To the Editor:
Drinking age? The solution is as simple as one word: graduated. If you are responsible enough to get your high school diploma, then you are responsible enough to drink. The issue with any law with an arbitrary age limit is that it ignores the fact that some people are responsible while others are not. Driving is a good example. We require education and testing and then have graduated licensing. Prove yourself to be irresponsible, and your privilege is reduced or revoked. The same should go for drinking. The college presidents have a point: If you are responsible enough to gain admission to my school, then you are responsible enough to drink.
It is time to tie personal responsibility to the privileges in our society with a PRL—Personal Responsibility License or Privilege Responsibility License. If you show yourself to be responsible—by staying in school, getting a GED, applying to college, enrolling in a trade or building a skill, or performing a public service like being an Eagle Scout or joining the Peace Corps, and in driving, drinking, or any adult privilege—then you maintain a full license. But show yourself to be irresponsible, reckless, ignorant, or just lacking common sense, and your privileges are reduced.
There should be graduated levels—novice, rookie, veteran—managed by the states via the driver’s license systems. When you get in trouble with the law—the rules of adult responsibility—you lose privileges. Imagine what a PRL can be applied to: drinking, driving, firearms, voting, credit, insurance, child support, job applications.
We might even reduce the number of dropouts and increase public service. OK, legislators, ACLU, NRA, AAA, ATF, many other special interest groups: Have at it. It will be interesting to see the arguments against Personal Responsibility Licensing—a graduated system of tying privileges to performance.
Michael Federico
ALUM ’79
