Daley appears drunk with outrage

Posted by Marc Hodak on August 20, 2008 under Irrationality | Read the First Comment

There may be some rational arguments for not lowering the drinking age below 21, but Mayor Richard Daley goes off on the proposal with none of them. His most coherent argument:

I’m sorry, you have enough time to drink the rest of your life. I believe in that.

Given the incoherence of the rest of his statement, that point is well taken. His other points sounded like this:

You pay an awful lot of money. You look at the salaries that people get at universities. You pay a lot of money. I’m sorry, they have a legal and moral responsibility when your child goes to [get] an education, what type of environment is set on that university…

And this response to maybe lowering the drinking age to 18:

I think that’s a bad message. I think they better really look at that. Because what, are they going to drop it down to 18 or 17 or 16? I mean, think of that.

…before he starts to sound like the stumbling frat rat holding up an empty plastic cup:

We should not be so whimsical that universities can think they drop the drinking age. You think the president of the university is going to open a beer hall in his house?

What I don’t get is the complete lack of irony with which this tirade was reported.