Quote Originally Posted by Sasquatch
First of all, trying to raise the age to fight in the military is idiotic. If one can vote, they can support what they vote for. The age to enlist is just fine like it is. By the way, you can't enlist when you're 17 unless you have permission from parents, so that argument is moot anyway.

I can see the logic in arguing that if people are old enough to be in the military, they're old enough to drink. However, you've also got to consider that serving in the military reflects a certain amount of honor and responsibility, a responsibility and maturity that quite frankly usually aren't present in the typical 18-year-old. So I can understand being legally able to drink if you ARE in the military, but there are even more arguments to be made against the legal drinking age bring brought down to 18 across the board.
That's ridiculous. Joining the military does not show either maturity or a sense of responsibility. Most younger people who join the military are high-shool drop outs who choose the military because they basically can't be bothered with what they find to be work. I'm not saying that training in an army isn't hard enough work, it's them. "You get to run about and shoot brown people! And, they pay for everything. Where's the work in that?" Maturity? If anything it's immaturity. Why would you want to join that, when the most exciting thing that could happen is your own or another's death?
And responsibility? The half of them are wasters who are trying to escape exactly that! Not everybody, I'm not saying that, but notice when you're at school and they want to talk about careers, the only guy who says they want to be in the army is the lazy, little thicko who just chose to cook crap and run about a field four times a week for his standard grades? The responsible, mature 18 year old doesn't join the army. He gets the good job he wants and a life. And besides, it's not just the young guys, it's a lot of people in the army. Because where's the maturity in learning to shoot people on order?
Timothy McVeigh was in the army. In fact, he was a decorated seargant. That proves that being in the army doesn't mean you are, or make you, a responsible person.