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JD Vance’s child-voting “experiment” would be great—for Democrats
(www.motherjones.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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politics
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Most adults barely have a clue about the issues they're voting on, let alone kids. And many topics that are voted on aren't really appropriate for children to be discussing. Plus, would you really want our schools to become 6 hours of propaganda for whatever political party is in charge?
Children would be voting virtually at random, to the point where elections would essentially be decided by random chance.
I’d say the vast majority of things we vote on in politics can be discussed with children. Kids who are talked to like adults mature far more gracefully than those who are artificially shielded from anything mildly uncomfortable.
Politicians should have to explain directly to kids why their family is deep in medical debt. Or why they can’t have certain books in their library. Or why we should bomb children in other countries.
Are you absolutely insane? These are examples of things I don't want being discussed in my kids' classrooms (High school classrooms as a matter of general discussion notwithstanding). A 10 year old kid does not need to be spending his days discussing the world of geopolitics. There is a such thing as "age appropriate", you know.
When I was in kindergarten (back in the 70s), my teacher was Jewish. Do you know how she explained the difference between Christmas and Hannukah to us? "You know how Santa comes by and gives you some gifts on Christmas morning? Well instead of getting all the gifts at once they get 1 a day for a 8 days instead. You get to put up a tree, they use a menorah (while showing us one)"
We were 5 years old. Was that accurate? Not entirely. Was it enough for a 5 year old? Absolutely. "Jews celebrate things a little differently than you do, and that's OK". That's it. That was the message. And it's all we needed to know. We didn't need to get into some discussion over Israel or get into some religious viewpoints or anything. 5 year olds don't need to worry about that shit. Same thing applies here. We don't need to make them worry about topics that their parents probably barely understand. Your idea would destroy the mental health of children who are in no way prepared to handle and process those kind of topics.
When I was 10, I heard about North Korea and asked my caregiver what communism is. He told me communism is when a country doesn't trade with any outsiders. I made it to high school without knowing what the holocaust was.
When my baby cousin was 10, we had an honest conversation about Korean geopolitics and I was blown away by the understanding he already had. Now he's a 12 year old communist who stands with Palestine. I wasn't half as based as he is when I was 12.
Kids whose grownups talk to them about the big issues grow up to be awesome. I consider sheltering children from politics to be child abuse.
I think you underestimate the capability of children to understand sensitive topics and maintain their mental health. There’s not a lot of research on it either way yet, but the little I’ve seen is all in favor of having the difficult discussions with your kids, as early as possible.
Feel free to send me some peer reviewed research that says otherwise though, I’m always willing to listen if there are facts being brought to the table.
Go to bed gramps
What topics are we voting that are not appropriate for children? I went to the polls with my dad almost every time he voted starting at age 6 and he talked with me about most of it.
More adults would have a better idea if they had been voting as kids. And if you don't think topics like abortion affect kids, you're out of your fucking mind. Schools are already ideological battlefields, with conservatives posting pictures of Jesus and the 10 commandments, forcing kids to stand and pledge allegiance to their God, demanding kids conform to gender roles and societal norms. Shouldn't the people most affected by those decisions have some say in them?
Adults vote at random. We don't take away their right to vote just because they are uninformed.
You think a 6, 10, 12 year old is going to vote based on their understanding of the significant geopolitical issues of the day or something?
For all the bullshit stories that people have said about "When I was 10 years old, my mommy told me all about North Korea and......oh fucking bullshit she did. But let's say those stories actually happened. Do you think that supposed 10 year old was given accurate, unbiased information? When they walk into a voting booth, do you think they're going to be able to understand, or in many cases even read the information being given to them?
At best, you would have children being marched into voting booths and checking off whatever boxes mommy and daddy told them to check off and then they'll go out and get some ice cream. You would be giving parents of large families outsized voting power, as that mother of 8 now essentially has 9 votes instead of just one. You would basically be giving the JD Vances of the world exactly what they want.
And that's a best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that we end up with another Donald Trump because there were enough kids in swing states that voted for him either because their parents told them to or they just recognized the name from TV and went with it. Voting results would have little to do with the issues or even party politics and more to do with just random chance. It would be basically flipping a coin with a lot of extra steps.
Or, we end up with a GOP takeover because Democrats tend to have less children than Republicans and would therefore have less voting power in a race that was already skewed in favor of the GOP by the electoral college.