Anti-youth

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This morning on the way to work I tuned in to KQED's morning radio program Forum for a couple of minutes before switching to music. The topic was youth voting, and the show featured various young people who are politically active. Aparently there was some discussion of whether it would be a good idea to lower the voting age, but I missed that. Anyway, the first caller I heard (someone named Mira, from Berkeley) noted that she was a teacher and that she wished her students were as smart and involved as the young people on the show. She then added, "students don't seem to be as well-knowledged."

I was going to stop there, but I might as well describe the rest of her call. She went on to complain that some of her students didn't even know who their local mayors were. (For the record, I had no idea who the mayor of Mountain View was 'til I just went and looked it up. It turns out that the City Council elects one of its members as mayor every year. Who knew?) She went on to explain that young people just aren't capable of understanding complex issues. I was amused enough at her ~lucid argument~ against lowering the voting age that I just transcribed a bit of it from the recording available on the web: "I think that, y'know, voting on very important issues requires a knowledge of very diverse issues and very complex thinking. So, it's hard enough for adults to figure out some of these major policy issues, and I do not think some of our kids—and besides, y'know, at 14, y'know, there are some kids who are always active in the community because of their parents, but a lot of kids are more interested in having fun and, y'know, who's going to win the Academy Awards."

All I can say is that if you have to demonstrate a lack of interest in the Oscars in order to vote, there are an awful lot of adults who ain't gonna be voting.

(I know, I know, it's not really fair to people to transcribe their exact words; it always looks worse than it sounds. But in this case, I think she sounded just as fragmented and prejudiced as she looks in print.)

I don't actually have an opinion on lowering the voting age. But I'm slightly more in favor of it than I was before I heard her argument against it.

2 Responses to “Anti-youth”

  1. Colin

    I suspect, should the voting age be lowered, that several things will happen:

    1. Candidates such as Randee of the Redwoods (anyone remember him?) will get more votes from the people voting to be “cool.”

    2. You will push more civic minded individuals into understanding the bigger picture around them and possibly draw them into political awareness at an earlier age.

    3. If the legislature ever wants to raise the drinking age/ tobacco purchasing age etc, they can forget it.

    So am I for it or against it? Good question. I think lowering the voting age to 16 would be a good idea in general. Think of it, civic classes would greatly benefit if, instead of debating then mock voting, they would actually take a field trip to the polls.

    My concerns, however are that some knee jerk reactionary ballot measures would get passed, especially concerning sexual politics such as same sex marriage, because the sexual identity confusion is setting in at the time and some disreputable politicians would be able to effectively lay on that confusion for their own benefit.

    In addition, I suspect getting individuals to register to vote before 18, would make it very easy for the US military to just grab voter registration information for the Selective Service Act (something I am incredibly against.)

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  2. Bondgirl

    Here’s a link to an NPR piece on this from California youth radio (which is excellent) on this that we heard on the way home from the bicycle races today: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1765080

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