Should children be allowed to vote

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Sometimes things that don't make any sense in theory make perfect sense in practice. This is one of those things.

I think it is faulty argument to say that there are "some" adults that make are ill-informed. Well, of course, there are some. But there are more young people. When proponents for a constitutional amendment argued for lowering the voting age in the United States from 21 to 18, they stated it would increase civil awareness of people in that group. I must be stated that considering the fact that 18-years old could be drafted (which I believe had such recently been suspended), this would be an argument for greater interest. However, after the amendment was passed the 18-21 year old group proved to be the least wiling to participate and that has held firm until today.

As to the argument that older people are more biased (as opposed to say children), that is likely correct. Those who are older, which will eventually include for the young among us, ourselves, are more likely to hold views towards the holding firm on the present orthodoxy. Then again this varies from generation to generation. It also must be said, however, that the lack of experience a child or teenager has cannot be overestimated. As an individual grows up one learns the often difficult nature of cause and effect, as well as learning the history of one's own and other societies. Someone who is younger is more likely to get caught up into the naive idealism of group thought without thinking through the consequences of one's action. It is not a coincidence that tyrannical regimes and ideologies usually have state-sponsored "youth clubs."

Even removing that danger, we must consider whether it is a good idea to so readily involve children and teenagers in the often difficult, and grueling political game. It takes a component of adult life, and forces upon the youth that are yet unprepared for it.

That is exactly the point I was trying to make when I was talking about public office. Thank you for helping me out.

The point I was trying to make is this. When I said adults are messed up, you corrected me to say only politicians are. So I am pointing out to you that adults are the ones that elected them.



1)Part of the reason they don't pay enough attention is that they aren't encouraged to. So may be we should introduce the "modern politics" classes in high school which would teach them all the modern events on mondatory basis.

2)If they don't pay attention they won't go voting so why stoppng them?

3)In light of part 2, you are probably talking about kids who do pay attention, but only selective attention. Selective attention is common for adults too. Thats where the bias comes from. Adults would only read the newspaper with their favorite political slant.



Kids fall for what their parents tell them now, and adults fall for what their parents told them when they were kids. Thats where all the biases come; no one is born with a bias, they have learned it from their parents when they were raised.

On a different note, even if adults are free thinkers, still if you have a big family then you can be sure they will have long discussions on whom to vote for and they will probably end up voting for the same person. Not to make ones husband or wife mad is a strong pressure.



If you say it is everyone, I agree. I only don't like the idea of singling kids out. All I am saying is that if you say that "only kids" do X, Y or Z, then adults are probably hiding it by dishonesty.




And in case of adults you have group mentality where they will probably vote for the same person their friends and family does.



Thats exactly my point. And if they aren't differnt, they should have the same rights

Yeah and htat is exactly what aspies are being brushed off for. "In theory" there is nothing wrong with being an aspie. But "on practice" it just doesn't work out. This whole "on practice" issue looks at the outside of the person and neglects what is inside. It neglects to give people a chance to take what is on their inside and bring it to the outside. As an aspie i know I want to do that, IF I were only given a chance to. And for the same reason I want children to have their chances too.

Well if such is the case, then why stop them from voting if they won't vote anyway?

If we forbid kids from voting we are talking about kids who DO want to vote, and I am sure THEY will be the exception to the stat since they, obviously, ARE informed in politics.



I am glad we agree on this one.



Now the quessztion is what is better stubborn conservatism (adults) or naive idealism (children). Both have their good and bad sides. So I don't see why should we make a simple solution for complicated issue by not allowing one of these two groups to vote.



But high school history class is more difficult than keeping track of daily news.

Indeed. But if kids were to vote, then adults running to be politicians could bluntly lie and get huge amounts of votes. Plus with the votes of the adults, there is sure to be disaster.



If that is possible, then I fully support it! And while your at it give some modern politics lessons in Junior High schools too! Modern Politics happen to be one of my main interests And it wouldn't hurt for kids to learn about this stuff even if they couldn't vote at their age. If this really happens and all goes well, then maby the age that people can vote at can be lower.



I can see how you may think that. But, there are some kids that would want to vote even if they knew barley about politics. Infact, there are some teachers out there that made a scenarios on voting.

While in Elementary School, for example, they asked us to vote who we would want to vote on. They narrowed it down to only George W. Bush and Al Gore (Grrr! I want more options!) At the time, I absolutely knew nothing about politics. I chose Al Gore because he had a blue background in his picture (Blue is my favorite color) The teachers and most of the students glared at me :/ Apparently they didn't like my choice. Most of them voted for George W. Bush (The people at my school was really religious and intolerance. No wonder I was bullied a ton). But even if I knew about politics, I would vote Al Gore Go dumb luck!

That was in first grade. I had another one of those scenarios in another Elementary School (It was different from the last one, though. I moved away from that horrid school ) I was in 5th (or was it 4th?) grade at the time. This time, I knew about politics AND we were given more choices (YAY!) I chose a Green Party guy because what he said he would do was something to closer to what I wanted to happen. But he lost, and a Democrat (I think his name starts with the letter K, I forgot his name sadly ) won. At least this vote was MUCH better then my first.



Exactly!



Again, true!



Yea. Not all kids do all of that, and it's the same with the adults. Same thing vice-versa. Who knows what people are thinking about these days! That's why Its fun to guess what people are thinking about. I see alot of my peers do it as well and I think to goes on among adults as well. I don't spread around what I think the person's thinking very often, though. Unless it's really important or something,



True. They don't want to offend anyone and be hated. No one dose. It's a worry that everyone has. And that's why they try to act like they agree with them. I fit into there myself, even if I do try to be brutally honest.

I have a feeling that we are thinking about diffrent ages and that's why we are unable to agree. I, personally, think it's perfectly fine for kids in their late teens to vote. However, what I'm reciving from you is that it's perfectly fine to let kids at young ages such as 5 or 4 year olds vote. No no no! I'm definitly not going to let my eight year-old brother with low-functoning autisim go to a booth and vote, you know?

Yes I agree. And not only junior hight, may be even elementary to some extend. So may be we should do a "package deal". The first step of the program is to teach politics in school and see how it goes. And then once it works out then lower vote age based on the findings as to on which kids politics lessons end up being successful. And I would guess htat vote age could be lowered to include all the teens because I know htese kids already learn history and stuff, so I imagine htat learning politics and current events is easier than learnign about antient egypet.



Then we probably confused topics at some point because you kept referring to teens in one of your earlier posts so I assumed that that was what you were talking about. But anyway I am glad you are finally agree with me.

By the way I just ran a search and I found out that I am not the only one who has that idea. There is an "association for Children's suffrage" made by students of Brown University who want to either lower a voting age or elimitate it altogether:

http://www.brown.edu/Students/Associati ... _Suffrage/

Heh, I thought that from the beginning We just got confused and started arguing with each other I suppose. It's kinda fun and interesting seeing people with the same thoughts arguing with each other because they're misinterpreting what the opponent is trying to get at I'm glad we can finally agree as well



If they'd let us do Elementary (I don't think they would ), then I'll support that too! I'm fine with the package idea and such. though having 13 year olds vote is pushing it a bit. I would suggest lowering it from 18 to 16 and, if you feel like risking a bit, 15 or maby even 14. that sounds about correct

And your especilly right on the ancient egypt. I'd rather watch the paint dry then go through that again Histrory is really boring to me (Mostly becuse the teachers make it boring) My mother loves history, though. Ah well.

And many adults are crazy, religious fundamentalists anyone? how do you think bush got elected? There is no gaurantee the quality of any countries adult demographics will be educated, experienced, knowledgeable or responsible... its quite the opposite in certain countries.

Naive idealism is bad, and I will not vote in favor of giving any naive idealistic person any more control over my life than is possible, and that essentially solves my vote on this matter.
Definitely not elementary school. No way would I want people without the ability to conceptualize the full nature of human relations to decide policy on tax rates. Not only that but teaching politics in an unbiased manner is not something I would ever entrust to an education system and putting more political education into our education just to allow younger people to vote seems a waste of money and effort considering that more productive effort would be to get them to do better on their algebra. I would also tend to think that learning about Ancient Egypt would be easier because Ancient Egypt is a topic that requires less depth. All that it takes is a week to a month to learn all that is necessary about Egypt, however, politics seems to take about 2 years or more for a product that still is not that great.

I do not want to extend the voting age, and if anything I would like to restrict voting in order to promote quality as much as possible, reductions in quality, such as those that would occur by allowing younger ages to vote is something that is unacceptable. Voting is power, and power must be held by hands that know what that means, I don't think that most people at that age recognize the full meaning of governmental power.

The problem with "teaching politics" in elementary schools is they will end of teaching it from the bias of the educators. I prefer having children grow up with the ability to accept or reject political biases of their parents not their teachers. Their teachers have more the power to "pass" or "fail" them. Already in some schools we are seeing rampant political activism. I would hate to expand it further.

What is this urge to curtail the innocence of childhood?

That's why I said it's doubt that it will be successful if we teach it in elementary school. I'm worried about this as well. Guess I'm not the only one How about just High School and Junior High? Would that work out you think?

Last edited by Leporidae on 11 Feb 2007, 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A portion of the 18-21 population does vote. I just do not believe they should have that power, which is by amendment. I do not believe that all people that vote are informed. I have an (left-of-center) aunt that argued to me that people who do keep inform should vote in every election. I strongly differ. I believe those who decline to remain informed on issues and events have a duty NOT to vote, and I myself will not vote on an election, or ballot issue that I am not informed about.



Mordy, how you define "educated" and "experienced?" I would support lifting the voting age to 21 even though I kept myself informed and began voting and 18, however I would note define people of my own particular values alone as having such charactistics (admittedly I am an agnostic, but one could say I have Judeo-Christian values). Do you define a person's knowledge, and responsibility based on religious beliefs or whom they vote for in a particular election?

Don't let them vote, you'll just ruin their hope that their lives are meaningful. Better to keep their hopes up until they are old enough to get sent to a country to kill brown people, or at least work for minimum wage at Walmart.

Very few of Wal-Mart's workers work at minimum wage. I think it's under 5%. I could actually make more at Wal-Mart then at the library, but I want to work at the library. Wal-Mart's pay is comparable to lots of other places (book stores, left-wing donating Target, K-Mart), but people like to forget because they are the big boy on the block.

In ten years people will be complaining about somebody else.

ADDENDUM: Is there any way for people NOT to complain about the minimum wage? I mean if we got rid of it people would complain we didn't have a minimum wage. When we raise it, the complaints continue that it isn't high enough as well as the fact that people were still making it. No one seems to care much about who generally makes the minimum wage (people starting), or what effect raising the minimum wage will have (people losing jobs). I guess asking those questions "isn't fair."



First off, people in the United States are not "sent," they join the military. This involves signing a contract. Then, yes, they can be sent into combat. They do kill people, terrorists who are also killing people, specifically Arab Iraqi civilians. There is lieutenant, a Watada, who is refusing to go. He is being tried, and could get five years. Considering the way he is going about it,I wish he could get life.