Dear 16-Year-Olds, Dear High School Students: You Have no Brains

"If you don't support the Left when you are 20, you have no heart", Winston Churchill has been quoted as saying; "If you don't support the Right when you are 40, you have no brains."

Why — why on Earth — should high school students (and for that matter, university students as well) join in deciding the future of the country, if they have no brains?

Sorry if you (or your parents) feel offended, but the question is an honest one. Most young people are more interested in girls or boys than in how a government works. In fact, most boys' political choices are more about impressing girls (and, in the best case — in their point of view — ending up in bed with one of them). 

One of the Danish high school students who was interviewed when lowering the age limit was discussed in Denmark a few years ago admits as much when she confesses upfront that "the political views of my friends are quite limited."

Instapundit's Ed Driscoll reports that in the UK, 16-Year-Olds Can Vote in the Next British General Election. When the idea was floated in Denmark in 2022, I responded with the current text (slightly shortened, for space reasons, when sent to the local newspaper). When a feminist wrote that democracy should be inclusive (meaning voting for 16- and 17-year-olds as well as for foreigners — not distinguishing between legal and illegal aliens), I shot back that democracy should not be inclusive, but rational. Why should foreigners have the right to vote, I asked? I lived in Paris for more than 20 years and never received (or even asked for) French citizenship.

As a young Dennis Prager reacted, when 18(!)-year-olds got the vote in 1971: "Why are they giving me the vote? I don't know anything!"

In America, the 26th Amendment dates back to the Vietnam War: "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." But notice what is (very) wrong with this — simplistic — quote (see Alexis de Tocqueville quote below). The message is this: You cannot — no one can — trust your families to defend, or even care for, you: Our fathers and mothers are so indifferent to our well-being that they would vote for war and not care that we would fall on the battlefield; in fact, the only angels wise enough to defend us (as well as our aforementioned fathers and mothers) are those in government — as long as it is run by (left-wing) politicians and bureaucrats. 

In other words: the 26th Amendment is based on typical anti-family Marxism. 

"We must help the poor"; "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote"; "we stand for tolerance"; "no person is illegal"; "we must fix the climate." As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, as far back as the 1830s, "It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth."

The Left loves teenagers because children — like the Leftists themselves — are drama queens (not to mention emotionally unbalanced) who fall for simple platitudes and who love the idea of joining in the Left's next hysterical Crusade. That is why socialists constantly want to lower the voting age — to 18, to 17, to 16, to — what'll be the next thing? 11?!

But if Greta Thunberg is right (that we are "at the beginning of a mass extinction"), shouldn't the only logical conclusion be that "young people" like her alone should be allowed to vote, while we pathetic adult twits who, after all, "have stolen [their] childhood" should be denied that right? 

"Ignorant, officious, self-important students shouldn’t have that much influence," opines law professor Glenn Reynolds, while Ed Driscoll adds that "the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience."

"The problem isn’t that I don’t get what you’re saying or that I’m old" laughs Bill Maher. "The problem is that your ideas are stupid." 

It's even worse than it looks, says P.J. O'Rourke: "The grim truth is, kids are born communists." 

Again: Why — why on Earth — should brainless Maoists with stupid ideas vote? 

As for the green transition, do children — and let's be honest, many adults — have any idea that the miserable times (with price hikes, fuel shortages, etc.) we have been living through are largely due to the green movement's ludicrously absurd "climate-friendly" energy decisions that have been failing across Europe and North America (in the USA's case, until January 2025)? 

"You become an adult when you decide to act like one," thunders Dennis Prager. "You don't become an adult because you turn a certain age." 

Here is a new and better proposal: Change the law, so people don't get the vote until they reach about 25; unless they get a job at a younger age (including, naturally, serving in the military) and until they have paid their first tax bill.  

• "Demokratiet skal ikke være inkluderende men rationelt"
Villabyerne Vol 117 # 47, 24. november 2022, s 8