posted
There's a certain level of directness that you get from children that you'll never get from an adult. Keep in mind, I'm not saying we should give them the keys to our nuclear arsenal, but but maybe we could start asking them clarifying questions before we make big decisions.
Personally, I'm only in it for the ice cream... Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Well, Im 16, and I don't think I would trust the kids in my school to vote. We've been rated as one of the top 100 public schools in the nation. However, looking at the students, you see why teenagers don't vote.
While some to maybe half of teenagers do know what's going on in the world and actually care about some thing called "the government", most would probably just not vote.
One the other hand, I know a lot of adults who are just as ignorant and narrow-minded as they are, so I don't know. An adult's mind will always underestimate a child's mind, and if you really do understand your child, talk to them about your childhood and your experiences. Spend some time with them. It matters quite a bit you know.
About the drinking age, if adults haven't realized, any kid you wants to drink already does. I assure you almost every kid in this nation could probably easily get alcohal without being found out. By legalizing it, adults would just be taking away the rebel edge all kids feel when they drink.
On the issue of taxes: people under the voting age should not have income tax. If we do not have voting rites, I see no reason why we should have to pay a country we have no say in.
If adults sat down with kids every once in a while, asked them what they really thought, and worked to rectify them, the country would be a better place. But in school, at least in my school, you can tell no one cares about the individual student compared to the recent standardized test results.
Three years ago, in my middle school, three people comitted suicide in under six months before the administration did any thing about it. In my school, I met with my administrator three times that year, two of which were for rescheduling a class that had been cut from the school curiculum.
Our schools are not teaching us about current events that could effect our lives. No one ever asks an opinion. Every thing is a command. If they didn't realize, we are not in an army, and should at least be asked our feedback to be taken into consideration in planning how a school could better itself.
Teenagers and kids are not as dumb as people make us out to be. Although a lot of our country's youth is not turning out the way they should, the reason may lye, in fact, with some thing called the adults that make our lives what they are. Give us more time, tell us whats going on, and we can better pay for your retirement Posts: 5 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Most adults are idiots, so are most teenagers. Why don't we have some sort of requirement that you actualy be intellegent and informed before you can vote.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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It would be easily corrupted because how could you decide who was intelligent? And that is why they should lower the voting age to 16. Besides, the "idiot teenagers" wouldnt vote. I am also a teenager so not a one can attack me for that comment.
Posts: 883 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
On the subject of children and voting-- wouldn't it be possible to have a voting proficiency test for people under eighteen, without excluding adults who took it and didn't pass? Sort of an exemption exam from the age limit? Of course the system wouldn't be perfect, but anyone cheated out of voting rights because of a biased exam would at worst have to wait a couple of years.
I understand that teenagers are stereotypically less responsible than adults, but plenty of us are better informed and an even higher number are more politcally active. My roommate, for example, is an early-entrance student who will have a double major in political science and international relations before the next presidential election, but won't be able to vote because her eighteenth birthday is two weeks after election day.
Posts: 20 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
It has been said that the best possible form of government would be a benevolent dictatorship. The trouble, of course, is finding a benevolent dictator.
However, it has also been said (by Churchill, I think) that democracy is the worst possible form of government... except for all the other kinds.
When I was about 12 I wished I could vote, seeing myself as much more intelligent and informed than many adults. However, looking back, I'm glad I couldn't, because I realise how much I didn't know or understand then.
When you look at it, though, the vast, vast majority of people vote with one party their entire lives because they / their family has always voted that way, regardless of the issues. This has seemingly little to do with intelligence or age.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
The problem with having an intelligence test for voting (even only for under-18s) is that intelligence has nothing to do with voting. Being intelligent has never been the qualification for being able to vote. Being rich, yes. Being male, yes. Being white, yes. Being over a certain age, yes.
The question, however, is why, then, children *are* excluded. Age cannot be the determining factor, since the age limit used to be much higher (at least in the UK), and we can't say that the previously excluded age group suddenly became much more mature.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I finally dug out my paperback copy of Ender's Game, and here is the quote I was after...
"Children are a perpetual, self-renewing underclass, helpless to escape from the decisions of adults until they become adults themselves."
Posts: 66 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Im 19 and I Vote! thats to lift the spirits of those who think us younger ones dont vote.
Also I think an IQ test would not be the answer because wisdom and intelligence are very sepperate things. You might be a college proffeser but if you were put on a corner in the worst part of the south side of chicago with no money on you and no help and told to find your way home do you think you could do it? That takes experiance and street smarts.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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