Timothy Birdnow

A judge in Ohio has ruled in favor of Bernie Sanders, declaring that 17 year old children may vote in the primary elections provided they will turn 18 by the general.

According to The Hill:

"Sanders's team sued to change the state law, but a judge decided Friday on a different state-level case that effectively provided the same outcome.

The Vermont senator's White House campaign has been boosted by strong support from younger voters, so the decision could prove important in the crucial state of Ohio, which has 143 delegates up for grabs.

Ohio had barred 17-year-olds from voting on primary day regardless of if they would be eligible for the general election.

But the timing of the decision, just days before the Tuesday primary, could dampen any potential gains.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted bashed the ruling in a statement released after the decision.

"This last minute legislating from the bench on election law has to stop. Our system cannot give one county court the power to change 30 years of election law for the entire state of Ohio, 23 days into early voting and only four days before an election," he said. "

End excerpt.

So a low level judge has simply overturned state law immediately prior to the election so it cannot be appealed.

First, the state government should refuse to follow this judicial decree. The Secretary of State has a duty to tell this activist judge to go pound sand. If he wants this order enforced he can bloody do it himself.

Second, one must ask how a deadline of any sort can simply be overturned without then opening the door to overturning any sort of deadline. Why have laws that set legal drinking ages, or legal driving ages, or where you can sign a legal contract if a judge can overturn it at his whim?

Writing in American Thinker Rick Moran makes an astonishingly myopic argument:

"Should 17 year olds be allowed to vote at all? Younger voters are less informed than older voters, but when did the level of knowledge about the issues become a factor in whether someone should be allowed to vote? There are seniors who are equally clueless about the issues who cast their ballots anyway. Perhaps a 17 year old lacks the judgment of their elders but that seems a subjective reason not to allow young people to vote."

End excerpt.

??????

And younger children may be better drivers than elderly people, but we still do not let them drive until they are 16. There is a reason for that, the same reason that applies to voting. There has to be an age of majority, an age where we feel confident that a person is mature enough to take on adult responsibilities. We don't let 13 year olds drive cars, we do not allow 12 year olds to engage in carnal relations, we do not enlist 13 year olds in the military. There are milestone ages required for all of these rites of passage, and the idea that somehow it doesn't matter is, uh, well let us say not exactly Conservative.

We have an age of majority and the deadline is the deadline. There is no way to determine that a 17 year old is competent to vote, and the fact that Rick Moran makes this argument at all is astonishing - considering he is an editor at a very conservative website.

So why is 17 suddenly the magic number? Kids can drive at age 16, why not make that the voting age? Then, after that becomes standard, we can move it down to 15, the age when a child can get a learner's permit for driving. Then down from there.

It is a slippery slope. And it can be applied to all manner of things that currently define adulthood. This is no accident; the Left has sought to destroy the concept of childhood, of a period where children are sheltered from some of the harsher aspects of life until they are deemed ready. Childhood was a merciful concept, a construct of the Judeo-Christian culture that gave us Western Civilization, and as such is at the root of exaclty what we are fighting to preserve. Liberals hate it; they want people to be material and carnal and to accomplish this they need to break the personality of the child early, to train them, to awaken their lusts before they have mastery of themselves. That is why the Left is forever trying to reduce the age of majority, the age where children are allowed to make their own decisions. In the end children CAN'T make good decisions, and the State will step in.

Look how well this has worked in other areas; the sexual revolution has destroyed society, and that based on teen sexuality, which we were told could not be stopped and that we had to live with it. Kids began having kids, and the State raised them into good little liberals.

So now they want to extend the vote, the most important duty of any citizen, to people who know nothing and whose opinions are largely formed by social media and entertainment. What could go wrong with that?

In the William F. Nolan novel Logan's Run the hero sets out to find "Sanctuary" - a mythical place where people over the age of 21 can live. In the novel you were euthanized on your 21st birthday to maintain "sustainable" population growth. Logan, a "sandman" or hunter of people who live past their alloted time, decides to "run" when the atomic clock in his hand starts blinking. At first Logan simply uses this as a way to get past the tight security of the underground railroad that gets runners to Sanctuary, but eventually he comes to realize the stupidity of his own civilization. He notices everything is breaking down and the young - indolent and self-gratifying - neither know nor care about keeping society alive. He is eventually caught by Francis, his former partner, and he makes a desperate appeal "the young don't create, they use. Our civilization is dying." As it turns out Francis was Ballard, the man who ran Sanctuary and who, through a mistake, had an atomic clock in his hand that never went black.

The point is, Logan was correct; the young use and enjoy but rarely do the hard work of life. And that includes understanding politics.

Granted, Moran is correct in that there are many who have the vote who also do not understand or who are too venial to vote for the betterment of the greater society, but that is an unfortunate result of having a democratic system. In point of fact, the Founding Fathers tried to limit this by placing restrictions on voting; you had to be a landholder, a male, and you had to register. There were other restrictions; the College of Electors prevented a demogugue from seducing the public, the individual states created their own election schemes. In fact, South Carolina did not have a popular vote in 1860 because they followed the old way and had the state legislature choose the candidate. The Senate was similarly chosen until the 20th Century. All of these restrictions were intended to reduce the power of passion in voting. Bringing young people into the fray in large quantities is a return to the pure democracy that the Founders were so concerned with.

It is an absolutely terrible idea. And Rick Moran should really know better.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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