To me, this is the most important topic of the day, though it is admittedly quite far from the mainstream awareness. Since most people in America went to school and were not allowed to work for compensation or vote, it requires some imagination for them to perceive the value of something so far from their experience. Unfortunately, the public is not well known for its powers of imagination, Obama's messianism aside.
Still, I think it is important to make rational points on behalf of what I believe is the silver bullet to many of America's problems, including the national debt, global warming, medicare, and gang violence in our inner cities.
That's a pretty weighty docket of problems, but I am certain that over a generation or two, they could largely be addressed by giving a voice to the only people who have a genuine interest in their positive outcome. in the case of gang violence, that would be the young people themselves who are getting killed, and in the other cases, the young people who will grow old enough to bear the brunt of the latent catastrophes their parents are creating.
In fact, that is the point I would add to the argument below: that self-interest is what rules American democracy- period. The interest of a 6-year-old born today, who can reasonably be expected to live for another 90 years are other than the interests of his father who might live another 30 or 40 at most. The long term impact of economic and environmental irresponsibility will be tangibly felt by the child but not likely by the father. Long term stability, therefore, should be the province of the young, who are going to live through the long term, not the old, whom death will spare the punishments for their profligacy.
I have heard only one other public voice share my concern, and this short post moved me to force some of my thoughts into a bullet point reply. You'll find my summary below.
Some points:
1. Being informed is not a pre-requisite for voting in America. Having interests is, and children have interests. There are people who vote by making pretty patterns with the levers on the ballots, and their votes count as much as yours do.
2. You can’t give parents an extra vote for their children, because parents’ interests and children’s interests are often at odds- think long term debt vs. short term market gains, or global warming impacts, etc.
3. Kids appear uninterested in politics because they have no power to influence politics. I have no interest in the private jet market, because I have no power to purchase a private jet.
4. Most likely kids would vote to repeal mandatory schooling and child-labor laws which restrict their ability to exercise their will and power in the world. When you treat somebody like a child they will act like one (Uncle Tom = Uncle Junior). Right now children have responsibilities (like homework) but no freedoms as a result. This is equivalent to tyranny over a minority and should not be allowed in a democracy.
5. All arguments that seek to deprive children of voting were applied to slaves and women in previous centuries and were all proven false once those groups were given power to affect their lives.
6. Just want to iterate that being an informed and educated voter is not essential in a democracy. People can be quite informed (Brooks and Dionne) and still come to opposite conclusions. It’s not about being right, it’s about having desire. And even if being right were a valid consideration, millions of senile, uneducated, old people can vote but an informed 17 year old can not. Even on those terms, this is not a just state of affairs.
7. And even assuming intelligence is a valid concern, while all young people might not be intelligent, a natural leadership would arise from those who are. Not all women or blacks (or environmentalists or WASPS) are intelligent either, but their interests can be wrangled by bright leaders within their own community. There are plenty of children who would be capable of representing for their fellows in lobbying government. This is particularly true in poor black and latino communities where these young politicians (for lack of political power) become gang leaders and express their leadership in violence rather than in debate. These poorer communities would benefit the most from youth suffrage, as they already have powerful leaders who have no other outlet to seek their own interests other than gunplay and crime.
8. Finally, engaging the generation that is closest to the future and future trends, who is fluent in the technology that will be running our lives a generation off, would be a huge boon to our community. Shunting these kids into schoolroom dungeons is the biggest waste of resources in the country. I want that 6 year old programmer developing aps for my iPhone, investing in stocks, and retiring at 40 to become a philanthropist- not memorizing multiplication tables and poetry that he doesn’t like or understand.
End of lecture.
D
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