous police force. Sounds like he bravely went out alone when, if things were right with the world, half the street would have turned out to stop the louts. But because people fear them, they don't turn up, further piling the risk upon those that dare do something.
And why the criticism of the police? Well, living where I do, I encounter a fair number of underage drunken teens (they like the primary school opposite for some reason - perhaps subconscious yearnings for the education they ignored) and they are a lot of things but subtle is not one of them. At the very least you could do them for littering as they like leaving the evidence all around themselves. However, the police in their wisdom feel that "moving them on" is the best policy. It never seems to occur to the boys in blue that those that drink in playgrounds seldom have better places to be.
And all these complaints from someone who doesn't have a problem with kids drinking, just how they go about it.
Posted by: Philip Thomas | Aug 15, 2007 9:22:09 AM
It's yet another example of the phuqued up mindset that seems to be prevalent in officialdom nowadays - That a problem is solved by passing a law/regulation. Issues of actual implementation, measurement and control are immaterial.
The sad thing is I can think of no other solution but the execution of the entire current politico-official class and their replacement by people who still possess a common sense gene.
Posted by: The Remittance Man | Aug 15, 2007 10:06:26 AM
...looking for the connection..?
it's obvious... Like many of those "politically-aware" members of ACPO, the Chief Constable of Cheshire is a complete f*ckwit!
Posted by: pogo | Aug 15, 2007 11:18:27 AM
"previously unidentified strain of puritan prohibitionism "
Eh? What do you mean "unidentified"? It's been like this since the time of Cromwell. From time to time, the miserable roundheads get into power. Then everyone realises why we didn't want them in power and throws them out, and the cycle begins anew.
Posted by: Kay Tie | Aug 15, 2007 11:23:55 AM
I think the connection is this - Police are so hamstrung by political correctness that they have few legitimate means of censoring the behviour of loutish teenagers, so being able to arrest them for being in the possesion of booze would help if (and it's a big if ) they actually respond to calls from the public even if they are perceived to be "trivial" in nature (no crime is "trivial" if you are the victim.
Many of us probably hung around making pains in the rses if ourselves at some point in our teenager years, but genuine criminal activity was rare, you didn't answer adults, and definetaley not the police back if they moved you on, and attacking people who complained about your behaviour was unheard of.
Even if we had zero youth crime I think the legal drinking age should be 21 anyway, would separate it from the legal driving by more than a year and would mean that kids of 15 who pass for 18 wouldn't get served so easily. Not sure what all those undergrads would do for three years though...
Posted by: Matt Munro | Aug 15, 2007 11:58:04 AM
"Not sure what all those undergrads would do for three years though..."
They'd get wasted like always and make a mockery of the whole law. America is very strange for having the 21 limit. You can smoke, drive, vote, fuck, shoot a gun, kill people in a war, but not settle down to a glass of wine in the evening. Personally, I lean towards lowering all the limits to 16, once we have a culture and education system that encourages responsibility and restraint.
Posted by: Philip Thomas | Aug 15, 2007 12:55:19 PM
"Even if we had zero youth crime I think the legal drinking age should be 21 anyway"
yay for arbitrarily taking away adults' rights. "I'm alright Jack", etc.
Posted by: john b | Aug 15, 2007 5:18:29 PM
(this idiocy has made me sufficiently annoyed to get off my arse and post something - here)
Posted by: john b | Aug 15, 2007 7:03:48 PM
This guy is a F*ckwit. Does he not realise that the 18 19 & 20 yr olds who now go to pubs and clubs would then become underage drinkers
on the streets.
Posted by: Rob | Aug 15, 2007 11:55:07 PM
There's no such thing as "adult rights" and no agreed definition of an adult. Contrary to popular opinion there is no absolute age of criminal responsibility and ages at which you can vote, drive, drink, marry, join the armed forces, etc etc vary between cultures so the notion of some absolute "adulthood" is cobblers, as is the idea that you have a "right" to drink, any more than I, as a smoker, have a "right" to smoke.
Posted by: Matt Munro | Aug 16, 2007 1:35:28 PM
