Apparently Ann Coulter wants to raise the voting age. She doesn’t specify to what, but just that she thinks 18 year olds aren’t grown-ups, so shouldn’t vote. Then she goes on with an idiotic strawman of allowing a ten year old to vote as the logical conclusion.
Here’s my take on it: If you’re an adult at 18, that means adult. You’re allowed to marry without permission, enter a contract without permission (such as a credit card), join the military without permission and hang for murder. Yes, by damn you oughta be able to have a beer and cast a vote if it so strikes your fancy.
If someone cannot be reasonably expected to be an adult at 18, well and good. You can’t get credit. You’re not allowed to marry. You’re certainly not military material nor should you vote. Fine. We can change the law and raise the age of majority to some other age. I’m fine with 18 or another age as long as it means ADULT, not this quasi-child status you hold between 18 and 21. I think it totally muddies the waters about what it means to be an adult in the first place.
This is a fish or cut bait thing. I’m sure Ms. Coulter is all for that stupid child of whom she is so contemptuous toting a rifle, or doing one of the many highly-skilled, dangerous and underpaid jobs that abound in the military. She just wants ’em to shut up and work for her with little say in their lives, and not to get drunk where it’ll offend her precious eyes.
It’s total bull.
Do people make more intelligent decisions in their 40s than they do in their late teens? Good Lord, I’d hope so! I hope I’ll be wiser when I’m 60 than I am now, too.
I know I’ve been Johnny One-Note on the subject of adulthood for awhile, but I’ve got a person living with me who is going to be an adult in two and a half years. His training is my responsibility, and I’m moving Heaven and Earth to make sure he’s ready to take care of himself and make decisions for himself. That’s no damn joke.
Will he screw up? Yep. He simply won’t have the Life Experience of someone 25 years older than he is. But he won’t be unprepared to face those mistakes, which is probably 3/4 of being a grown-up.
Ann Coulter can stick it up her ass, though. If my son isn’t old enough to vote at 18, he sure as hell isn’t old enough to decide whether or not he wants to go to boot camp, marry or any of the other hundreds of decisions adults make.