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14 tweets,
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1/ OK, this is off piste for a Brussels hack but I see #VotesAt16 has come up again. As ever, nobody has really thought this through.
2/ Our society is designed so you become an adult at 18. This isn’t just a symbolic moment - adulthood comes with tangible rights and responsibilities.
3/ The most precious in both those categories is voting. And voting must only be open to those who have assumed their full responsibilities to society.
4/ You cannot simply allow a group of people who have fewer responsibilities than everyone else to assume the same key right as the rest of society.
5/ We all know the rights 16-year-olds don’t have - they can’t buy alcohol or fags or drive a car because they’re not adults yet.
6/ But what about the responsibilities they don’t have to fulfil? Let’s have a look at some of those and decide if we’d want 16-year-olds doing them.
7/ Firstly, jury service. I’ve been a court reporter - the stuff juries have to hear and see is horrific. Do you want a kid doing that?
8/ Secondly, military service. God forbid a war starts tomorrow and conscription is required, do you want 16-year-olds going off to fight?
9/ Criminal responsibility. Those under 18 are considered minors in the eyes of the law. Do you want 16-year-olds in adult prisons will full grown men?
10/ Workers’ rights. Employers have extra responsibilities towards 16-year-olds. Do you want them exposed to danger/exploitation?
11/ These are just a few of the many responsibilities that people currently assume when they are 18, which 16-year-olds do not have to fulfil.
12/ Of course, you could argue pensioners no longer have to fulfil these responsibilities either. But they’ve already done so for 50 years.
13/ So if you want to debate #VotesAt16 that’s fine, but you have to do it in conjunction with a discussion about the age at which people become adults.
14/ Personally, I think we all live and work long enough and we don’t need to be assuming that kind of responsibility even earlier than we do already.
