National Youth Rights Association

Would it be possible to have a board about lowering the "legal" age. I believe it should be 16 or 17 because:
Often these people can get emancipated
They can work
They are just as smart
They PAY TAXES
They are often at the age of sexual consent
17-year-olds can serve in the military (Yup, I can work, drive and even give my life for this fucking country, but I can't even vote or have a drink.)
17-year-olds are allowed to see R-rated movies
Any other reasons you can think of?

[This message has been edited by LesbeKunst17 (edited December 16, 2003).]

I agree…arbitrary ages are bullshit. Straight up bullshit. That's why I'm pissed off at America right now, among other things.

Jess

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America is the country of the heterosexual christian rich white male ages 21-65. And since most of the country isn't one of these people, we'd better start working for the rights of the rest of us…so that 16-year-old poor Hispanic lesbians, black Catholics, and 80-year-old atheists are treated fairly. Also…AGEISM SUX ARSE!
hometown.aol.com/kjekitty14

Contests can be a typical example of wanton age discrimination. Take as an example the design of the Vietnam War Memorial. It is built in a vee-form concept selected from a large pool of contest entries. For one reason or another, each contestant had to be 18 years old or over. I am absolutely puzzled as to why anyone would waste his or her brain cells, finger muscles and ink thinking about such a pathetic rule and writing it down. To be quite mundane, who cares how old the contestant is? If a design is too "childish" (that is to say, overly simplistic, not being adequate for a war memorial and similar), it can be discarded like any other design simply on the basis of merit. But to make a blanket prohibition against under-18-year-old citizens from participating is plain discrimination. I would even suggest that perhaps a lot of opportunity for poignant contest entries was lost in this way. What if some child who has experienced or knows about the horrors of war were to illustrate it from a child's perspective in the monument? Perhaps the end result would be far more impressive than what America has today.

Colonel John Doe

[This message has been edited by colonel (edited January 08, 2004).]

The AOM should have its own forum, and should be not exist. I think that people should be "majors" as soon as they can speak or otherwise communicate with the accuracy of speech. The reason for no period of "childhood": I happen to think that sometimes the lesson is best learnt the hard way.

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Even the Bible's on my side.
Holy SHIT!

Than we should allow a child who can't speak yet to walk out in the street "because he's decided to leave home"? Some, such as the newborn, really do need the protection brought by certain restrictions.

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Even the Bible's on my side.
Holy SHIT!

Xavier's correct…

It's not what is "right and proper" period — it is what is right and proper AS relating to the Government's role in the matter.

Surely, in such a case, the parents are understood to be in a sort of self-imposed contract, between they and child.

They must provide for express dependents of theirs.

Negligence to do so is fairly criminalous, and indeed it is considered such under existing Law.

So yes, the baby could potentially wander into the street, and not be held liable for such actions, having not known better.

What infants and toddlers cannot be taught, someone by the age of 10 or 13 could well understand.

My first complaint about politics was to my mother about President Buah the first, — I was 8 years old.

Now, granted, CNN helped my opinion a bit at that age… but I was capable of grasping the closed businesses I saw and what I knew they were talking about on the news — "the Economy…" hence my pointing this out to my mother at 8 years old… and complaining.

She was surprised — and voted for Clinton.
(Perhaps I influenced politics a decade early? heh)

She probably would have otherwise… but I helped.

In any event, YES.

You cannot qualify someone into citizenship.

We aren't counting "reasons" why you should be given it.

That gets you illterates not being able to vote (MANY MANY Blacks were for a long time until Slavery was long over…) "simple minded" Women, etc…

Has little to do with actual characterisitics about the person and more to do with the opinions of the "reviewer."

You are either a Human Being and have all the Rights afforded thereto on that basis…

Or we are a society that will treat you different, or, DISCRIMINATE, should I say, under Law, against you on the a basis of Age, Education, Race, Sex, National Origin, etc, etc, etc….

No "tests."

No "qualifications"

No "choosen lot"

WE THE PEOPLE, ALL OF US, Deserve the Right to Representation in our houses of Legislature.

We ALL DESERVE A VOICE — as we are ALL participants in this system.

Some more voluntarily than not — and that is all the more reason to have these elements represented.

HUMANITY + BORN IN THE US =

CITIZENSHIP.

Not "Graduated" citizenship.

We are ALL Equal under the LAW.

It's kind of the like the atmosphere in a pub, bar… etc… you may come from exceptionally different backgrounds, socio-economic classes, levels of education, and so forth.

But in this place of rest and consumption of intoxicating substances, you are equal to any man there, and all congregate there for a common end: Inebriation… er, Enjoyment.

No one is to presume anything in such an environment, and upon the wrongful taking of such, it is setteled fairly quickly and decisively.

"Beefs" as it were, are worked out definitively.

No hatred. Peace.

It just requires the expression of, and conclusion of all malevolence, quickly.

That's peaceful. That's Equality.

That's the type of open atmosphere that would be ideal as a country to live in.

(Of course, we may have to bring back the duel for that… bu, that can be arranged)

Nobody is equal in any number of sense to somebody else.

That's key; we are all so different as to make good/bad or better/worse comparisons almost entirely superfluous in any given circumstance.

It is under LAW that this must be realized.

The Young are no different; we must not assume wrongly against them.

Some may be more able at ten than some men may be ever, at the highest point of their intellect, perhaps later in life.

We musnt' dissuade such youngsters from access to politics — not on some arbitrary qualificatory basis — not ever.

Humanity is your ticket.

THAT's Concrete, that settles it.

We just have to make sure other people come to this same understanding.

The schools are teaching this sort of liberalsism — without realizing it could be applied as perhaps "broadly" as this…

I'm being pragmatic, using the efforts of the system against it, as such.

Just broaden the scope;

We're already there.

Well this is a gray issue if I've ever seen one. There are so many big peices of things being argued here in tiny snippets that it's hard to pick almost anything out. I'll give it a shot.

I actually really like the idea of having the age of full adulthood be 17. The reasons you gave lesbe are all true; at this point, 17 year-olds are basically allowed, and encouraged, to do everything else in society that a full adult does except for be responsible for their own existence by law.

That kinda sucks.

The thing about lowering the age of majority to 17 is that it could make certain things more wishy-washy all together. That's not a reason not to pursue but it is a reason to exercise great conscientiousness. People could argue, "well since that bordeline has been uprooted, why not just make 13 the age of adulthood and have parents be able to throw their barely-pubescent teenagers out right then?" We want to bring about better and looser structure in the right, more conscious, ways but not undo it all together. We have to keep people from running off cliffs without the sudden lack of a psychological fence. So that's just a note of caution.

As far as NOT having an age of adulthood and having a bloody two year old be fully responsible for themself, that's absurd. Ripping out all structure of everything is not the way to bring about a better world. If every being were perfect and fundamentally right and the system were the only reason for bad things happening in the first place, then I'd agree completely but such a mentality is fallacious and blind. It's utopian fantasy and utopianism is dangerous.

But away from my philosophical arguing, just because a small young child can speak doesn't mean they understand the full depth of life, themselves, emotions, physics, the world and whatever else. I can see why learning the lesson the hard way can build strength but I don't think those people would have the ability to learn what's being placed in front of them in the first place, it's simply too alien. Taking away all support, all safeguards and nuturing, along the way would result in such trauma that we'd be a society of sociopaths.

No, seizing upon arbitrary measures; 'speaking,' 'literacy,' etc., are no ways of helping people in the actual practice.

We, obviously, would need a way of discerning WHEN a Young person was capable of self-sufficiency…

I like the idea of considering the Parental obligations under a sort of 'Implied Legal Contract' by involving a third party without their consent, so to speak…

The sets the legal persepctive right, and the tone of the arguement in the right frame, as opposed to… "Rights" "versus" "Rights" — contracts are understood to be legal micro-schemes, and not "Rights" per se, nor "Law" in the strictest sense, even if backed by it.

Maturity and ability to manage one's affairs adequately is of course relative; amongst adults, few are truly efficient enough to bring themselves great organizational benefit and generally consequent wealth.

So amongst youth it would be no different. Determining what qualifies one as to what level of what… is ultimately very much subjective and arbitrary.

People have gotten along in this World with gross inadequacies…

And yet compensated for them their whole life; we are all improvised operations — we try our best, and generally, that suffices.

If not, we drop dead over the course of it somewhere…

But who is to judge?