A modest proposal

I've been thinking ab0ut the similarity between the following statements:

If you don't buy me a candy bar, I'll hold my breath until I turn blue!
If you don't let me keep more than six cans of beer in my dorm room, I'll drive to the store to buy another six-pack after I'm plastered!

The main difference, of course, is that the child making the first statement is unlikely to hurt anyone by holding his breath, while the student making the second statement could do real harm to himself or others. Further, the child threatening to hold his breath is presumably able to make a rational choice whether to carry out the threat, while the student who has already consumed a six-pack may not be in any condition to rationally evaluate the advisability of driving. The student may as well put it this way: "If you don't let me keep more than six cans of beer in my room, I won't be able to stop myself from killing random strangers!"

Something important has been left out of this discussion. If the only options are being allowed to keep a 12-pack in the dorm or driving drunk, then the 12-pack seems like the right answer; but let's look at it another way: if drinking a six-pack of beer makes a student too stupid to think clearly about whether to drive to the store, maybe the solution is to drink not more than six beers but fewer. How about stopping at three?