Radley Balko Rhetorical Analysis

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Cash Baker
Mrs. Marinelli
Composition 2
21 February 2018
Rhetorical Analysis
The essay “Amethyst Initiatives Debate on Drinking, A Welcome Alternative To Fanaticism,” proves to have a few effective arguments while others are ineffective. The author, Radley Balko wrote the essay to address the argument on whether the drinking age should be lowered or not. He writes to the opposing side to share new found evidence on why the drinking age could and should get lowered. He even admits that no one wants to support teen drinking, but with new evidence he shows his support.
The essays introduction starts strong with the use of loaded language on how the government “blackmailed” the states to raise the minimum drinking age to get highway funding. …show more content…
People already drink alcohol and drive anyway, imagine how many more there would be if it was legal for younger people to drink. According to Andrew Herman, each year nearly two thousand college students die from excessive drinking, 17,000 of those deaths are from drunk driving (Herman 470). Driving while intoxicated is a leading cause of death in those that are legal. If people under the age of twenty one were allowed to drink alcohol, it would bring the drunk driving accident rate up. When the age was set to twenty one accidents dropped significantly. According to the NIH, Deaths from alcohol have been halved in the age group of sixteen to twenty since the drinking age has been set (National Institutes of Health). When the minimum drinking age got set to twenty-one it dropped the likelihood of drunk driving …show more content…
The Amethyst Initiative claims that the drinking age now is not working, abstinence is enforced, but not enforced effectively (Amethyst Initiative). Radley Balko insists Binge drinking and over indulgence are an issue now for underage individuals (Balko 460). I agree that abstinence is not working, to an extent. People should be more educated about alcohol and the effects of it. Teachers and parents need to have talks with teens about the damage alcohol can have on a developing brain. According to Foundations for a Drug Free world, alcohol can be very damaging on a teen’s brain development (Young People Versus Adults. What’s The

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