Two arguments advanced against lowering the voting age are that 16 and 17-year-olds would be extremely liberal socially, and that they would favour enormous levels of public spending.
At most, that is a half-truth. Like so many things attributed to the Left that are in reality attributes of what was once the Radical Right, a kind of advanced libertarianism has become something to be professed in extreme youth. Then, and quite quickly, one grows out of it.
After all, like Marxism, it is adherence to a system which has already collapsed. That is forgiveable in the extremely young, but not in anyone else. Even the Teenage Trot line, "It didn't fail, because it was never tried properly", is now used. Grow up.
And people now age from the independence of early adulthood into their last days, even decades, as wards of the State. That is the pattern these days. Nor is it an anti-family pattern. Rather, huge State action makes possible family life against the ravages of the market, in this as in so very many other areas.
After all, like Marxism, it is adherence to a system which has already collapsed. That is forgiveable in the extremely young, but not in anyone else. Even the Teenage Trot line, "It didn't fail, because it was never tried properly", is now used. Grow up.
And people now age from the independence of early adulthood into their last days, even decades, as wards of the State. That is the pattern these days. Nor is it an anti-family pattern. Rather, huge State action makes possible family life against the ravages of the market, in this as in so very many other areas.
In any case, and especially among those who might bother to vote, various types of more-or-less conservative religion are at least as influential within that cohort as anything deriving, knowingly or otherwise, from Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman or Ayn Rand.
Those, it is true, do incline their adherents as much to the economic Left, acknowledged or not, as they do to what was once the social and cultural Right.
Those, it is true, do incline their adherents as much to the economic Left, acknowledged or not, as they do to what was once the social and cultural Right.
The youth of today or tomorrow could not possibly be, and in point of fact are not, anywhere near as hostile to the traditional family and community as is the generation that is currently coming into the fruits of retirement, the people who gave the world the Swinging Sixties, Thatcherism, and New Labour.
Nor could the 16 and 17-year-olds conceivably support higher public spending than manifests itself as those fruits, the preservation and expansion of which dominate the national conversation even in this age of general austerity.
Nor could the 16 and 17-year-olds conceivably support higher public spending than manifests itself as those fruits, the preservation and expansion of which dominate the national conversation even in this age of general austerity.
Austerity is a failed policy, the practical expression of an ideology which is literally bankrupt.
In the period of seeking to correct its manifold and egregious errors, a period which in better days would have begun a mere three months hence, the preservation and expansion of the provisions for one, always fantastically gilded generation need to be balanced by provisions for the first generation in living memory, and possibly ever, to have worse prospects than the one before.
In the period of seeking to correct its manifold and egregious errors, a period which in better days would have begun a mere three months hence, the preservation and expansion of the provisions for one, always fantastically gilded generation need to be balanced by provisions for the first generation in living memory, and possibly ever, to have worse prospects than the one before.
If the political will to that balance required a modest reduction in the voting age, then, while I am still not convinced, I am now open to persuasion.
Very true. I will admit that I was once a teenage libertarian as were many of my school mates.
ReplyDeleteAnd you make a good point about certain Marxist sects and libertarian sects making the “it was never tried” argument. It makes it impossible to debate or even speak with such people.
Indeed, it does.
ReplyDelete