There’s a lot of talk suddenly, all throughout the Western world, of lowering the voting age. But I think we should raise it.
I’m not one of these people who moans about not enough people voting. I think too many people vote–way too many. (And some of them too often, too–but that’s another issue.) Public policy is serious business, demanding sober thought. I realize that sentence has just launched me, as from a catapult, out of the mainstream. But these days the mainstream is almost always the wrong place to be.
A reason often given for allowing 16-year-olds to vote is to get ’em into the voting booth in a hurry so they can vote to shore up the Climate Change mob. The fact that it’s so easy to recruit teens to this sham cause is a very strong argument for not letting them vote, not ever.
Here’s the truth. If you’ve only been on this earth for 16 years, no matter what your natural gifts and talents, you simply haven’t been here long enough to acquire the amount of knowledge and experience it takes to be a responsible voter. It doesn’t occur to you, for instance, that our glorious leaders who scare us with tales of rising sea levels are out there buying beachfront palaces–which they do because they know the sea levels are going nowhere, and they don’t themselves believe a single word of the fraud they’re selling us. Ditto their private jets, their limousines, their lavish banquets at Davos. They don’t believe a word of it.
Nor do teens have the experience to pick up on certain things that, to older folks, stick out like sore thumbs: like when a left-wing UN “expert” lets it slip that only communism or socialism can **Save The Planet!** from global warming. Even better, communism with a world government behind it! That sets off our radar. But teens haven’t yet lived long enough to have that equipment.
Even without lowering the voting age, far too many alleged adults base their votes on misinformation (which they were either too lazy or too busy to check up on), lies told to them by politicians and nooze media, irrational passions and personal prejudices, profoundly silly “reasons” (like identity politics), misdirected anger, or the kind of pure whimsy, totally un-serious and irresponsible, that inspires votes for hopeless third-party candidates.
Raising the voting age to 50 would be a good start, although it wouldn’t solve the problem of foolish people casting foolish votes. So we ought to start talking sense about what kind of restrictions ought to be put on voting, and see if we can find ones that work.
16 is way too young to understand. At 16, I was prey to some pretty dumb notions.
There used to be a property-ownership requirement for voting, but it was done away with as elitist, and our Nation never adopted it for the same reason. But I’m beginning to wonder…. Not a property requirement, necessarily, since that might be construed as excluding renters who take public transportation and therefore don’t own cars either (which would have been myself throughout my 20s and my mother through her 50s). But maybe a “gainful employment and/or household support of same” requirement, so only those who know what it’s like to act responsibly would have the vote.
Yes, I know … That would leave the door open for welfare mooches, or would exclude people actively looking for work. But I agree that someone who’s never had to act like a grownup shouldn’t be determining the fate of a nation full of grownups.
The trouble is that any attempt to take away a privilege (which magically becomes a “right” as soon as it’s granted) raises cries of discrimination, tyranny, and so on. Oh, well.
It would take a mighty big ram to beat down the wall of demogoguery that protects universal sufferage.
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Even though I’m 16, I agree with this!
Probably 80-90% of 16-year-olds would vote Democratic! That’s why they want to lower the voting age. All they have to do is wait a few years, because most of the sixteen-year-old Democrats today will still be Democrats at voting age. The sorry state of the Western Civilization.
I don’t doubt that you would be a responsible voter, Elijah. But in matters such as this, one is compelled to speak and act in generalities. *In general*, 16-year-olds shouldn’t be voting. Neither should several million adults. Uh, make that several tens of millions.
Exactly! It used to be where you had to be a land-owner. And when Massachusetts was first founded, you had to be a Christian to vote. We’ve really fallen away from that!
Now you don’t even have to be sane.
🙂
It should be “Now,” not “no,” but I have a hard time editing a comment after it’s posted. Maybe I shouldn’t vote, either.
I’ve done that several times! You don’t need to know how to edit a comment to be a patriot.
BTW: I am working with a friend on the script for our next film, which will be feature-length. And I was wondering if you’d be interested in reading a short part of it, to give your opinion, as well as to write a short endorsement that we could use when running a crowdfunding campaign. My friend won’t be done with the script for another two or three weeks.
I’d understand if you wouldn’t want to. 🙂
Well, sure, why not? Let me know when it’s ready.