YDAS

The 21 minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) law is currently one of the most scrutinized and debated laws in the US. This article presents the views of the different stakeholders in this issue.

The United States has the highest legal drinking age in the western world. This age limit was established by the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. This law was driven largely by the desire to reduce traffic fatalities associated with alcohol consumption.

This requires all states in the US to legislate and enforce a minimum legal age of 21 years for purchasing and publicly possessing alcoholic beverages. States that does not comply with the provisions of the act are subjected to a 10% percent decrease in its annual federal highway apportionment.

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Nelson Mandela, the man has constantly existed, even when locked away in a lonely cell on the rocky, battered and forgotten Robin Island, the world was somehow aware of this remarkable man. Personally, I can’t recall when I initial became acquainted with him, he was just usually there, a part of my life, like he was a part of everyone’s life. Indeed, he was even much more than that, he was a component of the global consciousness, all of us were conscious of this man, this 1 man, who was still a thorn in the side of the truly monstrous apartheid regime of South Africa. It usually appeared quite ordinary that I, a small boy in the barren midlands of Ireland had a link with a man in a cell, on a rocky outcrop in the South Atlantic Ocean, that everybody seemed to love and respect, except of course his barbaric captors who had been scared witless of him. So, when I was seven, it didn’t faze me that a young woman named Mary Manning, who worked as a cashier for a chain-store conglomerate known as Dunnes Stores, refused to handle fruit from apartheid era South Africa. She along with ten of her colleagues had been suspended from work, they staged a picket which was to last virtually three years. Miraculously, they won, the government caved in an banned the importation of South African goods. What guts, what resolve, what courage these young men and women had, inspired by the strength of Mandela. Similarly, growing up in Ireland there had been numerous songs about Mandela, in particular The Specials’ Totally free Nelson Mandela which by no means left the radio waves in 1984.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered a surprising blow to Republicans by edging out tea party backed Sharon Angle for the U.S. Senate seat that Reid has held because 1986.

In a race too close to call in pre-election polling, numerous are shocked by the defeat against the poster boy for the liberal elitist agenda that voters resoundingly rejected elsewhere at the polls.

Sen. Reid is attributing most of the victory to his ground game and infrastructure fueled in huge part by the well-funded Get out the Vote organization, and also credits Hispanic voters for nudging him over the edge.

In the weeks leading up to the election, Sharon Angle escalated her stance on illegal immigration with an ad campaign that triggered cries of outrage from Hispanic leaders. Seizing the opportunity, Sen. Reid turned to Hispanic voters to save his election, promising in return a vote on the DREAM Act in the course of the upcoming lameduck session of Congress.

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