Age Restrictions

[Terry]

The question up for discussion is age restrictions.  In my view there are basically 4, although the last is pretty broad.  I’d like to see people’s opinions on the following questions.  Are the categorizations
reasonable?  Should there be more, fewer?  And of course what about the ages themselves?  Are the ages reasonable?  Could there be a qualitative assessment instead of a simple age restriction, and if so is that desirable?  I list my 4 types of restrictions below but these questions apply more or less equally to each. I will try very hard to not editorialize as I list them.

 

The first plateau people reach is driving.  Normally this is broken down into some sort of restricted license / learner’s permit followed a year latter by a regular license. The laws are very convoluted at this point and there are myriad restrictions both on what restricted means, and indeed even what regular means.  But normally these licenses are authorized at 15 and 16 respectively. 
Some states have different ages and periodically there is pressure for major changes to the system. But this seems generally representative of the current state of the laws.

 

The second is consensual sex.  This one is all over the board with specifics varying wildly from one jurisdiction to the next.  Also restrictions are often based on “what” and “with whom”.  But it generally seems to break down to either 16 or 18 with some exceptions as young as 14 or old as 21. 

 

Next, and I’ll take this one out of order, is drinking.  In the US this is federally mandated at 21.  There
is modest but mounting pressure to return to 18 as it was in the 70s & 80s.  This one is particularly interesting for two reasons.  First, I believe all the other restrictions are fairly international while this one seems unique to the US.  I am probably at least partially wrong here, but it certainly seems other countries do not take alcohol nearly as seriously as the US does.  Second, this is the only age based restriction that persists after the age of otherwise legal adulthood.  Here I am at least as interested in the views of people from outside the US as within it.

 

Last is the very broad and final plateau of legal adulthood.  In the US this appears to happen universally at 18, probably because of the 26^th Amendment even though it only defines the voting age.  The things I am grouping under this category are voting, serving in the military, right to work (there are many restrictions under 18), ability to enter into legal contracts, and for lack of a better term adult criminal justice.  The distinction in this last one is that while sometimes people many years younger are tried as adults, people over 18 are never tried as juveniles.

 

Feel free to add anything I’ve missed and expound on what interests you most.

 

[Duggabboo]

Why should 21 be the standard for voting? Isn't that against America's (excuse this part if you're from another country) belief that everyone should have a say? Overall though, how is that 18-20 year olds are ill-suited for voting? This seems like it could trail down to a mandatory test which would just be terrible.

[Übereil]

21 should be the standard for voting because 21-year-olds knows far more of the world than 18-year-olds.

[Kenny]

By this logic, 65 should be the standard for voting, because a 65 year old knows a lot more about the world than an 18 or a 21 year old.

 

I'm 20.  I work.  I pay taxes.  I am affected by the people in office just as much as a 21 year old or a 45 year old.  Regardless of how intelligent or experienced I am, if my life is being affected then I deserved to have a say in it.

[Übereil]

I don't care what you "deserve" because "deserve" isn't a meaningful variable when it comes to dividing things (stuff/power/whatever). We don't maximise utility by giving a say to those who "deserve" it, we do so by giving it to the group best suited for the task.

The question is which group this is. Is those above the age of 5, those above the age of 18, those above the age of 21 or those above the age of 65?

By setting the age cap at 5 we'll do a lot worse than if we set it at 18, because we'll get a lot of pepole voting who definently don't know enough to make an informed decision. So by raising the cap we'll get a higher and higher percentage of pepole who knows what they're doing. Up to a point, anyway. If we put the cap at 90 most voters will be senile, uninformed and will make their decision based on a 60 year old view of the world (we can't let blacks marry whites!). So we have to put the cap somewhere between 5 and 90.

Where to put it, then? At the moment we have it at 18, because that's when you're considered adult, by society's standards. Taking responsibility isn't something most 18-year-olds have had anwful lot of practise at, though (as ilustrated by their overrepresentation in the driving statistics). 18-year-olds are generally (quite a bit) more rash than older pepole, which negativly affects their ability to fully evaluate what politicians are saying, which affects their decision making negativly. That's why I feel we should raise the voting age to 21. And I suspect raising it even higher would be even better.

[Kenny]

This is not how democracy works.  We don't only allow the most qualified individuals to vote.  We tried that once, and while all of the white male property owners in America were happy about it, the rest of the country was pissed about not being able to have a say in their government.

 

Every adult citizen should be allowed to vote.  Otherwise it's just bullshit discrimination.

[Übereil]

This is not how democracy works. We don't only allow the most qualified individuals to vote.

So what you're saying is that now you allow everyone, from the day they're born, to vote? Or is there some kind of age gap you have to pass?

[Kenny]

Wow, it's almost like you read my first sentence and then just stopped reading.  That, or you read my whole post and then took the intellectually dishonest path of intentionally ignoring part of my post to make replying easier for you.

 

Every adult citizen should be allowed to vote. 

 

See, right there, I said every "adult" citizen.  at no point did I even imply that everyone should be allowed to vote their entire lives.

 

Or is there some kind of age gap you have to pass?

 

Yes, 18.  You're pretty much all grow'd up and you're smart and experienced enough to make it in society.  It's when you legally become and adult and get all the rights and responsibilities that come with being a citizen of your country.

[Übereil]

But the problem is that what you did earlier that you claimed were wrong and what I suggest isn't the same thing. What I'm suggesting is that everyone old enough to vote should be allowed to vote. The only difference with what you want and what I want is that we have differing opinions on what "old enough to vote" means.

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

Yes, 18.  You're pretty much all grow'd up and you're smart and experienced enough to make it in society.  It's when you legally become and adult and get all the rights and responsibilities that come with being a citizen of your country.

 

The problem with this argument Kenny is that it's exactly the same as Uber's, as he's pointed out. You are using the same variables, experiance etc its just that you think you have enough by 18 and he doesn't.

[boko]

18 is a bit young to be voting from a neurological standpoint.  Decision-making is fully developed around 25 in females and 30 in males.  There's definitely some deviation from the mean, though.  But I don't expect the  government to spend money on CT scans for voting eligibility, and, even then, you'd run into issues about people with brain damage or abnormal developments (who may never get to vote in some cases). 

But why the 18 age limit for adulthood?  My guess is that it has something to do with the lower limit of the age when we think it's possible to have a child without being a total degenerate. I cant really say, though.  I don't think turning 18 sounds some magical bell that makes you all ready for everything.  I was a dumbass at 18.

[Aicia-Easybeats-P.]

We cannot rise the voting age to 21 because you have to be 18 to enter the military, and all those years ago when the voting age actually was 21, soldiers were upset because they were thinking "We are fighting for a country we don't even get to vote in?"

 

In order to rise the voting age, you have to raise the age to enter the military. But students graduate at 18, and many go start from high school to the military often with no other options or it is a family tradition so they have no interest in any thing else, so what will those kids do? Wait around until they are 21 to join the military?

 

You can't just snap your fingers and change the voting age, there are many other things to think about, any many consequences.

 

At the end of the day, you can’t please everyone.

 

[Übereil]

In order to rise the voting age, you have to raise the age to enter the military.

No, you only need to get the soldiers under the age of 21 to accept that in order to vote they're going to have to wait until 21, just like everyone else.

That soliders under the age of 21 aren't humble enough to accept that they have to wait until 21, just like everyone else, to ensure a higher quality of governing for everyone in the country they're fighting for hardly strikes me as a compelling argument against raising the voting age. They can fight wars for the good of the country, but they can't not vote for the good of the country? I mean, which of those two seems the hardest thing to do?

At the end of the day, you can’t please everyone.

That's supposed to be an argument against my proposition?