Voting from birth?
Jan. 16th, 2007 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurThis morning on the BBC, there was an interview with a group in Germany that are campaigning to lower the voting age to -- well, birth, basically. The idea would be to allow kids to vote as soon as they felt themselves competent. Looking around on the Web, I find that the idea has been around for a few years.
My initial reaction was that this was amusing, but rather goofy -- that it's entirely ridiculous on its face. And yet, there is a part of me that rages against the growing infantilization of how modern society treats kids (and, indeed, adults), and a feeling that we do ourselves a damage by not teaching them real responsibility at a young age. The right to vote is the most serious responsibility we give to our citizens: important, and not trivial to do well. Humans learn best by doing, and I do wonder if the best way to teach people that voting is important, and should be taken seriously, is to let them actually *do* it from youth.
So I find myself of curiously mixed minds here. Part of me thinks the idea is fairly preposterous, and would dumb government down. Another part of me thinks that it could, instead, smarten our citizens up. Really, I suspect that a mix of the two would be true. Opinions?
My initial reaction was that this was amusing, but rather goofy -- that it's entirely ridiculous on its face. And yet, there is a part of me that rages against the growing infantilization of how modern society treats kids (and, indeed, adults), and a feeling that we do ourselves a damage by not teaching them real responsibility at a young age. The right to vote is the most serious responsibility we give to our citizens: important, and not trivial to do well. Humans learn best by doing, and I do wonder if the best way to teach people that voting is important, and should be taken seriously, is to let them actually *do* it from youth.
So I find myself of curiously mixed minds here. Part of me thinks the idea is fairly preposterous, and would dumb government down. Another part of me thinks that it could, instead, smarten our citizens up. Really, I suspect that a mix of the two would be true. Opinions?
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Re: before someone is given the privilege
Date: 2007-01-17 06:45 pm (UTC)How they think about it and how they do their research more or less leads to that "ist" thing she was talking about. To show they at least can is start and probably the only not "ist" thing we can do as a society.
I think part of where they get the news is important if we dont use SOME sort of knowledge and literacy test. For example ifone of the unknowledged masses that can vote walks through that new 27million dollar museum in Kentucky and never does any other reading or research or has that capability... they are going to think humans and dinosaurs lived together and the grand canyon was made a few thousand years ago.
Yes there are plenty that still do that, but at least they have the knowledge option.
i guess my point is that even the knowledged will do or not do with the knowledge they get or dont get. classifying that is the "ist". classifying whether you actually have some knowledge IMO, is not.