NO...NO....No..were adults and we voted Bush into office...think about who would be president if kids were allowed to vote. Britney Spears could get nominated...Yikes. but HOT!

No it's not!!! Apparently no one here has taken any courses in psychology. Like I've been saying before, a Child is mentally undeveloped. There are SIGNIFICANT mental differences between children and adults! And the sutle influence of adult on child cannot be discounted!

Children aren't taxed. They can't legally work bellow a certain age (I think it's around 15). Over that age, they aren't taxed. When I was working as a cashier in High School, I filled out a tax exemption form, and was never taxed. If anything, child tax credits means that children _recieve_ money from the government, not the other way around.

take a psych course. You'll understand much better the difference between children and adults. Again, a five year old is not an adult with a small body.
Assuming that you agree that children are not adults, you must realize that there needs to exist a line delineating legal adulthood. It is impossible to create some sort of adulthood test whereby each individual child is tested for adulthood and granted the rights thereof. Therefore, there needs to be a legal definition which separates children from adults. Any such line is arbitrary by definition. The reason why we choose 18 is because of cultural reasons. As such, these cultural reasons are as good as any, since the line is entirely arbitrary. Since the onset of puberty starts anywhere from 13-16 years old, 18 seems like a pretty fair choice.

CHILDREN ARE NOT ADULTS TRAPPED IN SMALL BODIES. GO TAKE A COURSE IN DEVELOPEMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, NEUROLOGY, BIOLOGY, ANYTHING!

I hold my b.a. in Psychology from Santa Clara U. Just fyi. I know children are not as "mentally developed" as adults. I am saying that adults are just as likely to be influenced as children. You can take that to the psychological bank. And you don't need to shout.

I don't know about you, but I have paid taxes ever since I made my first purchase. I pay taxes for school lunches, I paied taxes for my slothing, I paid taxes when I started working at 15. I paid taxes when I bought my first car at 16.

Of course not. You'll find that most adults that vote are uninformed, so maturity obviously has no direct connection to whether one should vote or not.

Still no need to yell, I'm right here (you should know that yelling is an intimidation tactic, and really isn't useful in conversation). Your argument bases on the belief that only adults should vote. You're having another argument. We are arguing whether minors should vote. We'll argue over what the age is seperating child from adult later.

I think that everyone should have the right to vote, regardless of their age, race, etc. If they're a a U.S. citizen, then they should be able to vote. That's why voting exists in the first place, so that EVERYONE can decide as a whole, who they want as a governor, president, etc.

So as to avoid thread jacking, here is the appropriate thread for minor's right to vote.

Throughout the history of our nation, the conditions for eligibility to vote has gone through a few changes. Right now, the age of 18 is considered the 'medium' between people who HAVE matured mentally and people who have NOT matured mentally. Because everyone is different to some degree, this is the best age, so far, that has been decided as mature enough to vote. If you think children younger than that should vote, bring it up with your representative and tell them you think 13 year olds should vote.

If you truly think 13 years of age should be old enough to vote, consider some of the teen idols we've seen and the popularity of said idols, then consider the number of voting adults compared to the number of teens that would vote simply because it's britney or kid rock.


the point has been made.

This is one of the best and most well thought out things I've seen you post. Very convincing, and well put.
I've made my case to a few representatives, but I don't think they read what I wrote based on their responses. They retorted with the points debunked by the article I posted in the OP. I was disappointed to say the least.
I hate to play the "yes but look at the other side doing that too" game, but adults seem to glorify and laude names like Britney and Paris.

I invite you to read the article in the OP. It changed my mind on the issue once upon a time.

consider the 28th amendment to the constitution

Amend. 28: All american citizens, upon reaching the age of 16, shall have the right to receive either a Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Porsche Carrera paid for by the public treasury and said vehicle shall be insured for the life of said citizen and will be immune from any traffic violations or citations.

I would hope that it go a little more something like this:
...to paraphrase one of my favorite amendments.

I do believe that the driving age is, if anything, too young. I'd like to see 18 be the driving age and the ability to get a license a bit more difficult. The right to travel, not drive, is ours. The right to vote is ours.

I would think you give teenagers too much credit. As politically knowledgable as I am and try to teach my kids, they don't care. They'd happily vote themselves a car, home, or free money if it meant that they could be lazy shits.

I have no faith in anyone under 18 unless they can personally show me some maturity. They may actually have it, but i'm not willing to give them the right to vote due to their peers.

Though it's painful to admit, you could have just as easily described most adults. Most adults don't care about politics. They'd happily vote themselves tax breaks, etc. if it meant they could be lazy. I do feel that assigning this description to minors alone is dishonest. Adults are very much like that, too.
While I'd love to see more maturity from both adults and teenagers, the reality is that maturity isn't a prerequisite to vote. Just like intelligence isn't a prerequisite. Nor is morality. The right to vote is a shared right by all, leaving them the opportunity to vote as they please and for their own reasons. Many people voted for Bush because they thought he would protect them. All of my huffing and puffing couldn't prevent them from feeling this way, and despite all the evidence to the contrary they voted away. Whether you think that Bush won fair and square or not, no one can deny that the man was voted for by many, many people. Close to 50%, even. That communicates to me that voting is no longer something reasonable or mature, necessarily.

Why do you think the radical left wants them to vote so badly?

They can't convince enough adults so they gotta go for those who haven't even had a job yet :thumbsup:

I guess you didn't read the OP, either. Too bad.

Sheltering yourself from information so that you won't be proven wrong is something that could be associated with immaturity, ironically. Of course, I don't think you're immature, so it's confusing when you make posts like this.

Sorry Will but the agenda is obvious and has been.

I hear the same argument against efforts to enforce voting rights abuses against blacks and hispanics.

Are you making the case that the radical right wants to leave voting to old white men like yourself?

So, let me get this straight, this quote comes from the trying a 14 year old as an adult thread, and you want to allow someone who's brain isn't fully developed the ability to vote?

We let stupid people vote all the time (again, thus Bush). Why would we not allow someone to vote because their brain isn't exactly the same as an adult?

The main differences between adolescent and adult brains have to do with impulse control, but that doesn't necessarily suspend reasoning skills. And, AGAIN, we have adults with that same issue and they're not kept from voting.

I like our current system. It works good enough.

The decline of the voting population has nothing to do with age. Is apathy.

Maybe lowered to 16 for drinking and smoking cowboy killers.

Voting for 16 year olds? Please.

I don't want Hillary Duff on the ballot.

There's nothing to suggest minors would throw their votes away. Looking at the past 7 years? Adults have no fucking clue.

so will, are you suggesting that we should have some sort of literacy and comprehension test for everyone to determine eligibility to vote?

Yes, but we pay taxes.

The opposite, in fact. While it's unfortunate that some people don't do a lot of research or think at all before they vote, it's their right. So when people would disqualify minors for reasons such as they are ignorant of politics or vote frivolously, they would also be disqualifying adults.

My complaint is with the double standard.

I've paid income taxes since I was 15 and sales tax since I was maybe 5. I didn't get to vote until I was 18.

That is you as an example. How many kids today actually have jobs?

I won't ref it, but rumor has it teen employment has dropped in the last few years.

The job market is weak for young adults, but they all pay sales taxes.

So do illegal aliens.

Minors aren't here illegally. They are citizens. I see that as the difference.

Alright, let's say that minors can vote.

How do you discriminate the 12 year olds that can't vote from the 13 year olds that can?

Where does it stop?

...

Joke:

"Politicians of This Thread's Future: Instead of sucking the voter dick, they'll pass out lollipops and XBox 360s!"

They can all vote.

Joke: What about an unwanted fetus before I abort it?

Can it thud once for Hillary and twice for Obama?

But who was responsible for you until then?

Depends. If you mean responsible for my work, be it at my job or at school, or chores and such? Me. If you mean if I commit a crime, then my parents. Hardly black and white.

Just wanted you to consider that kids are subjects of their parents, which is one reason why they don't vote: Kids' parents vote on their behalf.

Personally I think the voting age should be the same as driving age: 16. If you give someone the privilege to operate a motor vehicle in public, they should be responsible enough to vote. They should teach more about politics in high school.

I don't know about you, but my parents never asked me who I wanted to vote for. And to be honest, I never would have voted for Dole. He was an idiot.
There we go! Now we're talking. When I was back in high school I asked my teachers why no one in public schools could vote to fund them. They either greeted me with blank faces or BS answers that were pretty insulting. I could live with 16.

That's the thing. I doubt most parents would consult with their children regarding investments or life insurance, either--or whether it was fine time to re-shingle the house. Parents do many things on behalf of their children because they are responsible for them in a way that makes the children subjects as opposed to individuals free to do what they want. Medicine and education is a whole other ballgame.

We should start treating people in high school as adults, because when they leave, that's what they are. Why high school doesn't cover more of life's essentials, I don't know. They should teach both politics and finance in high school.

I'm inclined to give childrens the vote, but I don't think our society allows for autonomy for childrens. I can imagine myself as a child, knowing I could vote in secrecy, but still feeling sick to my stomach if I didn't vote for who my dad "suggested" I vote for. It's the article's last point of the four, then, that makes all-age voting something to avoid. Even if the household's position was never discussed openly, it's difficult to imagine that the values of the household wouldn't influence the child's vote. And thus, I see the breeders breeding political allies, whether they know it or not.

This discussion has a lot of back and forth, as in, "kids aren't mature enough to vote," which is then countered with "adults aren't mature enough to vote," which is actually true, but doesn't really get us anywhere in debate, because when will that ever change?

Our political systems are based on taxpayers voting for those who spend our tax money. So, and this is an honest question, does every current voter have to be a taxpayer? If you're unemployed are you now unable to vote?

If you gave a kid 1000 dollars do any of you think they would make smart choices on what to do with it? Odds are they would have a stack of Pokemon cards and then starve.

Kids are stupid.

Terrible idea.

"VOTE FOR BUSH OR YOU ARE GROUNDED" comes the battle cry from the parents.

How many children do you think would (dare to) vote differently than their parents? All it would accomplish is diluting the voting pool, and encouraging more people to pop out 50 babies so they can all vote for the same candidate as the parents.

Adults cannot have their food, shelter, schooling and entertainment denied by their boss because they voted for the "wrong" person. Nor can CNN discipline you or tell you how bad you are for doing so. PARENTS can do it to their CHILDREN, though.

I would only support allowing children who sustain themselves independently (emancipated minors) to vote before the age of 18.

The same can be said of many adults. I went to high school with a few people who might blow it on lottery tickets.
How is that any different than a pastor telling people to vote for Bush? Should congregates from those churches have their votes not counted?
No one is reading the OP, and it's pissing me off. Here is an excerpt:
And how will parents know who their child voted for? You've voted before (I hope), you know that one person goes up at a time and votes in an area that's not visible to the public. In other words, there is no way for them to see who the child is voting for.

Will: You're confusing disagreement with some sort of misunderstanding or some sort of inability to "grasp" your point.

I get it, really clearly. Your (and the quoted OP) position in simple form is that "Well, because adults are stupid and easily biased and children generally vote the same way their parents did when they grow up, why not let children vote?"

I get it. I really do. I understand your premise, but I do not agree that it follows. It's an argumentum ad populum, and it's really a problem becuase you're basically saying that it's bad, but since it's bad already, what harm will be done by introducing another bad thing?

Do you honestly believe that increasing the number of uninformed and strongly biased voters will HELP the voting pool? You acknowledge that there is a dramatic problem with under education and bias, and then you posit that we should ADD undereducated and biased MINORS to the pool of potential voters?

And to address your quoted passage, since you think I didn't read it. I read it, but I disagreed on the sentence level and thought it a bit pedantic to pull it apart sentence by sentence.

This premise is unsourced, and for good reason. How does he know this? How is "greater autonomy and responsibility" defined? How much autonomy do they need before they're less likely to be influenced by adults? How do we know they'd even be more likely? Has he done a study on this? Has anyone? Otherwise, it's a conclusion in absense of fact.

"Probably"? He used probably becuase he doesn't know, and neither do I. I'd assume that young children would not be able to value their own judgement, and would likely NOT grow in independence in the absense of parental influence. But since we're both making assumptions in absense of fact, I'm allowed to think that his is wrong.

How does he know this? This is an argument about the future, and about a situation which has never occured. How do we know that coercion would less likely? Or that it would be frowned upon? For this to be true we have to make a lot of assumptions about the "good" nature of humanity, and believe that it holds true always, particularly in politics, where lots of money and lots of ego are involved. And even if it were "frowned upon," how does this prevent it from occuring? Having sex before marriage is "frowned upon" by a lot of people, but it still fucking (pun intended) happens.

This is a ridiculous point that he makes, and seemingly one you support:

Children are NOT good at keeping secrets, especially from their parents. It doesn't "ensure" anything, and it doesn't mean that "no adult" could discover the choice. I doubt many children would not tell their parent who they voted for when threatened with "no supper" or being grounded for a week.

The difference between autonomous adults (no matter how ignorant you think they are [I agree]) and children is that our government cannot suspend the following rights:

Unlawful search
Unlawful detain
False imprisonment
Denial of due process
Denial of free speech
Denial of ...

The list goes on.

The government can't, but parents are allowed to do just about whatever they want to control their children, short of physical abuse. It's a long list. And I think it's a good thing, by the way. Without these controls, there would be a general neutering of parental ability.

Not really. I honestly think that getting teens to vote would provide them reason to pay attention in civics and government courses, considering it's they that might help decide in major issues that effect them. Imagine if teens were able to vote against Bush to end the war so they could join the military without having to go to Iraq. Wouldn't that be spectacular? Or, something I've mentioned above, imagine what public schools would look like if kids could allocate funds via voting so that their textbooks don't talk about a moon landing in the future tense and talk about the women's rights movement to be a success instead of a fad. Heaven forbid that kids get the opportunity to effect the world in which they live and learn some responsibility.
It's not bad that every adult (sans convicts) citizen can vote. It's a good thing. It allows the concerns of the many to be addressed instead of the few. If only people who had an IQ over 130 could vote or only people who got over a B in government in high school could vote, how would the poor or downtrodden defend themselves? The point is that because it's right to allow every adult to vote because they're citizens, it should be right to allow minors to vote. It's a positive thing. The thing is that people keep bringing up exclusion points that are just as applicable to adults. "If they let kids vote, they'd vote in Hillary Duff" could be replaced with "If they let adults vote, they'd vote in George Cloony". It really doesn't make any sense. Hillary Duff isn't over 35, and there's no way she could get on any ticket.
Undereducated? They're learning in school now what most voters learned years ago and have since forgotten. I'd say that they could potentially be more informed than their adult counterparts. I was better to prepared to vote at 16 than both my parents (one of whom actually voted for Bush, and has since been disowned).
I believe it's from a book. Influence from adults will always be there to a point, but can you really look back at when you were 16 and 17 and say you'd vote for whomever your parents said? I mean some kids are just as likely to vote against what their parents say out of spite as a part of their individuation process (learning to become an individual often means rebellion against one's parents).
He's a psychologist, so the expertise comes into play.
Children are fantastic at keeping secrets, especially from their parents. Short of admission, the parent cannot get the information any more than I can go online and find who you voted for in 2004. I have no clue where you get the idea that children are poor liars, and more so I have no clue as to why you'd think that so many parents would try to force their child to vote for someone. Why do you think the average parent would do that when the average parent doesn't even vote? Total turnout in the US 2004 elections was 123,535,883. There were 221,285,099 voting age adult citizens in the US in 2004.
Kids can't be unlawfully anything because "unlawful" means against the law. Children cannot be denied due process, cannot be falsely imprisoned, and in many cases can be covered by free speech and religion, though they should be covered completely.