Dr. Ron Blog 2 - Persuasion

In the article, College presidents want to lower drinking age (CNN.com), it states that the age limit for college-age students should be legal to prevent binge-drinking. I personally have mixed feelings about this statement. If students were able to drink at the age of 18 then there would be an issue involving drinking and driving through high school and younger students. The article 900 lives saved yearly by keeping the drinking age at 21 (livescience.com) explains why the drinking age should stay. They believe that there should be more restrictions towards the 21 age drinking limit.

The audiences that these articles are targeting are college-age students and up (which is 17+). The issue in each article is opposite yet the same. Some people vote yes for decreasing the age in drinking and others vote no for decreasing the age in drinking. I am someone who is undecided. I see both arguments validly. It is hard to decide to change it or keep it the same. I understand if you lower the drinking rate then hopefully a parent will help you learn to drink responsibly, but not all parents are helpful.

Moving on, there are a few things I liked about both articles. Them main idea I like is that they see each others point of view in a productive way. They may not agree on many things but they do understand the others argument. CNN.com states, “more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related to drinking” and then they continue, “1,700 die in such accidents”. This is a huge issue. Later in the article CNN states that they believe the numbers would go down in the drinking age goes down because the students would already be exposed to alcohol and would not make such a big deal out of it. They will be in their parents care (hopefully) so they would have more rules and be use to it. After reading about CNN's argument of lowering the age limit I then read about keeping it the same from livescience.com. Livescience.com states, “since 2006 there are lower rates of drunk-driving deaths” and then they continue stating “the age 21 laws have saved up to 900 lives yearly on the road”. Lastly livescience.com says, “teen drinking and driving rates have dropped by 54 percent over the last two decades”. All of these statements and comments are great and understandable, but CNN.com made some valued points as well.

In the end each argument does serve the public in a positive way. I understand that the law will most likely not be changed in any way, but I like how it keeps coming up and gives people something to talk about.

Cited Work:

Commentary: Drinking age of 21 doesn't work. (2009, September 16). Retrieved September 29, 2014. Gholipour, B. (2014, February 24). 900 lives saved yearly by keeping the drinking age at 21. Retrieved September 29, 2014.