Hey, GOP, It's Time to Lower the Drinking Age

Alaska lawmaker Bob Lynn wants to lower the drinking age to 18 for active duty soldiers. “If you get shot at, you can have a shot,” he reasons. It's time to bring down our absurd drinking age as mandated in the 1984 Federal Uniform Drinking Act, argues Glenn Harlan Reynolds in the Wall Street Journal. “This is a battle that Republicans—and fair-minded Democrats—in Congress should join."

“Republicans are supposed to stand for limited government, freedom and federalism,” Reynolds argues, “but it was under a Republican administration that states were forced to raise their age limits.” His hope: Maybe today’s Tea Party-infused conservatives have the courage to take on the issue. “If arguments of fairness and principle aren’t enough, perhaps one based on politics will do the trick: This will get votes.” Suddenly, Democrats won't be able to win the youth vote by "portraying Republicans as fuddy-duddies who want to hold young people down." (More drinking age stories.)