Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Aug. 18, 1986, edition 1 / Page 32
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32The Tar HeelMonday, August 18, 1986 Drinking age discriminates Most students returning to UNC in the fall won't be able to drink alcohol on campus, and on Sept. 1. nearly 90 percent of UNC students won't be able to drink anywhere legally. Prohibition was revoked because of the government's inability to enforce it. If you can't prove to the majority that its actions are unhealthy and unwise, they have no tangible reason to stop except fear of prosecution. If that threat of enforcement isn't made very tangible, then people will continue to behave as they always have in spite of rules and regulations. The North Carolina General Assembly, in order to preserve the state's federal highway funds, has decided that it is possible to prohibit a small majority from enjoying a pleasure that the rest of the populace may still enjoy. That minority, those between ages 18 and 21, may be singled out for prohibition because they do not use their votes to influence the political process, and therefore present no threat to the elected officials creating this discriminatory legislation. Accidents will be substantially decreased by increasing the drinking age to 21, but by using that same logic, it is clear that alcohol-related accidents would be nearly eliminated if that age were hiked to 65. The voting populace would not stand for that, as has already been evidenced by Prohibition. It is therefore much easier to target the self-disenfranchised whose status as equal citizens is regarded with some doubt by lawmakers, in spite of constitutional protections. People over 18 have the right to vote, sign legal contracts, be drafted and control their own lives, but they are still xegarded as kids in need of governmental "protection" by their elders in the legislature. There are pitfalls to the law, especially in the Chapel Hill area. Nineteen- and 20-year-olds are not going to become completely abstinent overnight. Their access to alcohol will only be impeded slightly. They were able to drink while they were in high school by appropriating the ID's of older brothers and sisters or obtaining "fake ID's." Club owners uninterested in the spirit of the law need only see a picture with a date before September 1965, not minding if that ID has any relationship to the person presenting it. Twenty-one year-olds on campus will also be encouraged to procure alcohol for "minors" since fear of prosecution will be outweighed by the alternative being able to party with the 10 percent of those on campus who are legal. In Chapel Hill, the law may actually increase incidents of driving while impaired. Students once able to walk to Franklin Street will now have to drive or ride to off-campus parties where their ages won't be scrutinized. Students unable to procure beer will be able to obtain other drugs from sellers unregulated by the government. All campus parties will be eliminated on or near campus, but the resourceful students will find areas outside the city accessible only by car. There is one bright spot in the midst of so many negatives Aug. 30, the night before the law changes, will be the biggest party Chapel Hill and the state has seen since the 82 National Championship. Franklin Street will be shaken by its foundations as 20,000 students and an equal number of residents will converge on the street and party until the oppressive law comes into effect. Hopefully, the morning after the bash will bring hangovers so severe as to promote those under 21 to hop on the wagon until their 21st birthdays. ... U CrV S38SSS2S Tar Heel John deVille One of Chapel Hill's favorite bars, He's Not Here, will be deserted after the age changes UltjF Star Jo Fleischer, Jill Gerber co-editors John deVille photography editor Scott Greig city editor Tracy Hill news editor Eddy Landreth sports editor Michelle Tenhengel arts editor Staff Christopher Baroudi, Mike Berardino, Chip Beverung, Bonnie Bishop, James Burrus, Catherine Cowan, Ruth Davis, David Foster, Nancy Harrington, Bill Logan, Matt Long, Dwight Martin, Steve Matteson, Randall Patterson, Sally Pearsall, Wendy Stringfellow, Julia White and Katie White. Nudity here to stay but regulate 'gross stuff Last week, in a literary foray through a magazine rack, I came across the biography of a clothesless author. The woman seemed satisfied that she'd done her life justice with one page of fill-in-the-blanks. It was the first autobiography I'd ever read in which the author's photograph was more interesting than the text. It had taken her 22 years to develop a world philosophy she could divide under the two headings Turn-Ons" and "Turn-Off s." She was turned on by "romantic men" and turned off by "judgmental people." I judged all of her body and mind in under 30 seconds: In the first place, everyone is judgmental. Those who say they aren't are quixotic, vain or stupid. I made a judgment that day that will likely become conviction. The "bovinity" of the women in these photographs runs much deeper than their breasts. As fathomless as are their chests, so are their minds unfathoming. They are cow-brained. The oldest profession in the world is based upon the principle of the market economy. If you want, trade. Prostitution and pornography have always been and will always be. Where there's demand, there's supply. If circumstances enable Juanita's glandular progress to exceed her cerebral, then to deny her a livelihood in body-bartering is unfair to her and those who depend on her. It's another instance of attacking the symptom and not the disease. The disease is poverty and ignorance, conditions our president has only aggravated with his skewed budget-cutting. He doesn't like the ugly symptoms, though, and boldly confronts them with this holier-than-thou New Morality. And so we have the neuterers: Edwin Meese, Jerry Falwell and the anti-pornography movement. Pornography isn't going any where. We're sensual animals, and there's a demand. If pornography is outlawed or severely restricted, then just as with alcohol, abortion and prostitution, there will be an illegal supply not regulated at all. We truly aren't a very moral or ethical people, and we don't mind breaking a law to suit our needs. That's one way we let the government know what we Randall Patterson Staff Writer want. But what is the secret behind the longevity of the speed limit law, of the prohibition of marijuana, and of the nixing of oral sex? An unen forceable law is better no law at all. The government realizes that, or it begins to lose patriots. Naked bodies are here to stay, then. They're nice to look at, and sometimes it's nice to be one. Just as laws govern the clothed body, there should be laws to govern the naked. To govern but not to outlaw. No, I don't w ant Chapel Hill a nudist colony, and yes, if pictures of masochism, of excrement-playing and of sodomy "turn off Meese, well, we're together on that. So regulate the gross stuff. But when a publication that sneaks a gland in here or there becomes spine-curving pornography, then we should know we're becoming prigs again. That's the sign this enlightened age is dimming. The persistent conservatives are setting the tone of the time. We have for a leader a new Queen Victoria in Nancy Reagan, the substance behind the facade. She would have us think the answer to the question of the era is no, they do not. Sandra Day O'Connor, who long ago for sook her womanhood, and her tight lipped friends on the U.S. Supreme Court recently told Georgia to punish those naked bodies that don't play by the rules. If Georgia really tries to enforce that law, I don't know how they'll justify arresting the peeping Tom. You may think this movement to neuter America is God's great hand swooshing down to solve the pop ulation problem. Test-tubers aside, there's only one way to make babies, and that's the fun way. The virgin mother is at least an anomaly now. 1 think God, called or not, wants no part in this fracas. There are people who feel dirty out there, and rather than maintain their own moral hygiene, they're trying to clean the rest of us, too.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Aug. 18, 1986, edition 1
32
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