Is Alcohol a Right or a Privilege?

Question

When you're 15-16, you are able to take drivers education. After so many hours of driving, you can get your liscence. However, it's something that everyone is not able to do for one reason or another. Driving is a privilege.

With alcohol, you turn a certain age and automatically can drink without any form of education or training. So what is alcohol? Does one have the right to drink alcohol, or is it a privilege to be able to drink since one must be a certain age to drink?

Also, how do you define the difference between a right and a privilege?

Answer 1

If you have the right to do something, then it cannot be denied to you. Some rights have restrictions but cannot be totally denied. A privilege can not only be restricted but entirely denied as well. Thus, driving can be denied. You have to be licensed, officially accepted, in order to drive. We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness according to our constitution. Life includes food and drink because you can't survive long without it. Thus, nobody can deny you the right to eat or drink. However, like I said earlier, a right can carry restrictions. Thus, you need water to survive but you don't need alcohol or sugar drinks, or even milk. Thus, they can carry restrictions. Alcohol, in my opinion, is therefore, a privilege because it isn't necessary for life and can be ligitimately restricted and even banned all together.
However, your point is well taken that people don't need a license to drink it once they are old enough. The proprietor does have to have a license in order to serve it. Thus, the restriction is carried not only in your age but also in the seller of the drink. If either party abuses the privilege of providing or embibing liquor, then the privilege can be revoked entirely.

Answer 2

Our right to drink Alcohol was taken and people started to make home made stuff its also why we have some State made beers that lasted thought the years of not being able to drink Alcohol.

January 16, 1920, Americans raised their glasses to drink one last time before the 18th Amendment was put into act. This Amendment banned the consumption of alcoholic beverages in the United States.

Now I think it's a Privilege to drink at all even though people still made it as well as threw party's with it. That Law put allot of men and women behind bars for the making and selling of this product. If anyone says its a right must take a good look at our history here in the USA.

Answer 3

As a commercial activity, driving is a privilege, but traveling is a right.

Driving is a legal term defined by the federal government as transporting persons or property for a fee. If you're not transporting goods or property for a fee, you're outside of commerce and merely traveling. You have a right to travel, but you don't have a right to endanger others. Operation of a motorized conveyance that you're not properly trained to operate can be considered Negligent. Responsibility is the key concept here. If you choose to not drive (transport persons or property for a fee) and all you do is travel (even behind the wheel of an automobile) be properly trained and have a respect for the "vehicle code" even though only "drivers" are subject to it.

A privilege is something granted by an authority to whom you have given consent to govern you.

A right is established by God and many rights are recognized by the Constitution. God says don't steal, this establishes your right to private property ownership.
God says don't murder, this establishes your right to life.
So on and so forth, you get the idea.
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Answer 4

I agree with GiantScrotum L...I don't agree with anything that takes away someones right to choose. We all own this country, no one has the right to tell us it is a privilege to do anything. Anyway to answer your question a privilege is restricted right or benefit: an advantage, right, or benefit that is not available to everyone. A Right is entitlement or freedom: a justified claim or entitlement, or the freedom to do something ( often used in the plural ) You're within your rights to complain. A declaration of the rights of civilized people

Answer 5

i would argue that both driving and drinking alchohol are rights

the "privilege" thing is just some feel good word some bureaucrat made up

Its only a "privilege" so that you meet the basic requirements. We all pay for the roads and we should all be entitled to use them unless we are law breakers or cant pass the test or buy insurance.

Answer 6

Most people are drinking before they turn legal age anyway, so i look at it as a privalege to be able to go to a bar or by from a store.

Answer 7

The only rights you have stem from the constitution. Anything subject to legal restrictions is allowed to the public subject to those conditions.

Answer 8

Like driving it is a privilidge. If you abuse it can lead you to not be allowed to cosume it. It has happened in divorce procedings where a judge has ruled one parent could not drink because of their alcoholic tendicies.