sugarplumkitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sugarplumkitty) wrote2007-06-08 11:37 am
sugarplumkitty) wrote2007-06-08 11:37 am
Friday five
1. What is the federal voting age where you live? Do you feel it's too low, too high, or just right?
The federal voting age in the US is 18. I think it's just right.
2. How old were you when you first voted (if ever)? 18
3. Did you have any interest in voting before you reached voting age? Why or why not?
Yes. I came of age as the draft for Vietnam ended and the Watergate hearings were happening. Vietnam and Watergate were catalysts for me. I wanted to do everything I could to stop corruption.
4. What is the minimum legal age (if any) to be elected to the federal house(s) of government where you live? What's the minimum for the federal leader(s) (e.g.prime minister, president, supreme benevolent leader), if any? Do you feel these ages are too low, too high, or just right?
The House of Representatives minimum age is 30, I believe. Or is it 25? The president must be at least 35. I think to lead a country you need to have lived long enough to have some perspective so 35 is about right.
5. What changes do you think it would make in the political landscape of your area if the voting age were lowered to 16? 14?
I think the country would become incredibly unstable if the young people bothered to vote. No, it wouldn't be good. People need to understand history and world civics to make good decisions. Some of the important stuff isn't taught until the end of high school.
The federal voting age in the US is 18. I think it's just right.
2. How old were you when you first voted (if ever)? 18
3. Did you have any interest in voting before you reached voting age? Why or why not?
Yes. I came of age as the draft for Vietnam ended and the Watergate hearings were happening. Vietnam and Watergate were catalysts for me. I wanted to do everything I could to stop corruption.
4. What is the minimum legal age (if any) to be elected to the federal house(s) of government where you live? What's the minimum for the federal leader(s) (e.g.prime minister, president, supreme benevolent leader), if any? Do you feel these ages are too low, too high, or just right?
The House of Representatives minimum age is 30, I believe. Or is it 25? The president must be at least 35. I think to lead a country you need to have lived long enough to have some perspective so 35 is about right.
5. What changes do you think it would make in the political landscape of your area if the voting age were lowered to 16? 14?
I think the country would become incredibly unstable if the young people bothered to vote. No, it wouldn't be good. People need to understand history and world civics to make good decisions. Some of the important stuff isn't taught until the end of high school.
Answering without answering: an example :D
I'm going to rely on my memory now, always a risky exercise.
Most if not all cultures have some sort of system for assigning responsibilities based on age. At least one that I encountered while reading used a three-tier system similar to ours.
Tier one was childhood, and lasted until the mid-teens. At that point, the people were physically mature enough to assume adult tasks, but lack the experience and completely-rewired adult brains it takes to make reasoned, workable, decisions.
Tier two is roughly equivalent to this cultures young-adulthood, and includes tasks such as gathering, growing, and hunting food, starting the process of raising children, and military service. At this stage, boys (in the example I ran into) were allowed to sit in on the elders' councils, but not to speak there (this raises a whole different topic,which I'm not going to touch).
Tier three is adulthood. The chief difference is that the council-sitters were not allowed to speak. As I recall, this stage started somewhere around the mid-twenties. Our culture's equivalent is the lower limits for some elected officials.
I think that this sort of multi-tier system makes a great deal of sense, acknowledging the way that our bodies grow up long before our minds do.
A feature of late-sixties culture that was particularly annoying to me was the interviewing of teenagers to get their opinion on global economics, socio-political issues, and other relevant issues. Teen-on-the-street interviews as such didn't bother me: As a teenager myself, I was interested in what they said.
What flabbergasted me was that what they said was being regarded seriously, on an equal footing with what people who had spent years studying these issues said. As a teen, I was acutely aware of how little I knew, how passionately I felt about what I knew, and how unreliable what I thought could be: and in quite a few cases, the doodlebug interviewees were clearly less well-informed than I was.
That's enough of a rant for now.
And notice: I barely answered part of one of your questions.
;D
Re: Answering without answering: an example :D
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"Some of the important stuff" isn't taught until college. I think the voting age should go back to 21.
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A lot of them are between the ages of 18 and 21. For the most part, they're young people whose families don't have college money for them so they enlist to get college educations from the government. I stand by my opinion.
Don't forget, I was 17 when the law changed. People who are in danger of being drafted in the future if the draft is reintated should have a say in who makes those decisions.
You have a 4F classification should it come to that. Brandon isn't so lucky.
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That's not the American way. Besides, battle causes PTSD. Do you really want a country run by people elected only by people with serious psychological disorders?
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I'm not saying I endorse this. I'm just debating theoretically. Some of us are wierd enough to enjoy that.... ^_^ muve!