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We should not do the same for the elders. Here is why...
The reason we say 'adult' is 18 yrs or 21 yrs old is because we have to set the line somewhere. We say 18 or 21 as sufficient life experience to qualify to be an 'adult', even though we know that intelligence, experience, and maturity differ from person to person.
On the other hand, with the elders, we have a generation of knowledge, wisdom, experience, maturity, and productivity upon which to grow civilizations. This institutional memory is invaluable and irreplaceable. The young adults have nothing comparable and as such, we can act collectively on them. With the elders, age affects them differently from person to person and we already legal mechanisms to legally appoint someone to act on behalf of an elder whose mental faculties are no long effective.
I mostly agree. As devil's advocate, elders were raised in a vastly different environment, and their wealth of wisdom may or may not be fully applicable to the modern environment. This is especially true when it comes to matters of cybersecurity, net neutrality, data privacy etc. On top of that, with a longer time to develop your own thoughts and morals comes the possibility of the opposite: a longer time to become propagandized, radicalized, and have somebody give you their thoughts and morals. For the record, I'm not advocating for a voting age-cap. Just some thoughts.
Military service is voluntary so they don't have to join at 18 if they don't want to. A lot of them want to because, conveniently, at age 18 they're out of high school and my not be settled into a job yet. For some of them, joining the military at 18 provides a "home" in which they get room and board, discipline and training, skills, opportunity to travel, and if they want to, they can continue for a career.
Joining the military can have much longer lasting and more personal effects than a vote. Ideally, I think it should be age 21 for military too but there are so many who would be lost without the option to join the military at age 18.
We still have a draft, we just haven’t had to trigger, but it still exists. If you get drafted you aren’t volunteering. As long as we have that draft starting at age 18 they need to be able to vote starting at age 18, whether it’s been decades since it were used or not. And you know what happened shortly after 18 year olds got the vote - the peacetime draft was ended and the all-volunteer peacetime military was created. That was not a coincidence.
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Should the voting age be raised to 21? Cannot purchase alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana until 21 (depending on state), gamble at a casino, book a hotel room (state pending), go to a nightclub, pilots license, concealed weapons license, drive for rideshare, plus many more and now discussion about guns.
Its obvious, we as a society, have determined that 18-20 year old's lack the mental capacity to make correct decisions.
Chalk up another U.S. subject who feels it's OK to give government the power to decide who can own and carry a gun, and who can't.
Should the voting age be raised to 21? Cannot purchase alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana until 21 (depending on state), gamble at a casino, book a hotel room (state pending), go to a nightclub, pilots license, concealed weapons license, drive for rideshare, plus many more and now discussion about guns.
Its obvious, we as a society, have determined that 18-20 year old's lack the mental capacity to make correct decisions.
18-21 year olds have demonstrated they are idiots in voting and are not capable of making rational decisions, as they supported both Biden and Obama, two of the worst presidents in US history.
18-21 year olds have essentially "voted drunk" so we should rescind their voting privileges.
Should the voting age be raised to 21? Cannot purchase alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana until 21 (depending on state), gamble at a casino, book a hotel room (state pending), go to a nightclub, pilots license, concealed weapons license, drive for rideshare, plus many more and now discussion about guns.
Its obvious, we as a society, have determined that 18-20 year old's lack the mental capacity to make correct decisions.
If you're old enough to die for America, if you're old enough be given the death penalty, if you're old enough to be considered an adult, then you're old enough to vote. While we're at it, drop the drinking age back to 18. And I meant that.
Should the voting age be raised to 21? Cannot purchase alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana until 21 (depending on state), gamble at a casino, book a hotel room (state pending), go to a nightclub, pilots license, concealed weapons license, drive for rideshare, plus many more and now discussion about guns.
Its obvious, we as a society, have determined that 18-20 year old's lack the mental capacity to make correct decisions.
Military service is voluntary so they don't have to join at 18 if they don't want to. A lot of them want to because, conveniently, at age 18 they're out of high school and my not be settled into a job yet. For some of them, joining the military at 18 provides a "home" in which they get room and board, discipline and training, skills, opportunity to travel, and if they want to, they can continue for a career.
Joining the military can have much longer lasting and more personal effects than a vote. Ideally, I think it should be age 21 for military too but there are so many who would be lost without the option to join the military at age 18.
Should the voting age be raised to 21? Cannot purchase alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana until 21 (depending on state), gamble at a casino, book a hotel room (state pending), go to a nightclub, pilots license, concealed weapons license, drive for rideshare, plus many more and now discussion about guns.
Its obvious, we as a society, have determined that 18-20 year old's lack the mental capacity to make correct decisions.
And yet, we can give the death penalty to people as young as 17. And 18 year olds can be drafted if we ever trigger the draft.
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