freyasman
Senator
I had a discussion about this at my uncle's place last weekend.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/27/time-raise-voting-age-back-21/
From the link;
"The events since the Parkland shooting have convinced me that we need to change the Constitution to eliminate an ill-considered amendment that has done more harm than good. We need to repeal the 26th Amendment and raise the voting age back to 21.
That’s the opposite of what a lot of people are advocating. Seeing Parkland students go on television and agitate for gun control has people on the Left excited at the prospect of lowering the voting age to 16. That is, they’re excited about the small subset of Parkland students opportunistic talk-show hosts have paraded in front of television cameras—not the ones who dropped out of scripted “town halls” when they refused to let CNN tell them what they could say.
But what I’ve seen from the teenagers getting the most television coverage has confirmed their poorly considered political views should not have binding power over anyone, and explained why they should not be given any kind of authority on matters of national importance.
Consider the case of David Hogg, the one you’ve probably seen on TV the most. A few days ago he was responding to the unraveling of the Parkland narrative—the revelation that armed sheriff’s deputies had arrived at the shooting while it was in progress but made no attempt to stop the killer—by excusing the deputy, asking, “Who wants to go down the barrel of an AR-15?” (Never mind that the deputy had no way of knowing what weapon was being used.) Just a few days later, Hogg was on television (again), blaming the deputy’s inaction on…Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
These elected officials are the boss of these sheriff personnel and just like the president is the boss of the FBI, Governor Rick Scott is essentially the boss of Scott Israel, the sheriff, and as such he should be held accountable. He can’t just blame this on the bureaucracy and expect to get re-elected.
Aside from the blatant contradiction of Hogg’s earlier views, the main thing you should notice about this statement is that it is factually wrong. Scott is not the “boss” of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel any more than Scott is the “boss” of the state’s mayors or legislators. The sheriff is an independently elected position. That’s a widespread feature of our Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement, which today’s young people might know if they weren’t too busy being taught to be shocked and offended by the phrase “Anglo-American.”
Moreover, just a few years back, Israel spent a lot of money campaigning for his position and subsequently put a bunch of his campaign officials on the public payroll. This was all reported widely in local newspapers, which are read by politically engaged local voters—but are not, as a general rule, read by high-school students.
Don’t try to make sense out of any of this. Just notice what it accomplishes: it once again lets Israel skip out on responsibility for the policies and training of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office that he runs, and shifts the blame onto a Republican politician, which better serves the preferred political narrative.
You can criticize Hogg for being uninformed and inconsistent, for being a publicity hound, or for being easily manipulated by partisan activists. But I would prefer just to say that he is 17 years old. Of course he’s saying dumb things in a smugly self-assured way, because that’s what 17-year-olds do. His knowledge is incomplete and his judgment is under-developed."
More at the link.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/27/time-raise-voting-age-back-21/
From the link;
"The events since the Parkland shooting have convinced me that we need to change the Constitution to eliminate an ill-considered amendment that has done more harm than good. We need to repeal the 26th Amendment and raise the voting age back to 21.
That’s the opposite of what a lot of people are advocating. Seeing Parkland students go on television and agitate for gun control has people on the Left excited at the prospect of lowering the voting age to 16. That is, they’re excited about the small subset of Parkland students opportunistic talk-show hosts have paraded in front of television cameras—not the ones who dropped out of scripted “town halls” when they refused to let CNN tell them what they could say.
But what I’ve seen from the teenagers getting the most television coverage has confirmed their poorly considered political views should not have binding power over anyone, and explained why they should not be given any kind of authority on matters of national importance.
Consider the case of David Hogg, the one you’ve probably seen on TV the most. A few days ago he was responding to the unraveling of the Parkland narrative—the revelation that armed sheriff’s deputies had arrived at the shooting while it was in progress but made no attempt to stop the killer—by excusing the deputy, asking, “Who wants to go down the barrel of an AR-15?” (Never mind that the deputy had no way of knowing what weapon was being used.) Just a few days later, Hogg was on television (again), blaming the deputy’s inaction on…Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
These elected officials are the boss of these sheriff personnel and just like the president is the boss of the FBI, Governor Rick Scott is essentially the boss of Scott Israel, the sheriff, and as such he should be held accountable. He can’t just blame this on the bureaucracy and expect to get re-elected.
Aside from the blatant contradiction of Hogg’s earlier views, the main thing you should notice about this statement is that it is factually wrong. Scott is not the “boss” of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel any more than Scott is the “boss” of the state’s mayors or legislators. The sheriff is an independently elected position. That’s a widespread feature of our Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement, which today’s young people might know if they weren’t too busy being taught to be shocked and offended by the phrase “Anglo-American.”
Moreover, just a few years back, Israel spent a lot of money campaigning for his position and subsequently put a bunch of his campaign officials on the public payroll. This was all reported widely in local newspapers, which are read by politically engaged local voters—but are not, as a general rule, read by high-school students.
Don’t try to make sense out of any of this. Just notice what it accomplishes: it once again lets Israel skip out on responsibility for the policies and training of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office that he runs, and shifts the blame onto a Republican politician, which better serves the preferred political narrative.
You can criticize Hogg for being uninformed and inconsistent, for being a publicity hound, or for being easily manipulated by partisan activists. But I would prefer just to say that he is 17 years old. Of course he’s saying dumb things in a smugly self-assured way, because that’s what 17-year-olds do. His knowledge is incomplete and his judgment is under-developed."
More at the link.
