Childrens rights
On News Talk ZB (radio) today I heard Larry Williams talking about children and the fact that they lack the ability to look into the future the way adults do - he uses this to say that children should not have "so called rights".
Larry as a liberty leaning individual is walking on dangerous ground here, why?
Well yes statistically children under 21 probably pay less attention to their future than do people over 21. In fact the effect would increace slowly all the way down to zero, BUT there are the same sorts of differences between individuals.
A basically similar argument would be "politicians tend to have a longer term view than average citizen’s therefore average citizens should not have rights".
Of course not all politicians can conceptualize the future clearer than every citizen but it is also true not all parents can do that better than their children.
In fact an even more appropriate comparison is the one that shows that mental alertness starts to drop around the 30's and by 50, 60, 70 by the same principle ones rights should be taken away.
If indeed one can demonstrate that a person does not have the mental capacity to be responsible decision maker in a certain area then fair enough, maybe someone needs to help them make those decisions but the above argument is only valid (in itself) from a highly authoritarian perspective.
Larry as a liberty leaning individual is walking on dangerous ground here, why?
Well yes statistically children under 21 probably pay less attention to their future than do people over 21. In fact the effect would increace slowly all the way down to zero, BUT there are the same sorts of differences between individuals.
A basically similar argument would be "politicians tend to have a longer term view than average citizen’s therefore average citizens should not have rights".
Of course not all politicians can conceptualize the future clearer than every citizen but it is also true not all parents can do that better than their children.
In fact an even more appropriate comparison is the one that shows that mental alertness starts to drop around the 30's and by 50, 60, 70 by the same principle ones rights should be taken away.
If indeed one can demonstrate that a person does not have the mental capacity to be responsible decision maker in a certain area then fair enough, maybe someone needs to help them make those decisions but the above argument is only valid (in itself) from a highly authoritarian perspective.
posted by Genius at 4:36 PM
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