May 30, 2001

11:01 AM

World's Most Likely Person To Get Caught Buying Booze Underage Gets Caught Once More Trying To Buy Booze. Can't she at least get the Secret Service to go to the liquor store?
posted by holgate (62 comments total)

No, because the Secret Service agents assigned to her are all selected on the basis of how underage they look ...

(Not really, but they tend to wear appropriate blend-in hair & clothing.)

Sir, you with the earpiece. Yes, you. ID please?
posted by dhartung at 10:19 AM on May 31, 2001

Cute, not too bright, newly moved away from home, feels competitive with her sister for her daddy's attention, a heavy drinker.....

Ahem.

Get up!
(git on up)
Get up!
(git on up)
Stay on the scene...
(git on up)

I'd finish my thoughts, but I fear the Secret Service.
posted by dong_resin at 10:23 AM on May 31, 2001

I honestly don't see what the big media frenzy over this is about.

She is a 19-year-old. 19-year-olds often purchase alcohol for others. Oh... wait, she's a First Daughter! Guess what? I still don't see the big deal.

I didn't vote for a First Daughter. I voted for a President, and everyone in America who voted did the same. The most that stories such as this one do is give people the chance to rumormonger, or proclaim their superiority to someone in the Bush family. Thus, it's a feeble exercise.
posted by hijinx at 10:27 AM on May 31, 2001

I am superior to someone in the Bush family. Watch me monger my rumors.
posted by OneBallJay at 10:36 AM on May 31, 2001

It's true that most everyone drinks underage, but it's been my experience that it's usually the stupid ones who get caught. And she got caught twice in the past month. Further evidence that idiocy is genetic...
posted by gnutron at 10:47 AM on May 31, 2001

Amen, gnutron.

"In case you get all your political news from the Rush Limbaugh show and other right-wing radio, and you hadn't really heard about Jenna Bush's arrest, that's because her incident is very, very different from Al Gore's son getting a speeding ticket or being rumored to have been disciplined for drugs at school, or Chelsea Clinton being (wrongly) rumored to have been seen smoking at a public restaurant.

Those subjects were worthy of lengthy on-air discussion because they demonstrated the Inherent Hypocrisy and Disregard for The Rule of Law that All Democrats Exhibit. Jenna Bush, on the other hand, falls under the category of Private Family Matters."

–Richard Connelly, Houston Press, 5/24/01
posted by mac at 10:53 AM on May 31, 2001

What this girl needs is a good fake ID and a baseball cap.

Regardless, they should leave her the heck alone. We didn't get the gory details when Chelsea was having her whitebread boyfriend over to the dorm for humid late nights; why the play-by-play on young Jenna's current Long Island Iced Tea count? Let he who has never stolen a surreptitious nip cast the first shotglass, otherwise we should let the poor girl have a bottle of suds in peace.
posted by UncleFes at 10:57 AM on May 31, 2001

if this was chelsea doing the EXACT same thing those "moral" republicans would already be calling for subpoenas and congressional investigations etc of this matter.
posted by saralovering at 10:58 AM on May 31, 2001

Yes, a lot of underage kids drink. Of course, not all of those kids come from a household where the father had an alochol problem and was at one time busted for drunk driving and elected to hide that fact from his daughters rather than use it to teach them a lesson regarding alcohol abuse.

Thus I would say that Jenna's behavior is meaningful in the sense that it can be considered a reflection of how George W. Bush weilds his authority and chooses to address social problems, which is relevent to his being the President.


Okay, okay... so mostly it is "rumormongering," but I would assert it's not any more or less relevant than what our former President did with weed in the sixties or with Monica in private.
posted by drywall at 10:59 AM on May 31, 2001

...but I would assert it's not any more or less relevant than what our former President did with weed in the sixties or with Monica in private.

Your examples are things that Bill Clinton himself did, and not Chelsea - so that's an unfair comparison. I'm really curious of how you extrapolate Jenna's actions as reflective of Bush's societal policies!
posted by hijinx at 11:02 AM on May 31, 2001

Regardless, they should leave her the heck alone.

Well, maybe they--the media--should leave her alone, but as long as we're idly wishing, how about some world peace?

The President of the USA pretty much understands--or had better, quick--that he surrenders anything remotely close to privacy as a normal family thinks about it. Jenna can't figure this out? She couldn't have a quiet drink in someone's apartment? It's just dumb, dumb, dumb, and to imagine that the press wouldn't jump all over it is pure disingenuousness.

Chelsea hardly got a free pass from the media. She could probably have some interesting conversations with the likes of Ron Reagan Jr., Patty Davis, and Amy Carter about such things.
posted by Skot at 11:06 AM on May 31, 2001

If my parents were that faith-based, I imagine I'd drink too.
posted by dong_resin at 11:08 AM on May 31, 2001

hey, why doesn't she just come to the UK (a la bill Clinton) to have a drink, we can do it at 18 here. Seriously it was the wirdest thing going to the USA and forcefully restaining myself from doing something that is really rather natural to me (as a UK student :-] ). Apart from that I fully support the stuff up above, leave the girl alone, but try and help her to take not that excess is bad.
posted by nedrichards at 11:22 AM on May 31, 2001

Well, she is awfully cute.
posted by spilon at 11:36 AM on May 31, 2001

I'm really curious of how you extrapolate Jenna's actions as reflective of Bush's societal policies!

President Bush refuses to allow the release of a report on adolescent risk-taking done by the surgeon general's office due to the fact that he emphasizes not conversation (which the report supposedly advocates) but top-down rule making.

This neatly parallels Bush's decision to avoid conversation and hide his drinking problems (and ensuing legal problems) from his daughters, and then become "very unhappy" with them for threatening to follow in his footsteps.

Of course, I can't prove that his being open about his troubles would have prevented Jenna from getting into trouble like this. However, the psychiatrist interviewed by Salon (I linked to it - you appear not to heave read it) seems to think it would have made a dramatic impact. I am willing to admit psychiatry is a very inexact "science," but you ask for a tie between the two, and this is the thing that comes off the top of my head.
posted by drywall at 11:44 AM on May 31, 2001

The alcohol-related legal troubles of the First Daughter are newsworthy. America loves ne'er-do-well blood relatives of the president. Ask Roger Clinton.

As an aside, one of the Freepers has assembled a photo gallery of the Bush daughters. Does anyone else think the animated GIF looks like a depraved act is taking place?
posted by rcade at 12:15 PM on May 31, 2001

This is what happens when you let Dick Cheney run your family.
posted by tranquileye at 2:52 PM on May 31, 2001

A friend in Austin says that the Mexican place where the Bush twins were caught is staffed by the kind of people just itching to call 911: the boho lefties that make the city an oasis of charm in Texas ;) Also, it was out of term time, so they just drew even more attention to themselves...

A couple of thoughts: we've already talked about how the old 55mph speed limit and the 21 drinking age are alike in their futile purpose, which is to restrict behaviour which is blatantly not a social menace; in fact, as the BBC's man in Washington pointed out, the problem of student DUIs has plenty to do with the criminalisation of teenage drinking.

Given that most of the people who make the laws had the chance to drink (and etc.) when 18, and to put binge drinking behind them with their teenage years (or, in the case of GWB, at the age of 40), it's rank hypocrisy for them to regard it as some kind of moral safeguard.

But Jenna was pretty stupid, yeah? It's not as if All Of Austin (and the bits of New Haven not stalking Claire Danes) weren't keeping half an eye open for a pissed-up Bush twin.
posted by holgate at 3:04 PM on May 31, 2001

spilon, you bring up a good point- er... i mean.. umm.. yeah.. anyway...

regardless of whether or not the media should leave her alone, doesn't she have enough common sense to learn from when she got caught before? sure, it's just a drink or two (or three or twelve, as has been the case with her.), but she usually looks like a damn fool to the country the next day.

"dude, doesn't that bother you?"
posted by lotsofno at 3:04 PM on May 31, 2001

I worked in restaurants for years. We never called the cops on underage guests trying to but alcohol. We either refused them or asked them to leave.
Call the cops? I've never heard of it done anywhere else.
posted by keithl at 3:21 PM on May 31, 2001

Re: Jenna Bush's assigned Secret Service agents: (Not really, but they tend to wear appropriate blend-in hair & clothing.)

Right. Wearing Hawaiian shirts, waiting outside in shiny black Ford Explorers. Yeah, that's blending. All the kids are wearing the funky island duds, man.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:44 PM on May 31, 2001

Listen every unit of energy spent on silly stupidity is less energy spent on monitoring "W" on real issues.
posted by ParisParamus at 4:46 PM on May 31, 2001

Sweepstake on when "real issues" drive GWB back to the bottle, anyone?

(Not that I regard this as problematic, given that plenty of British PMs have been alcoholics, including Churchill.)
posted by holgate at 4:58 PM on May 31, 2001

You really think he's that invested in the outcome of his decisions, holgate?

Besides, 20 bucks says he's hammered right now.
posted by dong_resin at 7:28 PM on May 31, 2001

America loves ne'er-do-well blood relatives of the president. Ask Roger Clinton.

Ask Jimmy Carter. Anyone here remember "Billy Beer?"
posted by Tholian at 9:27 PM on May 31, 2001

Dude, my name is "Dong Resin".
You're looking for "Chris Matthews".
posted by dong_resin at 3:24 AM on June 1, 2001

From the comments on the Freeper's photo gallery (from rcade, above):

"Jenna's face is the more aristocratic of the two."

Yesssssss.
posted by dfowler at 6:49 AM on June 1, 2001

Seems like "family values".

The irony is that Gov. Bush put the stricter laws into effect and the stiffer penalties.
posted by vanderwal at 8:27 AM on June 1, 2001

The raw intellectual brilliance of political discourse here never ceases to amaze.

Singling out the dumbest comment in the thread to characterize the behavior of the entire community doesn't exactly do your argument any service, aaron.
posted by Skot at 8:40 AM on June 1, 2001

The raw inability to note an entirely non-serious remark doesn't help either.
posted by dong_resin at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2001

The raw inability to note an entirely non-serious remark doesn't help either.
posted by dong_resin at 8:46 AM on June 1, 2001

vanderwal: Just for the record, Bush more or less had to put that law into effect, or the federal government would have cut off the state's highway funding. This is how the federal government enforced the 21 drinking age in the first place, via highway incentives, or to use the more colloquial term, blackmail. If you want to slam Dubya in some way, though, you can note that it was Reagan who pressed for the 21 change, and that he had the support of many traditional values conservatives now on Bush's staff.

Still, it was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers that, I believe, was more behind the drinking age change than anyone else. Someone else mentioned that DUIs have increased for the under 21 crowd since? Well, sure, police started cracking down on DUIs everywhere in the late '80s, not long after the age change. But no one's said whether there were more 18-21 year olds drinking and driving before, or after, and I doubt anyone knows with any accuracy. Binge drinking may be higher than it was in the early '90s, but maybe not the mid-1980s. I have no idea. But there would be fewer instances of DUI today, regardless, I'd guess.

This is all well and good. The problem is, American 18-21 year olds are still going to want to drink, and more so than the general population. Meantime, we've developed a culture over time that forces people to drive pretty much everywhere. And 18-21 year old people generally drive crazier in the first place. What to do you do? Start teaching about drinking earlier, allow it? Encourage alternative transportation? (God forbid that MADD should think of that.) Allow drinking with 18-24 year olds, but limit the amount they can drink? Give up?
posted by raysmj at 10:28 AM on June 1, 2001

hmmmm, could the media really be liberally biased ???? I don't remember these stories being told on msnbc or cnn.com back in the 90's...

Chelsea 1
Chelsea 2
Chelsea 3

Just like some of the posters are saying above, this is not the person we elected, she did some stupid things but I can almost guarantee you that some of you did some stupid things when you were younger. Just never had it posted on MeFi or the news. What she did was stupid. You'd think she'd have a little more self control being in the public eye the way she is. But it's funny how it's plastered all over the news, every news channel, but all these accusations of the golden child Chelsea and Gore's kids and nothing is said. Hmmmm, liberal media bias? You make the decision.

Actually until I found these posts I had thought that Chelsea did nothing wrong, and again, she was a teenager, everybody does stupid things at that age, it's just amazing how it wasn't reported.
posted by the_0ne at 10:32 AM on June 1, 2001

the-One: The Gore kids stuff I heard about, although not until later, 'cept for one case. They were the Veeps kids. The crazed driving thing with the son (and the charges against him) I heard about immediately,nand during the campaign. The latter were well-publicized.

Clelsea went out drinking, and she's 21. That's called legal. Her dad's not president anymore either, but she was doing a perfectly legal thing, if indeed she was drinking heavily.
posted by raysmj at 10:42 AM on June 1, 2001

Hey, the_One, where have you been? Lots has been said about the Gore kids and especially about Chelsea. Some of it warranted, but much of it just cruel and vitriolic. For example, Rush saying on his TV show that "the Clintons have a new family dog" and holding up a photo of Chelsea. That's just plain evil.

(As Letterman said to Rush sometime later, "And of course you can make comments like that, because you're such a fine-looking specimen yourself.")

But naturally all of this is off the point. It isn't what gets reported, but how it's spinned.

As I quoted from Richard Connelly above, the alleged acts of Chelsea and the Gore kids demonstrate the flaws and hypocrisy of all Democrats. Jenna Bush's documentable arrests are private family matters.
posted by mac at 10:46 AM on June 1, 2001

oops - I meant "spun". (!)
posted by mac at 10:51 AM on June 1, 2001

the-One: The citation for the then 16-year-old Gore daughter on possession of beer would also not have been easy for the press to report all that quickly. Juvenile records are not made public. In other words, the press is free to report the name of anyone arrested who is over the age of 18, but only over the age of 18. Papers almost never print the names of minors in police news in any case, unless the person is to be tried as an adult in a major criminal case. To do otherwise would be unethical.
posted by raysmj at 10:51 AM on June 1, 2001

Top sources, the_One: verbatim posts to message boards with verbatim reports from supermarket tabloids.

Trouble is, the 21 drinking age diverts attention from the prevalence of DUIs, because you can just say "well, they shouldn't be drinking in the first place." Which is short-sighted, because one of the main reasons college students drink and drive is because they have to drink surreptitiously.

What do you do? Follow the example of British universities, perhaps, and have college-owned, college-run, members-only bars, with security to make sure things don't get out of hand, and a minibus service between campus and the dorms. Yeah, it's not as "cool" as a keg party, but it'd do the trick. Not that any US college would be brave enough to implement it, alas.
posted by holgate at 10:54 AM on June 1, 2001

raysmj and mac:

You really believe that the Chelsea story was big news?

Like holgate said ...
Top sources, the_One: verbatim posts to message boards with verbatim reports from supermarket tabloids.

If the Chelsea story was as large as you're saying and "Where was I when these stories were happening." then I wouldn't have had to find out these things from supermarket tabloids.

I'll see what you say when Jenna is 21, near the end of her's father's (first) term and then let's see if these are still stories of her partying unlike golden girl Chelsie.
posted by the_0ne at 11:16 AM on June 1, 2001

holgate:

Top sources, the_One: verbatim posts to message boards with verbatim reports from supermarket tabloids.

It's funny you mention that holgate, how you don't have to go any further than msnbc or cnn or foxnews when it comes to Bush's daughter, but we have to find out things about the liberals from "supermarket tabloids".

ie., Clinton's so-called sex scandal on Drudge and Jesse Jackson's love-child from the Nationial Enquirer.
posted by the_0ne at 11:19 AM on June 1, 2001

the-One: Chelsea's story was not big news, and no one here said so but you, you total troll. Also, she was 21 and her dad wasn't even freakin' president during Spring Break 2001, she wasn't arrested for anything illegal or even arrested at all, so what the hell is your point with the end-of-term-for-Bush business?
posted by raysmj at 12:05 PM on June 1, 2001

the_One: Not that there is any evidence that Chelsea was doing any heavy drinking in the first place. Bah to you.

holgate: There are college-owned bars in the U.S. Many universities allow legal drinking of some sort on campus (still lots of college students at 21-24) in order to keep things safe. Not sure, but I believe the latter practice has increased in recent years. The problem with bars is one of liability. There would be massive insurance hikes on campuses that try such things. Fraternities, for the record, started closing off their parties to outside traffic in the mid-'80s in most parts of the country. Why? Increased insurance liability. The drinking age and stepped-up DUI enforcement reinforced a trend that had already started.
posted by raysmj at 12:15 PM on June 1, 2001

I think his or her point is that, if he or she doesn't spontaneously combust before then, he or she will come back to Metafilter to see how we react if/when a 21-year-old Jenna Bush is thrown in the drunk tank. Sounds good to me, one, I look forward to that discussion.

BTW, good pickup on Clinton's "so-called sex scandal." Gee, hadn't heard about that one. Guess those liberals hushed that one up good, eh trollio?
posted by rodii at 12:21 PM on June 1, 2001

raysmj:

Damn, how can you say I'm a troll? I've been on MeFi, and pretty active for as many hours as I work, for many months now. I've seen many posts by you. Why the personal attack? I thought MeFi was for posting your opinions? You have plenty of shit opinions yourself, so am I to consider you are also a troll?

I joined MeFi when there were around 3000 members, how can that make me a troll? Just because my opinion differs from yours that make me troll-bait. I've even had a few people I work with sign up and they are lot less conservative than me so we have these conversations also.

Fuck you raysmj, I'll post whatever the fuck I want.

And you said it in your post the point I'm trying to make is that nothing was made out of some of the problem that Chelsea has had but God forbid the Bush's do anything wrong, it makes all the news channels. That was it. It certainly didn't deserve your last response, I've said harsher on MeFi before.

Sorry for the language MeFi people, but I thought MeFi was for all opinions, not just the opinions that raysmj and rodii agree with.
posted by the_0ne at 12:52 PM on June 1, 2001

BTW, good pickup on Clinton's "so-called sex scandal." Gee, hadn't heard about that one. Guess those liberals hushed that one up good, eh trollio?

rodii: you must be an idiot, if Drudge wouldn't have brought that information out to the public, you know it would have never come out. Newsweek was sitting on that story for months until Drudge brought it out. So, in a sense you're remark was right, it would have been hushed up also if not for the Drudge site.
posted by the_0ne at 12:55 PM on June 1, 2001

the_One: Not that there is any evidence that Chelsea was doing any heavy drinking in the first place. Bah to you.

raysmj: I never said she did do anything illegal, the point I'm trying to make is if she did you have not seen it making front page news. I even said in one of my posts that I haven't heard anything even on the conservative sites that she's done any wrong, but even if she did, I don't believe it would have been made public. Except of course for what holgate said, in the tabloids. Definitely not worth of msnbc and cnn.
posted by the_0ne at 12:58 PM on June 1, 2001

One of points that hasn't been made here is that Chelsea was quite young when Clinton began his presidency, possibly around 13 years old. I may be hopelessly naive but I imagine that the press has more scruples about reporting gossip about a 13 year old than about reporting the same about a 18 year old. By the end of the Clinton's terms Chelsea was an adult but it's possible that the press had been conditioned to respect her privacy somewhat by then.

This story is really none of our business but you have to admit that the thought of twin daughters of the president wandering into a resturant dragging secret service droids and attempting to use someone else's license to buy liquor is pretty funny.
posted by rdr at 2:28 PM on June 1, 2001

raysmj -- Both items I noted, family-values and Bush signing the law that made it tougher on his daughter are things called irony.

This runs along the line of the stereotype that preachers kids are the wild ones. I agree that people in college drink, but using a fake id after getting busted on alcohol charges a few weeks prior is stupid and arrogant.

I do have problems with Bush, mostly he ran toward the middle then dove hard right. I have very little trust in the man's word.
posted by vanderwal at 2:31 PM on June 1, 2001

vanderwal: I was just pointing out that he had no choice other than to sign the law, which makes the whole analogy unfair. Not a big Bush fan either, but fair's fair.
posted by raysmj at 2:33 PM on June 1, 2001

This story is really none of our business but you have to admit that the thought of twin daughters of the president wandering into a resturant dragging secret service droids and attempting to use someone else's license to buy liquor is pretty funny.

Pretty funny is right. I mean could she be more obvious? I agree wholeheartedly that it was a dumb thing to do and you would think she'd have more sense than to do these things. So, we'll have to wait until the next installment of the saga.
posted by the_0ne at 2:46 PM on June 1, 2001

So, we're generally agreed that the 21 drinking age is fairly silly, causing more problems than it solves. So, why isn't there a vocal lobby across the US? Because students get by on surreptitious trips to the liquor store, or by drinking in restaurants that don't card you at the door? How many fraternity initiation deaths does it take to suggest that the War On Teenage Drinking was lost before the battle even began?

rdr: from 92 onwards, the press were full of stories on "will Chelsea blossom in the White House?" and discussions on the First Daughter's pimples. And I think it was far worse for the right-wing screedmeisters to make an eight year joke on her looks, than for people to point out that Jenna Bush ought to be a little more discreet when she wants a beer. I edited my college's scandal-sheet for a couple of years, and the golden rule was that we took the piss out of people for what they did, not for who they were. Same principle applies here.

It would be nice, though, if I could avoid another five mile round trip in the US, just because I'd forgotten to bring my passport on a night out.
posted by holgate at 2:52 PM on June 1, 2001

holgate: People aged 18 to 24 vote less as a demographic than any other in the United States. It's being in college in part that's to blame, but it's more apathy and being told, say, You can do more at the individual level than in politics. Saying, "I hate politics," is mega-fashionable.
posted by raysmj at 3:53 PM on June 1, 2001

holgate: People aged 18 to 24 vote less as a demographic than any other in the United States. It's being in college in part that's to blame, not having a sense of having a stake in things. But it's more apathy and being told, say, You can do more at the individual level than in politics. Saying, "I hate politics," is mega-fashionable. Where does one get this idea, though? Yep. Adults.
posted by raysmj at 3:54 PM on June 1, 2001

Sorry. The thing flipped on me when previewing, thought I'd stopped it and was changing the thing, but . . . oh, nevermind.
posted by raysmj at 3:55 PM on June 1, 2001

Yes, but that demographic is also the demographic of direct action, of single-issue protest. Don't call it apathy, when it's a sense of political disenfranchisement -- or even, of betrayal, given that their parents/politicians are the Generation That Endulged. And while "We Demand The Right To Buy Beer" isn't really that high in the single-issue hierarchy, I'm surprised that Anheuser-Busch or similar isn't gutsy enough to fund a "safe teen drinking" campaign.
posted by holgate at 4:01 PM on June 1, 2001

holgate: The second post, I said the idea came from adults. There's a minority of people in that age group involved in direct action, a very small minority. That group always is a small minority, but the majority has been taught to think that politics of any sort is almost a total waste of their time.
posted by raysmj at 4:16 PM on June 1, 2001

So true. The generation that held college sit-ins and preached 'free love' is the one that dictates the moral standards of its kids. Inevitable, and not a new thing, but the "morality gap", if you like, is gaping.

Then again, if you were a cynic, you could argue that the best way to curb political activity among those of college age is to trivialise their protest: in short, by making it hard to buy beer, you redirect their attention from the big issues.
posted by holgate at 4:28 PM on June 1, 2001

holgate: I think you put your finger on another part of the issue too. Who wants to be seen as fighting only for their right to party? Used to be a big thing, in parts of the South, where I live. You could feel all righteous about it, like you're just fighting intolerance and puritanical attitudes, etc., damn it, fighting against the same people who gave us Jim Crow. Right on. Down with oppression and pass the Jim Beam.

Still dry counties where you go find some action along those lines, if you feel like it. But who wants to fight for it now? It's actually easier to fight against sweat shops, in a certain way. They're distant, who likes them, really, and it doesn't look selfish. Meantime, the 18-21s don't vote much, so why should a politician care?

This getting around the selfishness issue might be the only good thing that comes from the Bush story.
posted by raysmj at 4:30 PM on June 1, 2001

The one thing that seriously pisses me off is that if Chelsea had gotten into ANY trouble with the law, the entire Republican sheep herd would have stampeded in its fury. There would have been public statements from Newt about the Clintons' apparent lack of family values (of course, this is before his litte "problem"), there (as has been stated) would have almost certainly been a ongoing series of allegations of further lawbreaking, and (perhaps most importantly) the conservatives would have used it as proof (in their minds) that they are morally superior.

The extremely unfunny irony is that Bush's brats are caught breaking the law, and the thick conservative skull can't even feel its facade of "moral superiority" as it crumbles. This inability to accept one's own myopic nature is yet more evidence of how conservative fanaticism dulls the reasoning process.

Say what you can about the "liberal" press, but they loved it when the republicans hurled insults at Chelsea. I bet every American knew what Rush thought about her, and most of us don't waste our time with his brand of crap. However, the media picked up his opinion of her hideousness and news of it spread like wildfire. The press profits from nasty news about famous people, and they will circle like sharks around the Bushs just like they did the Clintons.


[I know this is sort of an incendiary post, but I really am mad.]
posted by tcobretti at 5:38 PM on June 1, 2001

tcobretti: perhaps it's just a case where it's easy to distinguish morality (externally imposed strictures) from ethical behaviour (ostensibly self-imposed ones). You don't hear much of an Ethical Majority, do you?

raysmj: that actually reminds me of a story my girlfriend told me of her grandfather, who lived in a dry county in rural Georgia. He was a pillar of the local Baptist church, who used to drive to the next-country-but-one to load up on booze. But as long as he maintained the appearance of temperance, that was quite fine.

And I think that kind of moral duplicity, the triumph of appearance over reality, underpins the attitude to alcohol encoded in law across the US -- and the UK.

Of course, there's another anomaly. Another friend from Georgia grew up in a USAF family, living on air bases where she could get alcohol at 18. After all, if you're old enough to die for your country, they least they can give you is a bit of Dutch courage.
posted by holgate at 6:08 PM on June 1, 2001