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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

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The law expects it to be 21 yo’s married to 20 yo’s. I mean technically speaking I could marry a 16 year old and get her drunk, but it’s not the median case(and IIRC married 16 year olds have smaller average age gaps in their relationships than married 20 year olds).

Oh, I meant "underage" in the drinking sense. I still think the idea that people can consent to marry, have kids, or kill for armed forces but are pretty questionable when it comes to beer is absolutely bizarre, which I guess that plays into how I find the spousal drinking laws amusing.

It seems like most people don’t expect serious enforcement of the drinking age, anyways. Honestly that’s kind of dumb; as Europe shows teenagers drinking isn’t that bad, but the American habit of ‘just not enforcing anything unless you’re annoying’ is probably a bad habit to get into.

The American reality is different than the European reality in that many places in the US you are easily mixing drinking with driving. Places like NYC are more relaxed since a 20 year old isn’t driving anywhere.

Drunk driving is about as dangerous whether the person behind the wheel is 16 or 21 or 30 or whatever.

Of course. I think the idea is a 30 year old would be less likely to drink and drive (who knows if true)

The US does expect serious enforcement of the drinking age, but a lot of people still haven't adjusted to that now-decades-old reality. You can get an adult criminal record for underaged drinking, and "party moms" can be and are jailed on felonies for providing the booze.