Karl Smith, a man who obviously has too much time on his hands, performs a massive core dump today of stuff he’s been thinking about but hasn’t had time to blog seriously about. One of them is the question of whether children should be allowed to vote:
Though this seems like a silly issue to a lot of people it’s part and parcel of the whole: “are there a such thing as human rights” question.
People often appeal to the immature nature of children. But clearly there are mature children and immature adults. If you draw the dividing line at age then this is a line of convenience.
You can count me among the vast throng that thinks, in general, that this is a silly question. Kids can’t vote for the same reason they can’t do lots of things: because millions of years of human history informs us that children aren’t capable of looking out for themselves. They need adult supervision. We make the same judgment toward others who are deemed unable to look after themselves — the mentally ill, elderly people suffering from dementia, etc. — so this is hardly something unique to children.
Still, at least Karl poses this question in a more interesting way. Using age as a dividing line for adulthood is indeed clean and simple, and for that reason it’s convenient. But should kids be able to “test out” of childhood if they want? Maybe allow anyone over the age of 12 to apply for full citizenship and get it if they — what? Pass a test? Demonstrate maturity in some way? Rescue a dog from a burning house? And what about parents? Should they retain responsibility for kids who have been declared adults? Or could they kick their 14-year-old out of the house if they felt like it?
Or is this solely a voting question? That hardly seems worth the trouble, frankly. Maybe the whole 18-year-old thing really is convenient enough that we should just keep it.
