Originally posted by Ushgarak
Not so, Gregory. As the law is currently fixed at 18, the onus is on you to back up claims it should be lowered.
You are correct in saying that we have to show why we think the voting age should be lowered. And I gave my reasons, earlier in the thread, and have defended them to the best of my ability.
But because I did not use as a reason that most teenagers care about politics, I don't have to prove that; it isn't relevant to my argument. Since it is relevant to Linkalicious's argument, he should provide evidence for it.
Originally posted by Gregory
You are correct in saying that we have to show why we think the voting age should be lowered. And I gave my reasons, earlier in the thread, and have defended them to the best of my ability.But because I did not use as a reason that most teenagers care about politics, I don't have to prove that; it isn't relevant to my argument. Since it is relevant to Linkalicious's argument, he should provide evidence for it.
If it is not relevant to your argument you should not care if he backs it or not.
Fact is, '16 year olds care enough about politics' is a positive fact that is not the current stand, hence it needs proving, and furthermore it was being advocated by posters in this thread before Link dismissed it- it was a point being advanced before it was being used contrarily.
Therefore, as this argument goes, it is very much on the burden to be proved by those who believe 16 year olds care enough, NOT the other way around to prove they do not.
Originally posted by Gregory
How would you people feal about letting everybody over eighteen vote, and also letting people under eighteen vote if they could pass some sort of qualifying test? Would that be a fair compromise?
No, a muddled and ambiguous position that will also cause trouble come the time for universal voting age comes with people who are clearly still not capable of passing whatever test is set. It will still create a system of superiority, albeit on a lower level.
The principle is wrong- half-applying it is still therefore more wrong than not applying it.
Originally posted by Gregory
How would you people feal about letting everybody over eighteen vote, and also letting people under eighteen vote if they could pass some sort of qualifying test? Would that be a fair compromise?
well everybody above 18 already HAS to vote (in belgium) I hope they never change that.
I still am against the idea that someone would need a qualification to vote, either you give it to everyone or you give it to noone. IF they change it to 16 they should be FORCED to vote.
(you guys prolly don't know but we passed a law in belgium a couple months back, one of our most debated laws ever, to allow non-EU citizens who have lived here for more than 5 years to vote for the regional elections. Well I was actualy malcontent this law -I don't think it went far enough- they MAY vote IF they WISH and only on regional elections. I would have FORCED them to vote on every elections (except EU unless the Union would allow us that.)
Originally posted by UshgarakIf it is not relevant to your argument you should not care if he backs it or not.
No no no...
It's not relevant to my argument in the sense that my argument doesn't rely on it. I don't have to prove anything about it, because my arguments stand whether it's true or not.
It is relevant to my argument in the sence that Linkalicious is trying to use it to discredit my position (not my arguments). So I have a vested interest in knowing whether he can actually prove his statement, or whether it's just his opinion.
Originally posted by SAtown_punk
Who the hell cares about the majority of 16 year olds giving a rat's ass? Those of us who do should be allowed to register to vote!
Who cares? I'd say the people in our government...
I think the question they'd ask you would be....
"who the hell gives a rats ass what this kid thinks he SHOULD be able to do?"
Originally posted by Gregory
No no no...It's not relevant to my argument in the sense that my argument doesn't rely on it. I don't have to prove anything about it, because my arguments stand whether it's true or not.
It is relevant to my argument in the sence that Linkalicious is trying to use it to discredit my position (not my arguments). So I have a vested interest in knowing whether he can actually prove his statement, or whether it's just his opinion.
The reason it discredits your position is because unless you can prove that the majority of 16 year olds are interested enough in this kind of thing to deserve the vote, your position is not very tenable.
It is most certainly not up to Link to prove this negative. In any case, it is not specifically YOUR argument that he is using it against- it is THE argument in general, one of the tenets of which is that 16 year olds are interested enough to. We await evidence of that. Don't tell him to prove it- either ignore it, or ask your fellow supporters of the proposal to lower the voting age based on this concept of interest to prove THEIR submission, and then if need be, Link would have to provide evidence against it.
Um...the majority of adults didn't vote, last I checked (in America, anyway). Why should sixteen-year-olds be held to greater standards?
In the UK, the Liberal Democrats Youth and Students, the National Union of Students, and the Scottish Youth Parliament have all stated that their members care about the right to vote. I will look into the American situation shortly.
Here we are:
"A 1992 survey of 12-17 year olds conducted for the Washington Post found that 73% were very interested or fairly interested in politics, while only 27% were not very interested or not at all interested. About 95% of these young people viewed voting in a presidential election as very important or fairly important."
Data taken from:
19. Sharon Warden, “Teen Views on America and Politics”, Washington Post, October 30, 1992, E1.
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