Pervert fears cast doubt on plans to lower voting age

[Anguille]

Look folks Child stars don't pay their own bills as a general rule that might earn the money but mommy and daddy still decide how it gets spent with in certain legal guidelines.

But that wasn't my point anyway. My point here is that at 16 the overwhelming majority of people simply don't know enough about how the world actually functions to be allowed the option to vote and aren't mature enough to look much beyond the next second let alone the next four years. Hell most of them truly don't understand themselves yet.

I think you could say the same things about the overwhelming majority of people at age 30, 40, 50 and beyond.

 

[mightypeon]

And thats my point by the way, I do not see a good reason to assume that people over 16 are essentially smarter

Nor are people currently beeing in an detained in an Asylum.

I activly supported this issue (precisly until I turned 18 that is), and while I see the merits of the "no vote without responsibility" and "no vote without experience" arguments, they simply do not hold weight because you know, crazy (in the medical definition) people can vote. I would argue that the average 16 year old is significantly more responsible than the average inmate of an asylum.

Apart from that the "oh my god a voting age of 16 will make them suspectible to perverts!" argument somehow completely evades me. In the age of Facebook etc. I doubt that there is a shortage of publically available data of 14-16 year olds.

 

[Anguille]

And thats my point by the way, I do not see a good reason to assume that people over 16 are essentially smarter

Nor are people currently beeing in an detained in an Asylum.

I activly supported this issue (precisly until I turned 18 that is), and while I see the merits of the "no vote without responsibility" and "no vote without experience" arguments, they simply do not hold weight because you know, crazy (in the medical definition) people can vote. I would argue that the average 16 year old is significantly more responsible than the average inmate of an asylum.

Apart from that the "oh my god a voting age of 16 will make them suspectible to perverts!" argument somehow completely evades me. In the age of Facebook etc. I doubt that there is a shortage of publically available data of 14-16 year olds.

Yeah, that keeping the voting age at 18 somehow protects people younger than that from perverts is a rationalization that is really grasping at straws.
I haven't yet decided if I think the voting age should be lowered or not. Looking back at elections that were held when I was 16 and 17, I would still be happy today with how I voted had I been allowed.

Not sure if I read your post right but did you say you stopped supporting the right for 16 year olds to vote when you turned 18? And if so, what made you change your mind?

 

[Amanda]

Look folks Child stars don't pay their own bills as a general rule that might earn the money but mommy and daddy still decide how it gets spent with in certain legal guidelines.

Right. You have hit the nail on the head... the children aren't allowed to decide even if they have the money. This is precisely why the original argument about you have to be able to pay your own way is complete BS - kids simply aren't allowed to fulfill the requirement. So saying that if they would just fulfill the requirement, when they aren't allowed to fulfill the requirement is such a complete non-argument I can't even express how silly it sounds.

 

[mightypeon]

Yeah, that keeping the voting age at 18 somehow protects people younger than that from perverts is a rationalization that is really grasping at straws.
I haven't yet decided if I think the voting age should be lowered or not. Looking back at elections that were held when I was 16 and 17, I would still be happy today with how I voted had I been allowed.

Not sure if I read your post right but did you say you stopped supporting the right for 16 year olds to vote when you turned 18? And if so, what made you change your mind?

You know, I am a very opportunistic sneaky little bastard, if I dont gain anything...
However, when I turned 18 I got drafted into the German Army, which kinda let to some time constraints.
I am still in favor of lowering the age to 16 (happening in Germany anyway) but i wont do more than writing in some message boards to support it.

Considering a pure game theory approach, the best situtation for a voter is if there are few other voters, since it will mean that his impact gets bigger, leading to more power. Allowing another group to vote will therefor reduce the impact of the individual who already can vote, which may be a reason why many are against youth voting.

 

[Ravi]

I haven't yet decided if I think the voting age should be lowered or not. Looking back at elections that were held when I was 16 and 17, I would still be happy today with how I voted had I been allowed.

You'd be intelligent enough to at least know if you made the wrong choice. Many older and supposedly wiser people voted for GWB twice...lol.

 

[dilloduck]

You'd be intelligent enough to at least know if you made the wrong choice. Many older and supposedly wiser people voted for GWB twice...lol.

Any many were quite willing to vote for would possibly could have been much worse.

 

[roomy]

I know this wasn't to me, but it was about me, so...

I didn't use sex as proof of maturity. I used it to alleviate boredom, and precisely because it was naughty. If I was flipping the bird to anyone it probably would have been the church. I never wanted to hurt my parents, they never treated me badly. Even at my most rebellious I never thought of them as being unfair, if anything they may have been too permissive, or maybe they were just a lot busier with my brothers.

I'm sure I was also using it to be accepted and liked but that wasn't something I was aware of at the time.

I just don't think your analysis is very accurate. I would have opted for stripping because it wouldn't have been a big deal to me and it would have made me the most money, not because I had some burning desire to be a stripper. My only point with ever bringing it up was that given the chance to be in charge of my own life I would have happily paid my own way, and that saying kids shouldn't be given rights because they can't pay their own way is a cop out: they aren't allowed to. How is not allowing something, then saying if only they would just do that thing they aren't allowed to do, any kind of fair playing field?

And heres me making excuses for you.I thought you had grown up but all you did was get 2 years older.Silly me.

 

[AllieBaba]

This is just so wrong.

As usual, the lefties are pushing their agenda, practically salivating over the opportunity to sway young, naive voters into their ranks. All the while preaching "intelligence" over wisdom or anything else.

Intelligence is not at issue. Everyone recognizes that children are frequently just as bright or brighter than their adult counterparts. Heck, they can learn multiple languages and speak them by the age of 5 with no trace of their native accent. Of course they're intelligent.

But intelligence has nothing to do with being ready for adult responsibility, and all you do by lowering the majority is leave a bunch of stupid kids vulnerable to exploitation by more seasoned individuals. They're smart enough, but their experience of the world just hasn't prepared a 16 year old to make intelligent or far-seeing decisions.

With regards to them being as capable of making a well-thought-out decision as "most 30-40" year olds, that's just a red herring. People who don't think like you are NOT necessarily less intelligent than you.

And this is the problem. I see a lot of people who will surge forth if we turn our children into adults too early. The predators for obvious reason, and the political vultures, who will surge in to brainwash and claim their votes.

 

[mightypeon]

Ehhm, Alli, are you aware that people detained in an Asylum can vote?
Are they more experienced, reasonable and wise than 16 year olds?

Apart from that it is also quite evident that the arguments against 16 year old voting are largely the same that were used against female voting. However, 16 year old voting will have less supporters, as people between 16 and 18 are a much smaller segment of the population, and have the alternative to wait 2 years instead of actually taking action on their behalf.

 

[Anguille]

Ehhm, Alli, are you aware that people detained in an Asylum can vote?
Are they more experienced, reasonable and wise than 16 year olds?

A couple of years ago I was doing some door to door voter registration. Our route took the other volunteer and me to a house where people who had recently been released from psychiatric institutions where living. My co-volunteer did not even want to go in because the psychos freaked him out but I've had experience working on a psychiatric ward and know that those people are rarely dangerous and convinced my co-volunteer to go in. Part of our gig was to make sure already registered voters knew their poling place and had election info. We got into a conversation with one of the already registered voters and I was amazed at how very well informed this freaky looking guy with the long fingernails and nervous behavior already was about the upcoming election. He gave excellent reasons for why and how he was going to vote on the different ballot questions and candidates.
That's just my little anecdotal evidence to support the rights of the mentally ill to vote.

 

[AllieBaba]

Ehhm, Alli, are you aware that people detained in an Asylum can vote?
Are they more experienced, reasonable and wise than 16 year olds?

Apart from that it is also quite evident that the arguments against 16 year old voting are largely the same that were used against female voting. However, 16 year old voting will have less supporters, as people between 16 and 18 are a much smaller segment of the population, and have the alternative to wait 2 years instead of actually taking action on their behalf.

I don't care if crazies vote.

Nuts are not likely to become a target for the leftist machine, and I'm not worried about of-age loons being taken advantage of by sex offenders. And having worked with both kids and crazies, I'll add that yes, crazies are a hundred times more reasonable and canny than teen agers.

 

[mightypeon]

I am not against "crazy" people voting, I do not believe that the state has a right to remove voting priveleges in the first place. I just use this example to illustrate that all of this "young people are completely irresponsible" arguments are hogwash, as responsibility is obviously not a criteria.

 

[Anguille]

I am not against "crazy" people voting, I do not believe that the state has a right to remove voting priveleges in the first place. I just use this example to illustrate that all of this "young people are completely irresponsible" arguments are hogwash, as responsibility is obviously not a criteria.

You make a good point. I am becoming more and more in favor of the right of 16 and 17 years olds to vote. They work and pay taxes and Patrick Henry did demand , "No taxation without representation"

 

[roomy]

A couple of years ago I was doing some door to door voter registration. Our route took the other volunteer and me to a house where people who had recently been released from psychiatric institutions where living. My co-volunteer did not even want to go in because the psychos freaked him out but I've had experience working on a psychiatric ward and know that those people are rarely dangerous and convinced my co-volunteer to go in. Part of our gig was to make sure already registered voters knew their poling place and had election info. We got into a conversation with one of the already registered voters and I was amazed at how very well informed this freaky looking guy with the long fingernails and nervous behavior already was about the upcoming election. He gave excellent reasons for why and how he was going to vote on the different ballot questions and candidates.
That's just my little anecdotal evidence to support the rights of the mentally ill to vote.

Did you collect Agnas form?

 

[Agnapostate]

I don't really agree with the article. I think there are enough compelling reasons to keep the vote at 18 without descending to fear-mongering about internet predators.

My kids have been online for years, and that was one of the first things I taught them...to be careful who they had contact with, and not give out personal information.

Is that so? You seemed quite eager to declare that the pedophiles! eek would haunt our precious babies as a result of their personal information being in a public database...If this concerns you to such an extent, will you be joining our campaign to end compulsory schooling?

You possess them INTRINSICALLY, unless you have opted out of them through the court by declaring yourself emancipated. Your suggestion here is like me pretending that the Bill of Rights don't apply to me. From my purview, ALL JUVENILES are inherently entitled to those rights.

*gasp* Are we still not learning the folly of making assumptions about the personal lives of other posters?

Except that the histories of each movement are not equivalent. Even now, young people are NOT protected in many parts of the world, and the outcomes of this failure of protection can be clearly seen. It doesn't matter what justification was given for refusing rights to women, because adult women, in comparison to children, are apples/oranges, and this is clearly seen by any objective party, which you aren't.

If I am not objective, you suffer from the same deficiency. Your "protection" is utterly different from liberationist principles, except for my personal belief that they are both utility maximizers to some extent. Regardless, the two disenfranchised minority groups are quite similar. They are both groups thought to be incapable of making rational and competent choices and decisions about their own lives and futures. Yet this assumption remains untrue in the case of both groups. I've posted a significant amount of evidence to support my view. Where is your evidence to the contrary?

But being schooled, whether you see it as important or not, is equally important. Self-education often results in individuals with curious blind spots and imbalanced perceptions. The goal of schools, whether colleges or below, is an individual with skills and knowledge in MANY areas, not just the few areas that interest them.

I'm quite aware of what the current "goal" of schools is, just as I am aware of their illicit origins as a mechanism of forcing youth from the labor market, an origin that you refuse to acknowledge despite significant evidence of it having been posted. Autodidactism must be combined with access and utilization of a wide array of resources, but your primitive depictions of it fail to accurately analyze its breadth.

So, those who don't agree with you are illegitimate. I reject that qualifier.

No, those that are ignorant of topics on which they claim to have expertise are illegitimate. Let's consider you, for instance. You squealed with delight at the prospect of an article entitled "On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach by battling for Children's Rights," thinking "Aha! I've got him now! He's infiltrated the youth rights movement!"

What you didn't know (and probably still don't), is that in the eyes of every youth rights advocate, you had just fallen flat on your face, because you had failed to make the most elementary distinctions between "children's rights" and "youth rights," two divergent philosophies which actually stand in rather sharp contrast at times.

Your ignorance would not have been especially troubling if you had made inquiries regarding the movement, as I would have gladly furnished responses. But instead, you chose to post defamatory lies and slanders about me, supplying partial quotes torn out of context, flip-flopping several times about my alleged age, and essentially spamming a flagrant tornado of inaccuracies. It is with this series of actions that you have surrendered your right to justifiable ignorance.

I am not a progressive, nor do I consider them correct in this regard.

I am not "progressive" in the conventional sense of the word either, so that means essentially nothing in this context.

No thanks. I doubt you'll find any support for this perspective here, regardless of how correct you might think it is.

This is merely because you are ignorant of socialist political economy, as you demonstrated several days ago by conflating Marxism with anarchism, a buffoonish error of immense proportions. As this immediately raised red flags, I attempted to test your knowledge by asking you a question about Barone and shadow pricing. Unsurprisingly, you were unable to offer a valid response.

If you were familiar with political economy, you would be aware of the fact that capitalism necessarily involves imperfect contracting as a result of asymmetric information, that many of the problematic issues raised involve adverse selection and moral hazard problems (of which you are undoubtedly also ignorant), and that socialism corrects these problems and minimizes principal-agent problems through the establishment of autogestion as manifested through worker-owned enterprises. But you know nothing of this, and are thus not qualified to comment on matters of political economy.

But you don't have valid rebuttals to those claims. Experience takes TIME. There is simply no replacement for it. And, so does education. And, just because you don't LIKE the hierarchical nature of education doesn't mean that it isn't important.

As a matter of fact, experience does take time. It also takes the opportunity to gather it, which the infantilization of youth currently prevents. But even experience is too arbitrary a factor on which to determine matters of policy, or else we would have a system in which persons progressively obtained more rights each decade. Do you support such a framework?

If we merely looked to experience, what would we say of you when we compared you to the 82 year old psychologist Richard Farson? Dr. Farson is the author of multiple books, a man with numerous children and grandchildren, and a former Navy Officer, CEO, and current president of the Western Behavioral Science Institute...and ardent supporter and advocate of youth liberation, writing a 1974 book that supported the abolition of age restrictions. Why don't you try and apply your ad hominem attacks to him?

As for the nature of hierarchical information, you are clearly unfamiliar with the role it plays in the assimilation into the authoritarian workplace (see Bowles and Gintis for that), as well as its deleterious impacts on socialization. I am inclined to agree with John Holt on this matter: "Education now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and fans, driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves."

You've identified it, in your own mind, and to your own satisfaction. I don't agree.

And yet you have posted no evidence to the contrary, despite having read my reply and having ample opportunity to do so. This is because you realize that you are wrong, yet are unwilling to publicly admit as much.

So then, every time you post about me on an unrelated thread with a negative attack, does that imply your gracious concession? I thought so.

I am free to post what I will in threads that interest me. The fact that your inaccuracies are not limited to any specific topic will naturally cause criticisms of you in other threads. My "negative attacks" also do not have the negative attribute of committing the ad hominem fallacy, which you inaccurately conflate with all manner of personal attacks. A common error.

I have been, and I remain in the field.

Are you involved in municipal civil service? If so, welcome in, comrade!

Did you, or did you not fail out of the traditional school system prior to attaining a GED? I'm already aware of your answer from another thread. Do you plan to backpedal now?

I did not obtain a GED. (The word "attain" is not accurately used in the context of referring to a physical object, as opposed to an intangible accomplishment.) I obtained a Certificate of Proficiency as a result of passing the California High School Exit Exam. Moreover, I did not experience any academic failure, so in large part, no, I did not "fail out of the traditional school system." Once again, your inaccurate assumptions about other posters have led to your downfall.

Ehhm, Alli, are you aware that people detained in an Asylum can vote?
Are they more experienced, reasonable and wise than 16 year olds?

Apart from that it is also quite evident that the arguments against 16 year old voting are largely the same that were used against female voting. However, 16 year old voting will have less supporters, as people between 16 and 18 are a much smaller segment of the population, and have the alternative to wait 2 years instead of actually taking action on their behalf.

I don't care if crazies vote.

Nuts are not likely to become a target for the leftist machine, and I'm not worried about of-age loons being taken advantage of by sex offenders. And having worked with both kids and crazies, I'll add that yes, crazies are a hundred times more reasonable and canny than teen agers.

Do I really have to post this again? You know, AllieBabble, your problem is that you're too ridiculously asinine and ignorant to be able to comprehend empirical evidence. Regardless, here it is again:

My contention is that, contrary to popular belief, the commonly accepted claim that adolescents are incapable of exercising rational judgment abilities is not an indisputably correct one. Supporters of this position frequently cite studies conducted with the use of magnetic resonance imaging or functional magnetic resonance imaging that illustrate that the teenage brain is “underdeveloped,” and that adolescents are thus often incapable of making rational or well informed decisions about significant issues. Yet, as Dr. Robert Epstein, former editor of Psychology Today, notes in an article published in Scientific American Mind, thought there is some semblance of a correlation between adolescence and brain development illustrated in these scans, there is no evidence of causation by a natural stage of adolescence. His chief counter-argument references the fact that adolescents have been severely infantilized in modern society, in contrast to the important adult role they played in past times, and it may be this factor that has led to the lack of brain development so commonly assumed to be a natural byproduct of adolescence. As such, it would not be intellectually honest to declare the infallibility of these scans just yet.

There are several studies that have been conducted on the basis of measuring the actual competency of adolescents to make informed decisions, as opposed to highly speculative guesswork based on snapshots of the brain.

An important one is that of Lois A. Weithorn and Susan B. Campbell, which tested four groups of people, aged 9, 14, 18, and 21. The study, entitled The Competency of Children and Adolescents to Make Informed Treatment Decisions, came to the conclusion that 14 year olds were capable of making medical decisions with a level of competence equivalent to that of legal adults. As partially summarized by Weithorn and Campbell:

"In general, minors aged 14 were found to demonstrate a level of competency equivalent to that of adults, according to four standards of competency (evidence of choice, reasonable outcome, rational reasons, and understanding), and for four hypothetical dilemmas (diabetes, epilepsy, depression and enuresis.)…The findings of this research do not lend support to policies which deny adolescents the right of self-determination in treatment situations on the basis of a presumption of incapacity to provide informed consent. The ages of eighteen or twenty-one as the “cutoffs” below which individuals are presumed to be incompetent to make determinations about their own welfare do not reflect the psychological capacities of most adolescents."

The earlier study of researchers Grisso and Vierling, Minors’ Consent to Treatment: A Developmental Perspective, came to a similar conclusion, the authors stating that “existing evidence provides no legal assumption that minors aged 15 years and above cannot provide competent consent.”

Researchers Bruce Ambuel and Julian Rappaport discovered similar results in a study intended to specifically focus on this topic, entitled Developmental trends in adolescents' psychological and legal competence to consent to abortion. The study confirmed the fact that the rational judgment and decision making capacities of adolescents, (particularly those at or beyond mid-adolescence), were often on par with those of adults.

In a wide-ranging review of the developmental literature on adolescents’ abilities to make rational decisions about medical treatment, researchers Kuther and Posada confirmed that, “the literature in developmental psychology has shown that adolescents are able to make meaningful decisions and advocates for youth have argued that researchers must respect the autonomy rights of children and adolescents,” thus confirming the legitimacy and validity of the previous studies to a great degree.

 

[LiveUninhibited]

As for the voting age in general, I'd make it an absolute right for anybody with taxable income. This would include the rare 14-year-old who works full time all summer and part-time during the school year. America, for example, was founded largely upon the idea of, "No taxation without representation," after all, so it would be wrong for such a person to be disallowed from voting here. For those without taxable income or those who want to vote before they have taxable income, there should be a one-time simple knowledge-based test. Voting competency has very little to do with age. There are plenty of retarded 30-year-olds out there who vote much more stupidly than the average 16-year-old would.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Pervert fears cast doubt on plans to lower voting age - Scotsman.com News

FEARS over paedophiles could scupper any move to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote.

The SNP supports a lowering of the voting age from 18 and Labour backed the idea at its UK conference in September.

But now experts say the move could mean the names and dates of birth of people as young as 14 appearing on the electoral register - and they warn that would raise child protection issues.

The Scottish Government wants to introduce a voting age of 16 for its proposed elections to health boards.

But evidence from election professionals, including Edinburgh's chief executive and returning officer Tom Aitchison, has highlighted the paedophile danger.

Their warnings could also put the brakes on the wider campaign for 16 to be made the voting age for all elections.

(Continued...)

Hell, I wish I could say that I've never encountered such asinine idiocy, but unfortunately, that's not the case.

Regardless...

You just made a double post. That's at the very least idiotic, maybe even asinine.

 

[Agnapostate]

You just made a double post. That's at the very least idiotic, maybe even asinine.

The first thread post was removed and later restored. Perhaps it's you with the asinine element.

So what happened to scatmeow? Can we assume that she'll stop her imbecilic blathering from now on, since she clearly lacks an ability to reply?