Burt Prelutsky hopes that teenagers won't go to the polls:
Whenever I suggest that teenagers shouldn't be allowed to vote for anything but student body president or prom queen, I know that someone is bound to say, "If they're old enough to fight and die in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're old enough to vote."
To which I invariably respond, "You're absolutely right. If they're serving in the military, I agree they should be able to vote. But if they're still in school, still getting an allowance and using their mom or dad's credit card to buy gas, I say they have no more business electing the president than my dog Duke does."
Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, if we raised the voting age to, say, 25, the Democratic party would go the way of the dodo and the Whigs. Liberals want young kids voting for pretty much the same cynical reason they want to extend suffrage to illegal aliens, convicted felons and dead people.
It takes a certain mentality, a certain degree of gullibility, after all, to believe plutocrats like the Clintons, the Kerrys, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros.
I'd expand that to hope that teenagers of all ages stay away from the voting booth.
Well, there's always this other reason why younger people should get the vote--at least right now they're going to be the generation that gets stuck with the tab that the Baby Boomers and Gen X have been running up. While at least right now they've got some miniscule representation (even though it's of the "six wolves and two sheep voting to see who should represent them in selecting what's for dinner" variety).
I guess I just get pissed off at how much older generations dump on the generations that they and their continued stupidity are actively screwing.
~Jon
Rand:
"It takes a certain mentality, a certain degree of gullibility, after all, to believe plutocrats like the Clintons, the Kerrys, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros."
Absolutely right. Of course, you haven't included two plutocrats; the two Bushes. Maybe because doing that would have diluted the point you were trying to make. Nobody should have believed those two either, and it's cost $650 billion (and counting) and approximately 4400 lives (and counting) even if you only count British and American lives.
As for the central message, that the vote should have a price, potentially the highest a human can pay; well, Heinlein said that fifty years ago.
I think that's a good compromise - if you join the military, you can vote if you are over 18, otherwise you have to be 21. Let them legally buy a drink, too, if they show a military ID or wear a uniform. Many states have been raising the drinking age back to 21 after concluding that the argument "If you're old enough to be in the army you should be able to have a beer" wasn't really very good reasoning. Unfortunately restoring the voting age to 21 requires repealing a constitutional amendment.
Yep, Old Minds are great at thinking in Old Ways. And clearly, the way we have always done things will have to be just fine for those young, dumb, gullible upstarts. Who the heck do they think they are with their wild, out of the box ideas? As if thinking like that ever did us any good....
NewSpacers may disagree, of course...
I find it funny how the age of reasoning seems to increase with the overall longevity of a population. Or maybe it is as we get older we fear the decisions the younger crowd will make. Just wondering...
I hate to give a "when I was younger" statement but I was allowed my time to be a child but then I had chores and a job (started working at age 4, making good pay at 16). Today we fear that kids might hurt themselves so much on so many things that they never get the chance to learn and grow.
Maturity is a state of mind and not an age, one never gains maturity without the pains that go with it. Unfortunately that means making mistakes.
BTW, how do you think the Young Republicans would feel about the age statements here? Are they just as immature as their liberal counterparts?
I find it funny how the age of reasoning seems to increase with the overall longevity of a population.
The voting age has been decreased, not increased. The Amendment setting the voting age 1t 18 was not an increase in the voting age.
When I was 18 I was opposed to people my age then having the vote and I still am. Voting isn't a natural right.
A few things that bother me here. First, as long as there's conscription, the people who can be conscripted should be allowed to vote. As I see it, no vote, no Draft. Second, wasn't there complaints about the infantizing of the youth of the US? Well, here's another way it's happening. You want your college-aged children to be adults? Well, you give them adult responsibilities.
Finally, I find Jon's remark amusing. Now Generation X emerges on the other side of responsibility for The Tab. Each whiny young generation complains about the size of The Tab and why couldn't the oldsters do *more* to reduce The Tab. Meanwhile the whiny older generations complain about ungrateful the whiny youngsters are (giving some variation of the "had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways" speech). Nothing really changes.
Yes, the voting age was lowered in response to the Vietnam war. People being drafted had no say in the process. It was therefore determined to lower the age for voting. That was a convoluted mess that resulted in an amendment to the Constitution.
So what is so magical about age? Perhaps we should test people to see if they are capable of reasoning a practical decision and only let these people vote? the age system works however flawed it might be.
The problem is as government decisions are made, those affected by the decisions will want a say (we are a republic after all).
Each generation thinks the one after it is not as mature. Each new generation thinks they are smarter than the last one. Perhaps they are both right.
My point is to say that the election will be suffer ill effect because younger people have the right to vote is no better an argument than the one that kept women from securing the right to vote. If you can reason, understand the ramifications of your decisions and act accordingly - you can vote. Most 18 year olds I know can do that.
Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen, if we raised the voting age to, say, 25, the Democratic party would go the way of the dodo and the Whigs.
If the goal is to eliminate the Democrat party, which would be just fine with me, then taking away women’s right to vote would solve that problem.
Politically incorrect but true.
A few things that bother me here. First, as long as there's conscription, the people who can be conscripted should be allowed to vote.
Since the draft was ended in the US in 1973 or 74, this isn't an issue. Sure, there is registration but only some Democrats are talking about resuming the draft. It's very unlikely to happen.
As a vet, I fully support letting anyone serving in the military to vote, even if they're 17. Likewide, I'd consider the same thing for those who choose dangerous service occupations such as firefighters.
"...and Gen X have been running up."
And Gen X? How old are the Gen X'ers over on your side? Or do you have very expensive thirty to forty year olds?
Gen X'ers are by definition one of the smallest and least influential generations in a long time, it's a demographics thing.
Hermit,
FWIW, I'm technically Gen X by a year or two (depending on what you use as the cutoff date). And by mentioning them along with the Baby Boomers, I wasn't trying to claim that our generation is as much to blame as the Boomers were. In fact, it's fair to point out that GenXers are probably going to be in the "getting screwed" category as well. It's just that a lot of the fellow GenXers I know seem to have the same attitude towards spending other peoples' money as Baby Boomers do (and GenYers as well to be fair).
~Jon
Since the draft was ended in the US in 1973 or 74, this isn't an issue. Sure, there is registration but only some Democrats are talking about resuming the draft. It's very unlikely to happen.
The draft will always been an issue since it can be reinstated at any time. Having said that, I really hate the idea of disallowing a certain subset of voters because someone thinks they aren't responsible enough. Who administers the test of responsibility? As I see it, a good foundation is simply whether the person pays taxes and isn't a dependent. Being 18 years old usually means you do that.
Who administers the test of responsibility? As I see it, a good foundation is simply whether the person pays taxes and isn't a dependent. Being 18 years old usually means you do that.,/em>
Apparently, you're unfamiliar with the reality of the twenty-first century in America...
Sounds like you want a poll tax, Karl. Or possible a return to the requirement that you own property.
Personally, I think the argument about the maturity and judgment of the voter are red herrings. You don't have a democracy at all if you feel the primary criterion for decision-making is the quality of your abstract judgment. You have some kind of meritocracy instead, where the "best and the brightest" decide for all us reg'lar dimbulbs.
We have a democracy arguably because we consider it philosophically wrong and practically inefficient for person A to decide things that mostly burden person B. A shouldn't have the right to decide B's life, and furthermore A is not likely to have as firm a grasp of the relevant facts and issues as B. So on that basis, we extend the franchise so that everyone gets to participate in the important decisions for which he must bear the costs.
The only improvement I can imagine is to restrict the issues and candidates on which one can vote to that and those for which you really do pay the costs and bear the burden. Let teenagers vote on the draft and whether there should be a minimum wage. Let civilians vote on the size of the military budget, and soldiers vote on whether to spend it on F-22's or body armor. Let parents vote for school board members. Let the childless vote on public funding of schools. Let property owners vote on property taxes, business owners on environmental regulation, art history majors on NASA's budget, and engineers on NPR's subsidy.
What? I can hear you say. My God, under such a scheme it would be incredibly difficult to get any government program going, unless it was so obviously beneficial (better roads through gas taxes) that the folks who pay for it wouldn't mind doing so, or unless those who wanted the program carefully and patiently cultivated the approval of those who would pay for it, possibly by gritting their teeth and offering major compromises.
Democrats would have to make friends with Republicans if they ever wanted to get anything done! Old people would have to listen respectfully to the young. Atheists and evangelists would have to convince each other of their mutual respect. Black men and Asian women would need to earn each other's trust. Women would need to convince men that child support and alimony was a good idea. Men would need to give women compelling reasons to share their natural authority over infants and children.
Exactly.
We don't have a democracy. At least we're not supposed to. It wouldn't matter if we let babies, pets and dead people vote (actually, I think we already do) what matters is that states take their responsibility to choose electors that hold to the founding principles of our republic. Too bad they don't. The people have the power of impeachment but the process makes it unusable for the most part. We need to make impeachment a lot easier to throw some fear into our so called representatives and public servants.
Think about those tax dodgers in Montana or where ever that were putting liens on judges that were ruling against them. We need some original thinking to remove the panderers and empty shirts out of office.
We couldn't elect another Reagan today. It would be impossible. Newt may be on to something by focusing on issues and grass roots rather than party.
I don't see the current voting age as a problem. After all, the young tend to not bother voting. It is only after one's tax bill becomes sufficiently large that one starts paying attention to the political process at all. Exceptions exist of course, but as far as I can tell it's a good rule of thumb.
There are plausible arguments for restricting the franchise in a variety of ways. But then one realizes that there are probably plausible arguments out there for denying it to us... and settles for a broad, doubtless imperfect, but unambiguous criterion such as calendar age.
Think of it as an extension of Churchill's "democracy is the worst system, except for all the others."
In Australia voting, or rather attendance at a polling booth, is compulsory. (the fine for not doing this is A$20 about US$19 currently).
I'm not convinced that throwing all the over 18 year olds names in a barrel and pulling out our Parliamentary Representatives for the next 3 years would be worse.