It’s important to note what the Federal government did, and didn’t do, in regards to the drinking age. They didn’t raise the legal drinking age, the Federal government has no such power to to that. The 21st amendment leaves states free to set their own alcohol laws.
▪️What the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 did was to withhold 10% of a state’s highway funds (8% after 2012) if they didn’t prohibit those under 21 from “purchasing or publicly possessing alcoholic beverages.”
https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/the-1984-national-minimum-drinking-age-act
▪️Which basically bullied every state into writing such laws, although states still vary in their “drinking age” laws. Some states don’t prohibit minors from consuming alcohol in private or with family members, or in certain settings, others have a blanket ban and a real “drinking age” of 21.
▪️The layman might confuse these terms and concepts, but this was written by a distinguished lawyer, so he knows the difference (or should know).
▪️Interestingly, most states used to have a drinking age of 21. During the 1960’s with the push to lower voting to 18 (“old enough to fight, old enough to vote”) this changed. Since 18 was now considered an adult, this logically applied to other areas like cigarettes and alcohol, and states lowered the age.
▪️It’s interesting now that 21 is once again being used as the adult age in areas like cigarettes, alcohol, guns, but not for voting (or for the draft).
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
