I’ll delve a little into politics here for a quick moment. I am hearing a lot of murmuring about a movement to allow voting by 16 year old people. I think that’s a bad idea, but…
A vote will create laws and elect lawmakers who help determine community/national direction, yet at 16, or even 18 for that matter, they have not yet even fully lived any portion of their life fully accountable to our laws. As a minor and a ward of their parents, they are at least partially shielded from the consequences of their actions under our laws. They are not held fully accountable for either their legal or their financial actions. Financial issues fall on their parents and they are not usually held fully accountable for law breaking until they are 18. There are special conditions and courts for minors who run afoul of our laws.
My feeling is that if a person wants to vote, that is to participate in making laws and electing lawmakers, then they must be willing to be held fully accountable to our laws. This means that if they hit someone or damage other’s property at a protest or anywhere, they should be charged fully as an adult. Let a 16 year old register to vote, but as part of the process they must be willing to be held financially and criminally for all of their actions from that point on in their lives. Treat it as a super-emancipation that both grants the minor the rights and responsibilities of an adult and at the same time releases the parent from any liability due to the actions of their now former child. If a 16 or 17 year old person wants the right to vote like an adult member of our society, then they must be willing to be fully accountable as an adult member of our society in order to earn that right to vote.
That’s my take. Now go ride your bike, it’s sunny out there.