Rich Jahn Articulates a Defense of Youth Rights
I just really like this post by Rich Jahn, so I’m just gonna put it out here without context, so you can enjoy it as a stand alone defense of youth rights:
If you are just talking about pure 100% self-interest…then what reason would whites have ever had to give blacks the vote? What reason would men have had to give women the right to vote?
Obviously few adults will support expanding the franchise because it will mean giving up their power. They will want to keep mastery over youth for as long as possible.
And currently this mastery over youth is extensive including controlling where youth live, congregate, what they can say, write, wear, drink, what movies they can watch, what material they can read, and on and on. Youth have less of a right to physical safety apparently, since all states allow parents to physically discipline their children. Additionally, schools are still allowed to physically discipline youth in humiliating ways. The standards for child battery are much lower than adult assault. Youth may be kidnapped and imprisoned in a gulag school all at the whim of their parents with complete sanction of law. Youth have no right to property, and can have it confiscated.
All this while parents continue to horrifically abuse youth, scalding them to death, keeping them in cages, and etc, with slap on the wrist punishments. What are abused youth to do? Runaway? Then they may be hunted down by the law reminescent of fugitive slave laws. Any person who aids them may be charged with “kidnapping,” where kidnapping is viewed more as the loss of a parents’ property rather than the violent barbaric crime it is.
Many pity youth as the most vulnerable group in society. But the reason they are so vulnerable is because society has intentionally made them vulnerable by affording them no civil rights.
The phrase “kids have too many rights today” (and I have heard it before from a few people) is a laughable concept. If youth were to have any fewer rights, they would be forced to be on leashes, have to open doors for any adult present, and have to drink from a water hose instead of a fountain.
So why would youth voting be a good thing? Well it will make for a more egalitarian society not ruled by coercion over the weak.
Voting may not be considered traditionally a “human right” or “civil right,” but it is clearly a means to that end so that the interests of all groups of people in society are balanced.
We should not have to prove we “deserve” the privilege of voting. Most adults will not want to give youth the vote, but make no mistake that this is a fight, and we need to demand the right to vote. I say “we” in solidarity with my under-18 friends and colleagues.
Another alternative is to simply age out of the oppression, forget all about it, and turn your back on your former peers. You can be blissfully ignorant of all this, the way so many others are. You can continue to perpetuate the ignorance and lies about youth, about how they are a problem of “epedimic” proportions for any and all social problems. And you can thus continue to ignore any objective assessment of the true state of America. That isn’t exactly the most efficient way to improve society and lead to higher living standards, however.
October 5th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
*massive applause*
October 5th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
when did he say that?
October 5th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
It’s in a voting age forum thread, Scott. Posted yesterday.
October 7th, 2005 at 11:15 am
I linked to it in my entry.
October 11th, 2005 at 10:31 am
I was just talking with Scarlett Swerdlow the other day, and she made a distinction between civil rights and civil liberties that was pretty good.
Civil liberties, she says, involve things that are natural to you and exist outside of government. Like free speech is a “civil liberty”, because we don’t need the government to grant it to us, we naturally have the ability and thus right to speak.
Other things, like voting, she says are “civil rights” because they involve the relationship between government and its citizens. Without government there is no voting, so the idea of voting is essentially tied to government. So other issues of equality under the law would be put in here.
Human rights… I suppose if you want to break them down, then that would probably be used for issues like the ‘right’ to a warm bed, a good meal, to be free from violence, etc. At least that’s the way the term is often used. More of the protectionist side of things.