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Only if statistically ‘parents’ have a particular political allegiance. But presuming that breeders have the same spectrum of political views and appetites as everyone else everyone’s children voting in the same way as their parents has not effect
Eh? Am I fundamentally misunderstanding you here?
A couple has a child, let's say they're a Labour family. That's three votes. The nice Conservative family next door have six children, that's eight votes. Eight is bigger than three, is it not? How is that having no effect?
As someone posted above. You either vote For your own interests or those of others. Of course the hint was that the former was Conservative and the latter Labour but realistically the former is both as what people mean when considering the views of others is my "my opinion is the most importnat and stuff any one who doesn't fit my ill concieved prejudice".
Now then, dial back the socialsism and think. Is universal sufferage such a great idea? Most of the people here can't say yes as it has produced the governement we have. I assume that by approving universal sufferage you approve what ever we end up with. You have to! Or do you only approve of it under your terms? "Everyone gets a vote but only if it gives me what I want".
A far better way would be muliple votes.
Go and read Nevil Shutes In the Wet.One vote for everyone but more for contributions to society. That way those who contribute most get more say.
As for votes for kids. Nope. They have no experience to base their votes on. It only has to be seen with the unrealistci idealology of youngsters anyway. Twas the same 100 years ago. Theory is pointless if you haven't seen it work . Good ideas have no value. Experience does.
I assume that by approving universal sufferage you approve what ever we end up with. You have to!
You have to accept that the government has been chosen, but you don’t have to “approve” of the choice that has been made. They get to run the country, they don’t get blind agreement that everything they do is for the best from all voters (never mind people without a vote).
Good ideas have no value. Experience does.
You are measuring experience as time lived then? Malala Yousafzai has twice as much to contribute in terms of her lived experience than me, despite being half my age. And ideas DO matter, otherwise we wouldn’t have to vote… we could just leave it to the civil service to run the country and keep politicians out of the way.
Nope. How can a 16yo vote on any type of fiscal policy? Adults don't understand taxes and a lot of them supposedly pay them. Kids have no idea.
I had a 17yo proudly claim to have not shaken Nicola sturgeon's hand because NS doesn't want a "free" Scotland.
Educating them to have informed opinions is a great idea but when would you squeeze the rest of the learning in?
Hmmm, giving kids the vote just seems like a plan to ruin their childhoods a bit more.
How can a 16yo vote on any type of fiscal policy?
Are you arbitrarily deciding that any particular 16 year old has less of an understanding of finance and economics than any individual 60 year old? Because that simply is not alway true, is it.
Be interesting to test it though wouldn't it. Have a mock vote containing a large group of 6 - 18 year olds and see what the vote looks like.
They could be provided with the high level intentions of each party based on their policies and their voting.
When laid out like that rather than through any built up biases, selfishness etc. that occur as people age I would be amazed if the Tory party got the most votes.
Work out how to improve political understanding then, not dumb it down even further.
Sure, but in the meantime, who should be allowed to vote? That seems the relevant question since there’s an election due in a couple of years and addressing your issue is a fairytale. You don’t just mean to persist with the same system indefinitely, surely?
For me there should be one age where you become legally an adult and that should be 16 IMO
I have no problem with people gaining the right to vote at an age when there are still other limits, protections and rights applied to them. Harmonisation of age limits isn’t necessary. For one boring example… you have to be 18 to drive an HGV, and there are still limitations until you’re 21… which was much to the annoyance of my younger brother. Happy for voting age to be dropped to 16 without everything else automatically being set at 16. Whether that be the age you can appear in pornography or drive an HGV. Disenfranchising young people because we have laws to protect them (or others) from possible immediate harm doesn’t seem on for me. I’d rather “young people” were allowed to vote before they are treated as an adult in all legal ways. Why shouldn’t they be? A new arbitrary starting age for voting set at 16 for all UK elections doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, and doesn’t need all other legal limits to be examined first, we should just get on and do it ASAP.
Be interesting to test it though wouldn’t it. Have a mock vote containing a large group of 6 – 18 year olds and see what the vote looks like.
They could be provided with the high level intentions of each party based on their policies and their voting.
When laid out like that rather than through any built up biases, selfishness etc. that occur as people age I would be amazed if the Tory party got the most votes.
It would be absolutely staggering - given they don’t get most votes when the adult population do it either!
TJ - as you know Scotland already treats 16 yr olds like that for most purposes, but do you agree there are some things where an older age might be applicable?
Nope. How can a 16yo vote on any type of fiscal policy? Adults don’t understand taxes and a lot of them supposedly pay them. Kids have no idea.
So because adults vote on things they don't understand we should stop kids doing the same?
I had a 17yo proudly claim to have not shaken Nicola sturgeon’s hand because NS doesn’t want a “free” Scotland.
I've heard lots of working class adults proudly claim to vote for Boris Johnson because he'll look after them.
Nope. How can a 16yo vote on any type of fiscal policy?
as a general rule I don’t think many of the electorate have a proper understanding of fiscal policy - all you are asking is which people do you want to represent you when setting that policy.
I had a 17yo proudly claim to have not shaken Nicola sturgeon’s hand because NS doesn’t want a “free” Scotland.
I can probably find you hundreds of thousands of over 18s who would smugly proclaim not to have shaken Nicolas hand (given the opportunity) for some bullshit reason. Obviously if one 17 yr old has strong opinions and their own interpretation of when Nicola does or doesn’t want that’s the point of democracy. If you don’t like their viewpoint the obvious thing to do is disenfranchise all 17 yr olds as clearly they can’t be trusted.
Educating them to have informed opinions is a great idea but when would you squeeze the rest of the learning in?
From my experience I’d say most 16 yr old Scots are already better informed on politics than many of their elders. I’d go as far as to say that if people are uneasy about them voting it’s because they are worried these voters don’t vote the way they want. And there’s no doubt that teenagers are idealistic, but its not like they are all blinkered either. Indeed I could probably say the same about any demographic.
As someone posted above. You either vote For your own interests or those of others. Of course the hint was that the former was Conservative and the latter Labour but realistically the former is both as what people mean when considering the views of others is my “my opinion is the most importnat and stuff any one who doesn’t fit my ill concieved prejudice”.
I think you need to go and have a discussion with any A level student. They’ll bring you up to speed that we are no longer in an era of the Whigs and the Tories. Scotland has its own dominant party, but England had UKIP/Brexit parties and then the nuance of the FPTP system means that voting may need to be more tactical - a typical Labour voter in Scotland who really doesn’t want a Conservative gov might have to silence their unionist view and vote SNP whilst a hard core Nationalist who wants freedom from everyone including Europe might have to vote conservative to try and keep a Europhile SNP in check! To distill it down to “selfish” v’s “national interest” is nonsense.
Clearly the implication is that the tories are the selfish party voting and that if I were a £100k a year financial industry person I should vote for them if I want to protect my interest but vote Labour if I believe in the bigger interest. However if I’m a single mum on a zero hours contract then stereotypically labour will have my best interests in hand so my selfish vote might be for them - but if I want to grow the economy so my children have the best chances and my aspirational children and those like them might go on to become very comfortable there’s an argument that the Tory party represents the that wider interest better.
So because adults vote on things they don’t understand we should stop kids doing the same?
This, basically. We routinely ask adults, via local, regional and national elections and referenda, for their opinion, knowing that the vast, vast majority of them do not have the knowledge, direct experience or, dare I say, intelligence to make any kind of informed decision.
Yet we ask them anyway, generally by boiling down incredibly complicated legal, politic and fiscal issues into stupid soundbites that cannot hope to explain the nuance required, and just go with what the majority(*) want
It's democracy that's mental, the voting age is just arbitrary.
* I know, I know...
Just working on my manifesto, Christmas three times a year, two day school week, free chocolate and sweets, come to think of it probably garner a few votes off here.
Make changes to enable more time off and improve the work life balance for many people, and UBI to cover necessities so no one has to live below the poverty line. Seems sensible to me.
Exactly, proves the point on why people who are much more open minded should be allowed to vote to tip the balance away from the narrow minded current voting population.
It’s democracy that’s mental
You're conflating a representative democratic voting system (where we largely ignorantly vote for people who at least in theory are supposed to know what they're doing) with an opinion poll (where we largely ignorantly vote on policy and then scream "the will of the people"). The referendum wasn't democracy, it was an affront to democracy. If this weren't the case, why would we need a government at all?
I don't know what the answer is. It's all a hot mess. Surely people making country-wide decisions should be experts in the field? Cabinet reshuffles have always baffled me, you take the Minister for Agriculture and make them the Minister for Education. Why? Which of those subjects do they know more about?*
It is right that "the people" should be asked what they think they want, but the actual decision-making should fall to those who have been educated and trained to make them. Isn't this what Switzerland does? They have a Direct Democracy but their ministers have the ultimate say, because as we've seen, what people think they want and what's actually best for the country aren't always aligned.
But in the absence of that, in the absence of much in the way of actual ability at the top beyond a talent for talking down your opponents, would lowering the voting age actually make much of a difference when we're basically into the territory of Douglas Adams' "lizards" theory?
(* - probably Agriculture if they're experts in the field...)
Exactly, proves the point on why people who are much more open minded should be allowed to vote to tip the balance away from the narrow minded current voting population.
It's arguments like that which mean that nothing is going to change.
One of the big reasons the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 was because until then Colleges, Universities, Nursing Hostels etc had a parental duty of care to anyone below 21 staying in their accommodation which was impossible to enforce and left a lot of ‘establishment’ organisations with open ended liability.
The current big parties are not going to vote for change unless they feel that they are unelectable in the current system or some major interest groups see a need for it.
It's an interesting idea although there do seem to be more urgent changes needed to the system to make it more representative and less infantile than it currently is.
The current big parties are not going to vote for change unless they feel that they are unelectable in the current system
Yeah, it's catch-22. Why would any government pass a bill which would vote itself out? They'd have to be putting country ahead of party, (just imagine that!)
If you gave six year olds adult voting rights and responsibilities just think how much money could be saved on school lunch time supervisors, responsible adults etc.
(Just thinking how to sell it to the government)
Most 16 yr olds don’t know what they want for tea* never mind anything else.
*which Happy Meal.
Most 16 yr olds don’t know what they want for tea* never mind anything else.
But the question's not "what do you want for your tea", it's "how would you like the fiscal, military, geopolitical, environmental, social, trade and miriad other policies to shape the future of the country over the next 6 months to 60 years?", and I think that 16 year olds are just as ill-placed to answer that question as 56 year olds, so why not ask them too?
It is right that “the people” should be asked what they think they want, but the actual decision-making should fall to those who have been educated and trained to make them. Isn’t this what Switzerland does? They have a Direct Democracy but their ministers have the ultimate say, because as we’ve seen, what people think they want and what’s actually best for the country aren’t always aligned.
Slightly OT but this is exactly why populism is such a worthless approach to politics.
You can't give the public what they want because their wants are often contradictory or run counter the what the country needs. Taxation and spending being probably the perfect example.
Most 16 yr olds don’t know what they want for tea* never mind anything else.
That's a point in itself.
We're talking about lowering the voting age in isolation and the argument against this is that they have no experience. Why don't we teach them some, get it on the school curriculum?
In my previous school I ran a number of mock elections with the students. They researched and ran campaigns inline with the elections. Many students were engaged with the process, listened to the arguments, asked pertinent questions when we had representatives from the political parties come in to the school. They seemed to have a greater sense of social injustice than most of the adults. This was a school in a very deprived area, non selective. Parents generally not engaged politically let alone with their children's education.
I think as a few have said, we underestimate them. I'd think about reducing the voting age to 16. As a demographic they are probably far more engaged in the world than we think especially with issues such a climate change.
Edit- Cougar it is meant to be taught but has been marginalised and squeezed much like other subjects.