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I think 21 as legal age of majority should have been kept, reducing it to 18 for "you're an adult" was bad decision because at that age your bones are still not set (as the saying goes in my country). But the modern tendency to go to the other extreme and declare that people in their mid twenties are still not fully adult and can't be held responsible for any mistakes they make, because their brains are still developing, is rubbish.
18 year old does stupid and criminal shit? Okay, maybe give him a chance.
He's 24 and still doing stupid and criminal shit? Old enough to know better, throw the book at him.
I heard that one of the major problems with 21 was that 18-20 year old males are really really useful in war, and so drafting them was too useful to get rid of. And it seemed rather unfair to them that they don't have all the same rights as those of majority age. Perhaps they could get the rights but not the responsibilities? Perhaps 18-20 year olds should have the option of of opting out of selective service but then they lose the adulthood rights until 21?
Of course, the fact that the US still limits alcohol consumption to 21+ is another quirk. Then there's also the fact that 18 is likely not the lowest age at which males become really really useful in war; would 16 be more reasonable? What about 14? 10-year-olds have smaller fingers which could be really useful for some things in life-or-death situations involving machinery, and not to mention much lower calorie needs, and they could probably follow orders well enough...
Old enough to fight, but not old enough to have the alcohol/smoke part of your ration.
Why are Americans so insane about alcohol? In my country it's easy to buy beer at 16 years old.
Used to be even worse... the old Prohibition movement/amendment. Which honestly might be related: the legacy of some of the Baptist denominations/influence.
I thought the United States was a „free country?” Lol. I guess what that meant was no freedom for normal Europeans, but freedom for heretical cults who think alcohol is a sin to establish a tyranny, and freedom for the 3rd world to move in and loot, and of course freedom for progressives to establish a cultural tyranny.
Ideally, yes. Practically, as always, it's more complicated. In Europe, you can drink and smoke weed, but if you want to criticize the government policies, you go to jail. In America, you can criticize the government (unless Democrats are in power, of course) but in some places you can't smoke weed or buy hard alcohol outside specialized stores. Everybody has their own imperfections.
You can criticize the government in Europe, you just can't be racist in a few countries with too many Anglo-Saxons (that is, proto Americans).
You can be as racist as you want, as long as it's against people that the government disapproves of. The things that get you canned also include blaspheming against the transgender cult (and sometimes against other religions like Islam), and countries that, if the have any significant amount of Saxons, it's usually the non-Anglo kind.
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