Voting Age 16?

[Lexicus]

it should be self-evident that removing a majority of the workforce from having a say in policy is going to result in disaster.

By Jove, he's...exactly right, which is why capitalism is currently barrelling toward utter disaster

 

[Hygro]

But also, democracy and the state shouldn't be predicated on workers but people.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Driving is a pretty big responsibility, we let people drive here at 16, so there's a decent argument that they should be able to vote at that age too. Frankly working is also a pretty substantial responsibility and the Fair Labor Standards Act sets the minimum working age at 14, so there's a decent argument that 14 should be the voting age.

Thinking about it... it might end up being the case that 14-17 year olds have higher voter turnout than 18-21 year olds because the minors will be taken to vote by their parents/guardians, while the young adults don't have anyone to "make" them go vote.

There is something to be said for getting your rights, privileges, responsibilities, freedoms, etc., gradually, so you have time to acclimate to them, and/or use them responsibly, as opposed to going from zero to full blown adult... first you can work, then drive, then serve in the military, then drink, then rent a car, then run for office, and so on. I don't know if that's a strong enough justification for not allowing minors to vote though.

 

[Arwon]

Driving is a pretty big responsibility, we let people drive here at 16, so there's a decent argument that they should be able to vote at that age too.

To take this back to New Zealand, they let people get gun licences at 16 lol

 

[Zardnaar]

To take this back to New Zealand, they let people get gun licences at 16 lol

Kind of a left over from colonial days and farming based economy.

My schools armorary burnt down 1990. They used to do cadet training and military training into the 70's iirc.

Battle of Crete 1941 shooting German paratroopers easier than duck hunting back home.

They've been raising the age of a lot of those old laws. Used to be able to get license at 15, 16 now), leave school at 14 get the unemployment benefit 15. They also overhauled youth labour laws my first job (8 hour days not paper run) age 13.

Not anymore. My niece (13/14) can't do most things that were legal for her mother in the 80's.

Hell in the 1980's I took an old .303 rifle to school as a toy, mate took grandad's hand grenade (defused) to show and tell.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But also, democracy and the state shouldn't be predicated on workers but people.

for the moment, workers are still mostly people

there is a legit argument for voting to require being a net taxpayer, which will usually (but not always) imply being a worker of some sort. ship has sailed in the us though, seemingly to its detriment

 

[Valka D'Ur]

there is a legit argument for voting to require being a net taxpayer

There are right-wingers who pontificate about this on my news site, conveniently forgetting that there are many people who don't pay income taxes for entirely legitimate reasons. Should these people be shut out of the political process even though most of them are citizens over the age of 18?

It's like the UnFair Elections Act and Harper's Holy List of 39 Acceptable IDs that had the consequence of preventing anyone from voting who didn't have government-issued photo ID, utility bills in their own name, a treaty status card, fishing license (someone actually had to buy one for voting ID even though she had no plans to ever go fishing), and either didn't have, or didn't want to provide copies of sensitive financial documents to Elections Canada. All this was because the Reformacons made up BS about widespread voter fraud using the Voter Information Cards that were normally accepted as ID. The targeted demographics were low-income/dependent seniors, students, disabled, homeless, and indigenous - in short, the demographics least likely to vote Reformacon. It was a blatant attempt to disenfranchise these groups.

 

[Zardnaar]

We have three forms of ID here you don't need to present it to vote.

 

[Akka]

Right, but in the context specifically of lowing the voting age from 18 to 16 (as per the thread title and the vast majority of the discussion)? That's the difference.

Again, it's like saying I support giving toddlers knives when I'm suggesting that 16 year olds should get kitchen training (hypothetical, but whatever). One is not the same as the other. Opposing gatekeeping in-context is not the same as saying that anyone of any age can vote.

Yeah, no, my post was clearly about making three differents categories each having a different sets of rights, very explicitely so in fact, neither specifically related to voting nor to just 18 to 16.
While your answer, as I also explicitely pointed in my previous post, was providing arguments that could apply to age limits as a whole - hence my sarcastic answer.
That's again you lecturing me about something you were the one doing.

And this is the problem. Assuming others are being contrarian for the sake of it, but getting aggrieved when others treat you with the same attitude (which you do, you have a low tolerance for folks being rude to you). It's tiring, and I'm past tired of it. Heck, even if you didn't get upset when it was done to you, it's been going on so long now that I'd still be tired of it

You not seeing my conclusion shouldn't make you pivot to "he's being contrarian". Certainly not time after time after time after time. If I haven't been able to establish that we can disagree civilly at this point, I'll never be able to, and I should stop trying. Should I?

We totally can disagree civilly, but let's just say I certainly don't have the same analysis of what happened than you.

As for the actual argument, yes, I agree that there is some fundamental age limit, but I disagree that 16 is too young. It's as simple as that. They're not the same things. Assuming that someone isn't "mature" enough to vote at 16 isn't the same kind of risk scenario as assuming someone isn't mature enough to vote at 5. See: knives. We let kids work at 16, for example. Nobody's suggesting we let 5 year olds work. It's a ludicrous appeal to absurdity, and I treat it as such.

Could we then make the same argument for 14 year olds? Possibly! I haven't given the lower boundary too much thought. I've been focusing on 16 as per the thread title and general discussion. Trying to gotcha me with toddler this and that is just going to make me roll my eyes excessively. If you want to try and argue something that I'm not arguing, don't be surprised when I don't want to deal with it.

The same reasoning does not hold, because we're not discussing remotely equivalent things. Nobody is seriously discussing toddlers with knives. Teenagers voting is a completely separate thing. It should be treated as separate, instead of as some kind of equivalent logical exercise. They're not interchangeable, the law around each case isn't interchangeable, the consequences of both are not the same, and so on, and so forth. The same lessons aren't learned in either case.

That's your opinion and your claim, not mine, and I certainly don't subscribe to them.
You're arbitrarily saying that they are completely different things that are completely incomparable. I'm looking at the reasoning behind when we allow them, in which they are actually totally comparable, just not on the same place. To develop :

Lower age limit means we accept the idea that we need emotional maturity, ability to reason and knowledge to have some rights and duties, and that being too young means we lack them (and as a corollary, growing up means we accumulate them until we reach the treshold we consider acceptable as a baseline). It's a continuous (and largely personal) process, and depending on the subject the tresholds are pretty different.
I wouldn't trust a 1-year old with basically anything.
I would trust a 4-years old to be able to walk mostly unsupervised, but I wouldn't trust him with a sharp knife.
I would probably trust a 8-years old with a knife under supervision, but certainly not to drive a car, even under supervision.
I would trust a 14-years old with a knife even without anyone around, but I wouldn't allow him to drive or drink without supervision.
And so on.

I don't see how voting is subject to a different process in any way from the many other actions that are allowed or forbidden depending on how old and the expected correlated level of autonomy that is supposed to come with it.
It's all about agreeing on a general age at which people should on average have reached the treshold on knowledge, maturity and ability to reason making them able to take adequate decisions while understanding and owning the consequences.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are right-wingers who pontificate about this on my news site, conveniently forgetting that there are many people who don't pay income taxes for entirely legitimate reasons. Should these people be shut out of the political process even though most of them are citizens over the age of 18?

possibly. legit argument doesn't mean it's best policy btw. there is something to be said for people having skin in the game wrt policy being the ones who can influence said policy though.

 

[Zardnaar]

possibly. legit argument doesn't mean it's best policy btw. there is something to be said for people having skin in the game wrt policy being the ones who can influence said policy though.

Except they normally write policy to benefit themselves.

Skin in the game is also somewhat nebulous.

Only one in 7 men used to be able to vote in UK for example.

 

[Arwon]

there is a legit argument for voting to require being a net taxpayer

We going back to 9 Thermidor here lads

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Skin in the game is also somewhat nebulous.

yes, and the usual problem of "who gets to decide what counts as skin" comes into play too. though as with many things (including thread topic), you also wind up having to draw the line somewhere, even if you can't identify any useful/obvious break points.

for example, most countries don't allow non-citizens or 10 year olds to vote, but there's nothing in principle preventing either. is it a good idea to let these categories vote? intuitively, probably not.

 

[Zardnaar]

yes, and the usual problem of "who gets to decide what counts as skin" comes into play too. though as with many things (including thread topic), you also wind up having to draw the line somewhere, even if you can't identify any useful/obvious break points.

for example, most countries don't allow non-citizens or 10 year olds to vote, but there's nothing in principle preventing either. is it a good idea to let these categories vote? intuitively, probably not.

Well I don't think anyone is to concerned non citizens get to vote.

Here I think it's citizens and residents.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We have three forms of ID here you don't need to present it to vote.

Here you need either one piece of government-issued photo ID and one other thing - utility bill, for example. If you don't have government-issued photo ID, you need two other IDs that have your name and address on them (ie. two different utility bills, a lease, financial documents, etc.). It's beyond frustrating to make the customer service people at the utility companies understand that I NEED my paper bills as ID to vote, and no, I can't just show the EC team my online bill. They won't accept them in that format, not that I want to be mucking in my accounts in front of EC anyway, since it's a recipe for identity theft if their records get compromised.

I usually show them an assortment - my only photo ID is an old ALCB card from 1987 (back when the government controlled liquor sales you needed these to prove you were old enough to buy alcohol; I just used it as proof of age, and no kidding, I still mostly look like that photo). I have my utility bills, and my lease. I let them pick the two they want to use, and we get on with it.

Well I don't think anyone is to concerned non citizens get to vote.

Here I think it's citizens and residents.

Non-citizens should not get to vote. Voting is part of citizenship.

 

[Birdjaguar]

there is a legit argument for voting to require being a net taxpayer, which will usually (but not always) imply being a worker of some sort. ship has sailed in the us though, seemingly to its detriment

With your thinking, stay at home parents, retired people, poor people, unemployed people, and disabled people would all lose the right to vote.

 

[Cutlass]

for the moment, workers are still mostly people

there is a legit argument for voting to require being a net taxpayer, which will usually (but not always) imply being a worker of some sort. ship has sailed in the us though, seemingly to its detriment

No, there isn't. That's just blatant authoritarianism.

There is one, and only one, reason that you prevent someone from voting.

And that reason is that you plan to use the government to steal from them.

 

[Smellincoffee]

God, no. If anything the voting age should be increased to the thirties or forties. Teenage brains aren't even finished developing yet, to say nothing of the absolute lack of experience. We confuse 'voting' with 'self-determination' when they are very much not the same thing.

 

[Ajidica]

Voting age should equal age of consent. If the state needs to intervene in your personal life out of concern you are too young and need protection from personal choices, you are too young to vote.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

God, no. If anything the voting age should be increased to the thirties or forties. Teenage brains aren't even finished developing yet, to say nothing of the absolute lack of experience. We confuse 'voting' with 'self-determination' when they are very much not the same thing.

The adult brain is no guarantee of intelligent voting. I'm just taking a break from posting on CBC.ca, on an article about how the premier of my province and her loyal sychophants intend to threaten the feds (Trudeau specifically) that Alberta will separate from Canada if Trudeau doesn't give the government everything they want.

They're trying to peddle this BS as something Albertans in general want, and it's a flat-out lie. Jason Kenney didn't run on this, and Smith is merely his replacement after he stepped down after failing a leadership review. She has not won a provincial election and therefore has NO mandate to even think of babbling the half-baked garbage she and her people pushed through last night in the Legislature.

Somehow I don't think the teenagers of this province would be this stupid.