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[scriver]

Humans don't finish developing mentally until they're 25-ish. Ability to comprehend choices and consequences is one of the last thing we gain. Letting 18-year-olds vote on things they aren't really able to understand the effects of because they're biologically incapable of that perspective is already a bit frivolous. Lowering the voting age to 16 would be irresponsible.

I came across some articles promoting lowering the voting age, mostly the examples they point out where teens voting could make a difference are all left-wing issues (gun control etc, get rid of Trump etc).

I'd put it that teenagers don't really have ~formed opinions~, they have ~geist~. Specifically, they are filled with whatever the geist of their time is, and what is popular and most importantly, makes them popular with their friends and society (ie, mostly school). They might be able to argue for their opinions and views, but they don't hold their opinions because of those arguments or ideological perspectives. As such, they are very much the same as the Uninformed But Strongly Opinionated Person Who Can't Be Argued With, except much more malleable and vulnerable to peer pressure.

[MorleyDev]

"You were the chosen ones! It was said that you would destroy the Republicans, not join them! Bring balance to the environment, not shroud it in pollution!"

Sorry, couldn't resist

[Rolan7]

@scriver
That's a sweeping generalization, of course.  A lot of teenagers pay a lot of attention into politics, using their free time to get informed and make compelling arguments.

But in a demographic sense, I agree, peer pressure is particularly strong for them.  I would bring up emotional maturity, but the level of discourse has gotten so petty...  Not just voters, but evening news, and even elected officials.

[Frumple]

Humans are weak to peer pressure pretty much forever. Kinda' just the card that's dealt by being social animals. More or less weak is a question, but considering who we let vote as is I don't think you can really argue it's something to considering unless you support significantly more stringent restrictions on voting.

Which, uh. Hasn't worked out particularly well, historically.

Humans don't finish developing mentally until they're 25-ish. Ability to comprehend choices and consequences is one of the last thing we gain. Letting 18-year-olds vote on things they aren't really able to understand the effects of because they're biologically incapable of that perspective is already a bit frivolous. Lowering the voting age to 16 would be irresponsible.

If it's irresponsible, so is allowing anyone over, what, fifties, sixties? To vote. As well as anyone with a psych condition that impairs thinking. Probably have to throw in poverty conditions, poor sleeping or eating habits, gods know what else. Lots of shit messes with our ability to comprehend choices and consequences pretty hard. If you're going to restrict access to the vote based on that, you're going to disenfranchise a pretty damn huge chunk of the population (and, probably more realistically, invite straight-to-hell levels of corruption from whichever group gets to decide where the lines are).

[smjjames]

The stuff about Republicans having significant influence among the 16-17 age group just means that the Democrats need to get their act together and start paying attention. So, I don't buy that excuse where having 16 and 17 year olds vote would give Trump a bigger vote as a reason to not give 16 year olds the ability to vote.

Besides, as mentioned several times already, they start getting politically active around then and it may be an even better time to get them politically involved when they don't have to worry about as much stuff as they wouid at 18.

[Frumple]

... y'know, in retrospect, I guess if I were going for worse options, disenfranchising old people along with young ones is something I could get behind. Make it something nice and round, 25-50 gets the vote, everyone else can sod off. Limit office eligibility similarly. Might be an interesting experiment.

[smjjames]

Frigging pfft the lengths and logic contortions the Trump team is going to to try and prove that Trump can't be indicted.

[JoshuaFH]

... y'know, in retrospect, I guess if I were going for worse options, disenfranchising old people along with young ones is something I could get behind. Make it something nice and round, 25-50 gets the vote, everyone else can sod off. Limit office eligibility similarly. Might be an interesting experiment.

The obvious choice is that only those people that enter and survive the gladiatorial arena have the right to vote for the nation's master. It just makes sense that only those possessing the most supreme fitness, cunning, and martial talent are qualified to make such an important decision.

[Trekkin]

Frigging pfft the lengths and logic contortions the Trump team is going to to try and prove that Trump can't be indicted.

Or to convince Trump of that, at least. The biggest nightmare scenario for the remnants of the Trump legal team is a vicious cycle in which the vicious idiot king does stupid things in a fit of pique that inspire further ridicule and thus further pique and further stupidity until he goes completely off the rails, and the admission that Trump drafted Trump Jr.'s letter about the meeting in Trump Tower makes that more likely.

I would not read this as an honest legal opinion. This is Trump's court jester mollifying him so he doesn't declare war on the Justice Department while also showing off how loyal he is.

[smjjames]

I don't see it as an honest legal opinion as it makes no sense otherwise, I see it as the contortions that they're making to try and justify that Trump can't be indicted.

[sluissa]

I don't see it as an honest legal opinion as it makes no sense otherwise, I see it as the contortions that they're making to try and justify that Trump can't be indicted.

It's PR. Gets the base on their side, so when it comes around to the idictment, Trump can fire Muller/whoever for doing something "illegal/unconstitutional" without losing his existing support. If it eventually gets around to the point where he is impeached, the whole process will be so poisoned politically it'll be impossible to get Republican support even if they might have otherwise supported it.

[Kagus]

To me it sounded a bit more like "he can't get indicted as president, so if something happens he'll get impeached first, then indicted because he's not president anymore".

But, really, it's just Giuliani making mouth noises again. Difficult to interpret, even harder to take for granted.

[Frumple]

Pretty easy to not take for granted, really. It's pretty damn certain that a sitting president can be indicted. Folks have tried fairly hard in the past for it to not reach that point, but pretty much every time it's inched closer things didn't fall in favor of the president.

End of the day, whoever thinks with any seriousness the judicial branch is actually going to shit on their own power and give the executive free reign to ignore them is a bloody idiot. There's a lot of willingness to gentlefolk agreement things, but if someone's dumbshite enough to force the judicial to say something explicit the judges aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot, they're going to shoot the idiot in the face.

E: *facepalm* There's apparently video of rudy saying more or less the exact opposite vis a vis being subpoenaed by the court, back in '98. This kind of thing seems to be happening fair bit, the last couple years

[Dutchling]

speaking of wacky US presidents

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They ruled against the methodology of the initial prosecution rather than anything to do with cakes or hot, sweaty, homosexual relations, in a continuation of SCOTUS's proud tradition of dodging the question as hard as possible.