I'll be on Fox News Tomorrow

[JohnT]

Cite, Gepap?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Should welfare recipients be denied the vote?

no

[MrFun]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Fine by me. You do realize however, that half or more of the adult population would be disenfranchised.

Maybe you should get off your high pedestal when you claim you only want fairness and equal rights by extending the right to vote for 16 year olds, when you do not have a problem stripping this right from adults who already have it.

[David Floyd]

Fine by me. You do realize however, that half or more of the adult population would be disenfranchised.

I still really don't see what the problem is. Hell, I'd support NO voting age, so long as the voter can pass the requirements. A super-intelligent 9 year old can vote, if he meets the requirements, whereas a retarded 29 year old can't. *shrug*

[Wiglaf]

Should welfare recipients be denied the vote?

Easily the dumbest argument of this thread.
To include people who are at least trying to make a living out of crap circumstances, however pathetically, with the average brat kid living off his parents' salary is like comparing apples and oranges only without the taste.

One of the biggest problems of this movement is that most kids don't particularly WANT the right to vote in the first place. They don't feel wronged, etc. because they'd rather chase girls, hang out, party, etc. Getting involved in the political environment is about rock bottom on any kid's priorities.

On the flip-side, you'd have parents/communities influencing their kids, who are about 10 times more docile and more willing than women were back in the suffrage movement. You'd have the largest increase in incompetent votes ever - MOST 16-18 year olds barely do anything, much less work. To give them the power to pick the leader of the free world when they don't want it and probably won't use it properly is just dumb.

For the kids who do want the vote, sorry. When you realize how big the world is your mind might change.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Easily the dumbest argument of this thread.
To include people who are at least trying to make a living out of crap circumstances with the average brat kid living off his parents' salary is like comparing apples and oranges only without the taste.

If they aren't working, they aren't trying to make a living. They may be trying to find work, but until then the teenager is doing a LOT more to support himself than the welfare recipient.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by MrFun
no

Therefore the fact that teenagers don't work to support themselves is irrelevant.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by MrFun
Maybe you should get off your high pedestal when you claim you only want fairness and equal rights by extending the right to vote for 16 year olds, when you do not have a problem stripping this right from adults who already have it.

I'm at least trying to be consistent, something that most opponents of this idea seem to have no care for. I've got no love for tests, but I'd definitely prefer them to a discriminatory age restriction.

If you don't want youth to vote because they aren't smart enough, then to be consistent you have to stop equally unsmart adults from voting.

If you don't care whether dumb adults can vote (and most people here don't seem to) then why do you have a problem if dumb youth could vote?

Otherwise you are a biggoted hypocrite.

[chequita guevara]

Manumission before the franchise!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
My college really isn't political at all....

You go to a military school.. you are supposed to be brainwashed to think a certain way .

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by JohnT
Cite, Gepap?

Not that it'll make any difference, since people are so entrenched in their biggotry they have no care for reason or facts. But here are some facts for y'all.

A survey by the Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvary University interviewed 1,514 adults in November/December 1995.
2/3rds did not know their US Representative
Half didn't even know whether their US Rep was a Republican or Democrat
2/5ths did not know the Vice President
2/3rds did not know the majority leader of the Senate (Bob Dole, who was running for President)
46 percent did not know the speaker of the House (Newt Gingrich, who Time magazine just named "Man of the Year")
Nearly half didn't know the Supreme Court had the final responsibility for deciding whether a law is constitutional.
3/4ths did not know that US Senators are elected to 6 year terms
2/5ths did not know Republicans controlled both chambers of congress.
3/10 did not know which party favored making greater reductions in the grown of Medicare spending, a pivotal issue in the ongoing budget debate.
3/5ths incorrectly believed the government spends more on foreign aid than on Medicare.
On average, they guess the government spent 26% of the budget on foreign aid (really it was around 2%)

"Overall, the survey found that men know more about politics than women, a gender gap that persists even among college-educated twentysomethings interviewed in the poll. Whites know more facts about politics and government than do blacks. Rich people are more informed than the poor. Republicans are better informed than Democrats. And better educated Americans know far more than those with less formal schooling."

Overall, surveys indicate that Americans know about as much about politics and government today as they did during the 1940s.

According to surveys, rich white men know more about politics than anyone else. So were our founders right in limiting the franchise to them only?

If not, then doesn't the matter of how much one knows about politics become irrelevant? Why shouldn't youth have the right to vote for the exact same reasons women, blacks, and the poor do?

[Wiglaf]

So let's dramatically increase those numbers and make the electorate even dumber!

Interesting you call us bigots when you spent post after post mocking old people for their bowels and their life expectancy.

[Wiglaf]

New study: 90% of teens think politics is "gay."

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Why shouldn't youth have the right to vote for the exact same reasons women, blacks, and the poor do?

A black person is always black. Barring a sex change, a woman is always a woman. The poor, unfortunately, often stay poor. A kid, however, is not always going to be a kid. Sometimes a lot of people have trouble remembering that (or so it seems anyway).

Every person will hit 18 years in the exact same amount of days (give or take a couple leap years) as everyone else.

I personally would have no problem lowering the age to 16. However, your argument comparing civil rights and sufferage to letting highschoolers vote 2 years earlier is bull****.

[OzzyKP]

The concerns of an 18 year old are different than that of a 16 year old. The concerns of a 14 year old are different than a 20 year old.

You can't just ask someone to wait.