Headline says it all.
Apparently voting at 16 is also allowed in Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Isle of Man. I did not know that.
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About Me
- Tara
- Programmer, civil libertarian, youth rights advocate, and information enthusiast.
4 comments:
so whats with the interest in youth rights? eh its interesting but a whole blog dedicated to it? anyway i heard there is a proposal for youth wages for work. something $6 federally.
This blog isn't entirely dedicated to it... I have some that are in my sidebar, though.
I became interested in youth rights as a teenager, when it was my own rights on the line. These days it doesn't directly affect me quite so much: I still can't run for Senator or President, but I wasn't planning to anyway.
But unlike a lot of people, I didn't stop thinking age restrictions were unfair as soon as I turned 18 or 21. Young people today are the victims of discrimination just like I was, and things have only gotten worse for them.
For example, when you and I got our driver's licenses, they came with no conditions. But now, if you're under 18, you can't drive at night or with other young people in the car, no matter how good a driver you are. Get your license at 16, and a year and a half later you're still a second-class citizen on the roads. On the other hand, if you wait till you're 18 to get your license, you can drive at night from day one, even though you have zero experience -- you don't even need to take driver's ed.
There are countless other examples. Young people are discriminated against at every turn, simply because they're a convenient scapegoat and they can't do anything about it (since they can't vote). This is possibly the last remaining civil rights battle.
well what about gay rights? i hear about that everyday.
Sure, gay rights are still an issue. Even women's rights are - see the recently passed Ledbetter act. I'm not saying every other civil rights battle is entirely in the past.
But there's a big difference. Gays and women can vote, sign contracts, and run for office. Most people agree that they should be treated equally under the law: even opponents of same-sex marriage try to justify it by saying gays are treated equally (that is, a gay man has the same right to marry a woman that a straight man has). We're long past the days when those folks were considered mentally unstable or unable to make decisions for themselves; the remaining struggles are taking place around the fringes. They've already achieved, say, 95% of full equality.
Meanwhile, youth rights is back around 5%. It's not easy to find people who agree that 16 year olds and 30 year olds should be treated equally under the law, much less to find cases where they actually are treated equally.
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