by Ben Rosenberg
Editor-in-Chief
  When a person turns 18, he or she legally becomes an adult; however, there are some pretty ridiculous strings attached to the title. You can go to jail, but you can’t gamble. You can be drafted into the army, but you can’t rent a car. You can buy cigarettes, but you can’t buy alcohol. These arbitrary rules do not make any sense.

  Once you become an adult, you should have all possible freedoms along with all possible punishments.  There are no more lines to be drawn, no more distinctions to be made. You can do what you want, and you are old enough to be held accountable for your choices—no strings attached. However, it seems that becoming an adult has more negative attributes than positive ones.

  The government is not simply being discriminatory against young adults—it is presenting contradictory perspectives. Of course the government trusts these young adults enough to let them die for their country; they just can’t buy a six-pack of beer. This kind of hypocrisy negates the entire purpose of becoming an adult. Whatever the country deems as “old enough” should be consistent throughout all aspects of adulthood. I understand the idea that people become more responsible with age, and therefore some things should be withheld from children, but we are talking about adults. Legal adults. If a person is deemed responsible enough to operate a semi-automatic machine gun, how can anyone say that the same person is not responsible enough to put money on the Lakers game?

   Now there are actually some benefits given before the age of 18. You can drive a car at 16, and you can have a job even earlier. One could argue that this is too much trust to put in a minor, and I understand that. Again, it’s all about consistency, and from this standpoint, maybe these benefits should be withheld until adulthood, just like adults shouldn’t have to wait until 21 to drink or gamble.

   As hypocritical as this may seem, this consistency makes sense; as minors, maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to drive two-ton weapons on wheels, and maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to hold jobs that able-bodied adults need just as much. As minors we are not held accountable. Punishments for minors are only slaps on the wrist; whereas an adult may have to go to court, a minor’s punishment for a misdemeanor may be as small as a few hours of community service. And since minors are not punished as harshly for their mistakes, they invariably don’t get as many freedoms.

   Consistency, consistency, consistency—that’s what the government should strive for. I’m not saying the drinking age should be 18, nor am I saying adulthood should be withheld until 21. I am saying that once a person is deemed an adult and can be held fully accountable for his or her actions, he or she should have all the freedoms, too. Maybe this means we will have to wait to drive a car, and maybe this means people will be drinking alcohol at a younger age, but the government cannot ethically withhold freedoms from some adults if it expects to punish all adults equally.