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I Need Help With An Acronym.

Apr 11, 2008
By .
Culture, Politics & Current Events

Citizens Against Stupid Hypocrites doesn't quite cut it.

Fox News Channel aired a debate betwen Candy Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Alex Koroknay-Palicz of the National Youth Rights Association, which contends that if you're old enough to vote, marry, and join the Army, you're old enough to guzzle Jäger. As you can imagine, Lightner was unimpressed, and rather vocal about it…

Lightner was disgusted that our fighting men and women would have the audacity to imbibe. She ranted that 18-year-olds haven't "developed, and that's exactly why the draft age is 18, because these kids are malleable." She added: "They will follow the leader, they don't think for themselves, and they are the last ones I want to say, 'Here's a gun, and here's a beer.' They are not adult—that's why they're in the military. They are not adults."

Hypocrites like Lightner should just cut to the chase and quit the Brady lobby approach in favor of a more honest WCTU approach. Argue for a ban on all alcohol sales in America and a repeal of the 21st Amendment.

Of course, as Mojo Nixon pointed out, our child soldiers have the freedom to screw their lives up in ways far more destructive than a beer after a hard day of being shot at by other children, using weapons like marriage and credit cards. But they can't buy a beer, because this is America, where God cries every time a 20 year old soldier maxes out his MasterCard on a can of Budweiser.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

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4 Comments

  1. Ken  •  Apr 11, 2008 @9:44 am

    She added: “They will follow the leader, they don’t think for themselves, and they are the last ones I want to say, ‘Here’s a gun, and here’s a beer.’ They are not adult—that’s why they’re in the military. They are not adults.”

    Ms. Lightner, I suspect, is about to learn that in the icon-slap-fight that is modern political discourse, "support the troops!" currently trumps the reliable but somewhat shopworn "won't someone think of the chiiiilllldrun!"

    I think drunk drivers are scum and support harsher penalties for them — though as a defense lawyer I can tell you that the issue is usually not the unavailability of harsh penalties but the lack of resources to impose them. However, I think that MADD has been veering off the rails of institutional credibility into a PETA-like train wreck of freakish tin-ear extremism for more than a decade, as is demonstrated by this quote.

  2. plw  •  Apr 11, 2008 @10:55 am

    “They will follow the leader, they don’t think for themselves, and they are the last ones I want to say, ‘Here’s a gun, and here’s a beer.’ They are not adult—that’s why they’re in the military. They are not adults.”

    A more sympathetic (maybe) reading is that she is not a hypocrite and feels that the military is taking advantage of incompletely developed 18 year-olds by fooling them with snazzy commercials about "being all you can be", brainwashing them in bootcamp, and shipping them off to war.

    So "that’s exactly why the draft age is 18, because these kids are malleable.” doesn't mean that's how she would set it, but that is why the heartless bastards at the pentagon set it that way.

    That would make her wrongheaded, but not hypocritical, which is quite a bit better, in my book.

  3. Patrick  •  Apr 11, 2008 @10:59 am

    Then perhaps she needs to come out and say that as directly as you did. I could have said it better after six beers.

  4. Grandy  •  Dec 6, 2008 @2:45 pm

    I could have said it better after 12 beers, Patrick. I highly doubt the people joining the military are doing it on the strength of commercials, however.

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