Legally sanctioned age discrimination

I believe that people should be treated equally, regardless of their racial heritage.

I believe that people should be treated equally, regardless of their sex or orientation.

I believe that people should be treated equally, regardless of their religion.

I believe that people should be treated equally, regardless of their age.

I believe that people should be judged EXCLUSIVELY on their actions and abilities, not on the circumstances of their birth.

These are all quite sound ideas. However, a lot of people seem to have a problem with #4. They don't just think it's okay to write off an entire generation of individuals as idiots because of age - they also believe that public policy should reflect this arbitrary, irrational, and incorrect belief. To these people, a 21-year-old with Down's syndrome is psychologically mature enough to be allowed to drink alcohol, but that kid who graduated college at the age of 11? He can't possibly know what he's talking about for another 7 years.

This is the thread for all of you to post your idiotic fallacies that "justify" agism, and then watch me demolish them.

 

Maybe kids would drink less alcohol if they had a job.

 

Black Monarch, you're the guy who wanted a video of the 14-year-old girls forced to lesbian kiss?

Enough said.

 

Actually, this is a great thread to bring up child labor laws.

One time, when I was playing multiplayer minecraft, one of the other players was complaining about his "job". His parents had a rule: if he wasn't in school, he had to have a job. Since it was the summertime, and there's no school in summertime, this meant that he had to have a job. The problem, though, is that he was only 15, and you have to be 16 to have a paying job. Thus, his parents found a workaround: he had to "volunteer" for a position that would normally have a wage associated with it, and his parents would then pay him for the time that he spent "volunteering". However, they paid him less than what he would get if he was formally employed.

Child labor laws don't protect children from having to do labor at all. They just force the children to do it on adults' terms instead of their own.

You're the guy who doesn't understand the concept of humor?

Enough said.

 

If this is not about lowering the age of consent so that adults can have sex with minors, then let me know and I'll lay off.

 

Here's an interesting case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_v._State_of_Georgia

17-year-old boy got mandatory 10-year sentence for consensual oral sex with 15-year-old girl. It was even her idea. The boy refused the plea bargain because he didn't want to be a registered sex offender, which would have prevented him from going home because he had an 8-year-old sister.

 

I believe word of the law without spirit of the law applies here. But it is Georgia.

 

You think people should be treated equally regardless of age?

Can a toddler drive a car and vote in an election, then?

 

About as well as anyone else in my state.

 

7 billion people and counting. You might want to rethink that belief before putting it into practice.

 

Well, I suppose we should check for diseases.

 

If anything we should resort to science?

Will that please you OP? I am sure.

When your brain is fully matured, you are done growing and therefore an adult.

 

Lowering? LOL. "Abolishing" would be a more appropriate term, but the scope of this thread goes WAY beyond that. For example, the concepts of "tried as a minor" versus "tried as an adult" should be abolished; we should all be held to the same standards.

Rule #1 of having sex with 15-year-olds: you do not make videotapes of yourself having sex with 15-year-olds.

Anyone who can pass both the written and practical portions of a driving test should be allowed to drive.

Don't get me started on voting. Most adults shouldn't be allowed to vote.

I'm cool with that being the definition of an adult, so long as the law still judges people by their actions and abilities and not on demographic labels.

 

While I agree with your premise in general, I wouldn't say the same applies to minors vs. adults. Agism is a problem once people reach adulthood, but before that, there are practical concerns covered by law.

I'm open to making exceptions for child prodigies, but beyond that, most laws separating adulthood from being underage make sense.

That being said, I would argue that the drinking age, voting age, and selective service age should all be the same. It is very ridiculous that you can sign up for the military before you can vote or drink.

 

The OP has a point.

If the US K-12 education systems wasn't such a wreck, it could easily have people ready for adulthood by 14 or 15.

Throughout most of human history 14 year olds have been adults. Maybe not leadership, but taking their place in the community of adults, not babies.

The same thing is happening at the other end of their careers. Perfectly capable 62 year olds are retiring.

Emancipate at 14. Postpone retirement to 75. Add 17 years to person's productive life.

- - - Updated - - -

"It is very ridiculous that you can sign up for the military before you can vote or drink."

Taxcutter says:
...or legally own a gun.

 

Do you have an argument to support your conclusion?

You can vote and legally own a gun at 18 here. 21 is only relevant for drinking.

 

Children should not be allowed to drive. Peripheral vision does not develop to an acceptable level till the mid teens. Besides that a 4 year old would struggle to reach the peddles.

 

I agree with your idea on retirement, but changes in the perception of adulthood differ now from the past for two reasons.

1) we live longer.

2) what constitutes an adult is generally more educated than before. Despite how much negative is said about education today, it was less than 100 years ago that our literacy rate was considerably lower than today. A large portion of people never went past an 8th grade education. Only a few decades ago, the percentage of the population that went to college was about half what it is today. The percentage that graduated was even less.

So, despite what it might seem like when you walk through a Walmart, we've raised our standards for adulthood over time. Obviously, many have fallen below said standards, but in an increasingly technologically advanced world, more years devoted to school have become a necessity. This is something every industrialized society experiences, and the developing world is currently experiencing a shift in the perception of adulthood.

 

One of the easier ones to use is age of consent. An 8 year old clearly can't give consent in the same capacity as an adult. Now, this is more debatable when we discuss teenagers, hence the variations in ages of consent between states. California appears to believe consent can only be granted in an adult capacity at 18. In NC, it's 16.

The selective service age is 17.

 

1) Citation needed
2) My left eye is pretty f*cked up and I have no depth perception. Should I be banned from driving regardless of how well I can actually drive?

So do many midgets. Guess what? They're allowed to drive.

Everything you need to know to function as an adult can still be learned by age 10 or earlier if it's what you actually teach kids. The only reason why schooling goes on for so many years is because 90% of it is bullsh!t.

Citation needed.

What? That can't be right.

EDIT: the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System) says it's 18.

 

You do realize that could mean up to about 25 years old or so?

 

If you have no depth perception I am not sure the word "Well" would be associated with driving

 

Citation needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Piagetian_theories_of_cognitive_development

Cognitive development usually changes a lot up until around 15 to 16 -- even for individuals with exceptionally high IQs.

My mistake. I had assumed that the "within 30 days of the 18th birthday" extended both before and after it. Apparently, it's only after it.

 

Regarding age-- government and citizens having to deal with each individual person micro-managed to ascertain abilities instead of generalizing with age laws--- is totally unrealistic and destructive. Our laws are built on generalitities and aren't based on the merits of one single individual. Policy can't be done like that. The laws may change perimeters based on states or society norms at the time, but it has to stay within general categories. There might be a 14 year old girl mature enough to have sex with an older man, but most aren't. We won't create a situation where most 14 year olds are vulnerable.

 

Yep. Who gives a rat's ass?

Walk into a public school sometime. That's my (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) citation.

Not in citation given.

Driver's test.

You fail, have a nice day.

Please, explain in detail how maturity is quantified, what level of maturity counts as "enough", how many 14-year-old girls you've tested for "maturity", what percentage of them passed this arbitrary standard of "enough", what any of that has to do with anything at all, and why the government should "protect" certain groups of people from their own stupidity but not others.