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Comment by jlgreco | Hacker News Reader

Not that it diminishes the point, but many of those parents were likely in university during the 70s to early 80s, when the drinking age was as low as 18 in many (but not all) states. Hypothetically many of these parents drank legally as freshmen in college but do not want their children to drink illegally as freshmen in college.

I'd still call them hypocrites, or at least accuse them of lacking in the critical thinking department, but hypocrites to a much lesser extent.

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Legal smeagle. I would bet that 99% of people (including boomers) think that 20 year olds should be able to drink. The oft cited argument that "we let 18 year olds man nuclear subs that could take out a city" is just too obvious.

Maybe. Mixing legality and morality is popular enough though. In other words: "the drinking age should be 18, but it isn't, and you should respect the law".

I suspect many would also oppose dropping the legal age for MADD inspired reasons (god I hate that organization.... bunch of neo-prohibitionists...) even though they think their kid is responsible enough.

I do agree though, most probably do think that the age could be lower.

This argument is so bad. We don't let 18 year olds run a nuclear sub. Sure, they're on board sometimes but important decisions are made by significantly older officers with years of training. That's like having a drink with your parents.

(I got drunk first time when I was 14 and have no strong opinion on when it should be legal to buy alcohol.)

Good point. We let them shoot and kill each other however.

Just to say, I graduated a year ago from a non-US school with a bar in the main building. Everybody was fine.

Are we ever allowed to change our mind about something without being called a hypocrite? I don't think changing as you age is hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy appears when they don't pass the same judgement on themselves. Do they disapprove of what they did when they were younger, or do they think "oh, well that was all fun and games, but these kids should not be drinking"?

I had this discussion with my mother (who went to school in the early 70s) when I entered school. Her position boiled down to it being reasonable for her to drink because it was legal, and unreasonable for me to drink simply because it was illegal. Now, I don't equate legality to morality, in no small part because she didn't raise me to do that. When pressed to actually explain her disapproval, she relented and admitted that her position was hypocritical.

Hypocrisy isn't about changing your mind. It is about holding yourself to a different standard.

I don't interpret that as hypocritical. Whether legality equates to morality doesn't matter. If you get caught, there can be serious consequences (legal penalties, kicked out of schools, etc.. all depending of course on the circumstances of the party, the party-goers, the school, the state, etc.). These risks didn't exist when she drink in college. They do now, and it's not unreasonable for a parent to want to prevent these things from happening to their child. Their opinion can be 0% percent judgement based (in the sense of "passing judgement".

I think we both knew that, in practice, there is no real risk in being kicked out of school for hitting up a party on Fridays so long as you act with some baseline level of responsibility. In my case it wasn't even a dry campus (and few people other than freshmen were in school housing anyway, so the parties were on private property), and nobody had cars (campus was in the city). In this specific case, her judgement was based on mixing the legal and moral signals, but she does not normally buy into that.

I would describe her position at the time as slightly hypocritical, or at least poorly considered. To be clear, I don't think anti-kids-these-days-drinking attitudes are categorically extremely hypocritical, just often so.

It's not hypocritical, regardless of whether the risks existed then. To say "I was wrong, even if I didn't know it. You should avoid being wrong as well" is in no way inconsistent or hypocritical.

No, you can certainly change your mind. But there is definitely a line where something is crossed.

An example is with the revelations about the concussions in football. Some parents, even ones who may have played football in their day, may not want their kids playing football. This doesn't cross that line and is not hypocritical.

Another example is with a fair number of religious fathers that I've met as a young man and and adult. I dated a girl who's father was overly concerned about her safety. Fair enough. We met at a Dairy Queen so I could ask her to a dance. He proceeds to tell me that he knows 'how boys are' because he partied and caroused when he was younger, before he found 'the Lord'. Now, I know how boys are as well - I was one at the time, heh - but I wasn't that boy. I wasn't him, yet, I was lumped into a group I wasn't a part of and lectured on how to be a gentleman. That's hypocritical.

Another example. I fucking hate 'The View' yet still end up seeing way too much of it due to my wife. One of the hosts has said that she's had multiple abortions in her lifetime but now that she's had a kid she leans pro-life. So while it was fine when she was poor and had no way of supporting a child (multiple times I remind you), now that she's rich she would've chosen differently. That's hypocritical.

I guess the line is where you don't own your previous decisions instead of making excuses for them. I think we can all accept the 'we didn't know the consequences' as not hypocritical but the 'I just don't want you to do what I did' is right out.

Your definition of "hypocrisy" is off. A hypocrite is someone whose current actions and professed moral standards don't agree. The father was simply wrong about you, not a hypocrite. And the The View host simply changed her mind due to a new perspective, for right or wrong.

The question is if the The View host regrets her decision, or if she stands by it while opposing abortion currently.

I don't know which is the case, though I do know somebody who goes with the later. I can't say I respect them very much.

"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html

Err, let me give you another example - abortions. I love it when women (that have had abortions) or men (that encouraged women to have abortions) are becoming anti-abortions as they age.

Considering their changing minds can lead to people being convicted for crimes they themselves were guilty of, does that count as hypocrisy?

Of course it does, because such opinions don't come with a disclaimer. Any conversation with a child or a school principal about drinking should start with "You know, I got wasted several times in college...".

I think what you're asking for is intellectual honesty. There's nothing hypocritical about judging people for crimes you were guilty of in the past. You can't take a word and just change it however you like. Actually, you can, if enough people agree with you. But in this case the dictionary doesn't.

Is that actually relevant? I think a lot of those folks would recall their own memories of doing those things in a fond light, even while they deny it in the present for future generations.

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