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It's all too rare that college presidents, a group often collectively known as "The Man," are celebrated on college campuses. But today, MPR's college audience raised bottles of Boone's and boxes of refreshing Franzia in a toast to the 114 college presidents, including Minnesota's own Jack Ohle - president of Gustavus Adolphus, who signed on to the Amethyst Initiative. The initiative calls for a renewed debate on the legal drinking age and advocates dropping the legal age to 18.

Of course, it's a logical argument. Eighteen year olds can already cast a vote for the future of our country. They can buy a gun and go off to war where, if they're lucky, they'll have the opportunity to use high explosives to solve vexing diplomatic problems. They can even buy a toxic slurry of flammable carcinogens and stimulants without resorting to offering that hormonally gifted kid in their English class who can grow facial hair "extra credit" behind the dumpsters, in return for his assistance at SuperUSA.

And yet, upon heading off to college, they have to dangle those same goodies in front of frat boys and McLovin wannabes, though at this point they've become wise enough to realize that they don't actually have to give it up in order to get exactly what they want. It seems a bizarre set of circumstances, to say the least.

Despite this three year safeguard against the judgment impairing joy of alcohol, a culture of binge drinking still pervades college campuses. So it's unsurprising college presidents would be interested in bringing drinking and drunken hook-ups off the futons, twin beds and bean bag chairs of dorm rooms and run-down rental housing and into the relative safety of licensed establishments complete with bouncers and bartenders happy to cut-off a drunken lush or curb stomp the more obnoxious inebriates.

But despite the obvious risk management benefits of such an initiative, not to mention addressing one of American society's many hypocrisies, it's plain to see that these officials have not done their due diligence on the true cost of raising the legal drinking age - the complete and utter destruction of the modern college experience.

For what is college if not a place to furtively sneak alcohol into dorm rooms and engage in frantic slurred shushing so as not to attract the attention of the dread cyclopean RA? Whither stories of roommates piddling in shoes and crapping in dresser drawers as their booze-addled senses inform them that closets are bathrooms? How can the collegiate economy survive if the fake ID industry collapses?

And most importantly - how will anyone get laid? Sure, those precocious few in meaningful long-term relationships will still exchange sweet nothings after engaging in futon-borne quickies between classes. But, as all the world knows, the average college freshman male is an insipid creature, capable neither of sustained conversation nor sustained coitus. To coax the fabled coed into his lair requires enticement, generally in the form of illicitly obtained alcoholic beverages. To lower the drinking age is to negate the only weapon in the 18 year old male's arsenal.

Do we really want to consign the future leaders of America to a youth of sexual frustration and disappointment? To do so is to admit to ourselves that yes, the terrorists, and possibly the Quakers, have won.