I say yes.

Raised to 21. If society doesn’t think you can drink responsibly then I say you can’t be trusted to vote responsibly.

Agree!!!

Then the draft age should be raised to 21. It was lowered to 18 because the draft age was 18. The argument was (I believe) that if those kids were to be made to fight in Vietnam, they should have the right to vote.

Lots of thirty year olds can't drink responsibly. I don't think that drinking maturity's a reliable predictor of a persons political intelligence.

Not true, alcohol use can correlate with intelligence. For instance, if you plot one’s favorite beverage (see above) you will notice the highest IQ individuals tend to cluster in the left upper quadrant while the lowest IQ individuals cluster in the right lower quadrant, followed closely by the right upper quadrant.

PS: Your attempt to goad me into a serious discussion of the matter has not gone unnoticed. Suffice it to say, I see no reason why the voting age should be lowered to 17. Any age you choose is going to be somewhat arbitrary since each person grows, matures and ages at a different rates. (Look at Doogie Howser, I mean, he graduated medical school at 14)

No. I’m about to be 18 and think we should keep it there

are you excited about your first general election?

Yes actually

very cool. way back when, there was a fellow named John Anderson running as an Independent against Reagan and Walter Mondale. i wasn't politically active, but i watched a lot of my friends become enthusiastic about politics because of him.

Very interesting. I first remember the election of 2008 at age 6

Yeah no. Bad idea, teenagers think they know everything and they dont. Id know, im a teenager XD

but it's also true for legal adults ( :

No. I'm 16, and there are little(not none, but I'll touch that in a moment) 17-year-olds I know who are mature and actually know politics and what is going on in the world well enough to make a decision about it. Besides, the pre-frontal cortex which is the part of the brain that you use to make decisions does not fully form until you are 23.
Let's say there is a mature 17-year-old. Let's say the amount of people voting has gone down enough that the government needs to lower the voting age. If this 17-year-old voted for someone based on a careful decision, and that vote was legit, what is that compared to the other kids who just are voting because they can and don't even put thought into it? Half of them might not even bother, because they have to focus on school and other things. It would be a mess.

I am curious though, why would you say yes?

i'm impressed with people like Greta and the people who thwarted trump's tulsa rally. young people have opinions that are relevant, they're willing to act on them, and the responsibility will be theirs soon anyway. i think it might encourage some young people to be more politically aware and even more generally responsible.

Doesn't social media (like this site/meme) already encourage them to take an interest in politics? Plus there should be a basic understanding of how government works prior to being involved in the governement system. Most school curriculums still require that to be taught prior to graduating.

I think everyone would agree a well educated voter is the most important part of the entire voting process.

well most 17 yr olds aren't on this site, of course. and i think people are more motivated to learn when they're actually involved. i'm a fan of learning directly from a process rather than being contaminated first by the philosophies and false assumptions of others. a voter being well aware of current events and process and history are all important, but why not let young people who are get involved? they can't do worse than US adults have done.

But as you said, "they can't do worse than US adults have done." But if they are never taught how to do research outside of what they are spoon fed by talking heads, or whatever information bubble they choose to surround themselves in, then it is only bound to get worse. Education on how to seek out what is true is key to being able to make the best decision even under less than perfect circumstances.

NO!!! Just looking at how uninformed some of my peers are I can't imagine letting them vote. Just for reference, one of them claimed that Trump was firing people from Congress. They're an idiot.
It would mean I would get to vote for Trump in November though, so still very appealing.

Good call, Scar. You are one of the few wise people in your age bracket.

Why thank you :)
And yeah, I've had enough of banging my head against a brick wall.

So just because many of them would not vote trump its a bad idea? But for you, its a good idea? Try again

lol wut? Where'd you get that? I said a lot of them don't even understand how the government works, I said nothing about their political preferences. Try again

So they know nothing about government, But you supposedly do?

A lot of them don't understand it
and yes, I do

So? Its their desision, just because you know that a lot of zoomers would not vote for trump, dosent mean that they dont understand it

This isn't about whether or not they'd vote for Trump, a lot of them just don't understand how government even works (hence the one idiot thinking that the president can fire people from Congress)

Read the whole story, you just used your proof against you

lol, ok then

Says the idiot who thought trump was the best leader of all time, If they dont understand government, then they dont understand it, its their vote, you dont control it, and when did i say that

I think George Washington was the best leader of all time thank you. Trump can take something in the top 5. So if understanding government isn't important, should we just extend voting rights to 12-year-olds? When did you say what?

IN TOP 5, LMAO YOU ARE MENTALLY CHALLENGED, I Mean, its not that important, everybody has their poltical way of thinking, and understanding goverment you say, You cant even understand why trump is a bad president, So you shouldnt talk shit

What does that have to do with understanding how government works? But please, why is President Trump so terrible as you say

Wow, you sure do know EVERYTHING. GOOD GOD, YOU COME ACROSS AS THE MOST ARROGANT PERSON EVER.

Do not try to reason with this idiot. He or she or whatever is profoundly stupid.

I wouldnt reason with you racist idiot

*Ahem* This is gonna take a long time, lets start off,

First off president trump has no respect for woman, from disrespecting them to harassing them multiple times,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKv_E5hfzs

Trumps immigration policy hurt many more people then it helped, it split up familys, divided up friends, and kept the good people out of the US but kept the bad people in the US\

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/21/trump-administration-breaks-up-some-migrant-families-heres-how-cbp-border-sabraw-separate/2836085002/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-5-400-children-split-border-according-new-count-n1071791
and where do those children go? To a containment center, or prison.

Coronavirus cases now, Didnt trump say in January that it was going to be only a couple of cases? Now we have the most in the entire world, and the most deaths.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html

This isnt even the full list

how does it keep the bad people in the US?
And not sure if you're aware, but Obama put the mexican immigrant children in cages, don't hear a lot about that though do you

Got any proof of that?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009169/Joe-Biden-defends-Obama-administration-putting-migrant-children-cages.html

how's that for proof

I think 18 is good. 17 would be ok, but other things like military service and tobacco would need to be lowered to 17 as well. I think the drinking age should be lowered though, to be 18 with the rest of all the "adult" age limits. Honestly, I look back at myself when I was that young, I probably didnt have any business dealing with any of it, but if rules will be rules then make the adult age universal. It also worries me that young people in that age group haven't necessarily had real world experience or jobs, so I'd make it a requirement that they have to have filed taxes at least once to get an understanding of what their tax dollars really mean and how much money that really is. Otherwise, we may get candidates that go around pandering to the naive for votes, which happens too much as it is anyways. The age of maturity has progressively increased over the last 100 years.

Like AOC? Yeah, talk about pandering for votes! Should remain at 18 or increase to 21.

Exactly like AOC...

she is the definition of moron!

So because i dont support trump, that means im not smart?

inclined to agrre with most of that except drinking age. brains are still forming at even 21, so i'd prefer the drinking age higher, assuming the SCOTUS doesn't reinstitute prohibition.

Good to know the military will accept brains that aren't fully developed then, lol. I hear ya, makes sense.

absolutely not. It creates a slippery slope. Next would be 16. Then 15. Then, well, you get the idea. It's like saying that erasing some of history is a good thing. Then, next thing you know, we are destroying Mount Rushmore and all the museums in the country. It is a terrible idea.

I guess we're already on that slippery slope then, 'cause here I am suggesting we lower it to 17. The slippery slope argument is a no go. Whatever the legal age is, we can always say Why don't we make it one year younger? Or one year higher? The slope isn't slippery. We just need to agree if if 18 really is the best legal age. If we change to 17 and don't like the result, we can always change it back.

Just because you say something doesn't make it so. That seems to be your argument, that you say it isn't a slippery slope, and that makes it such. I dont expect you to agree with me, but dictating what is and isn't a fact, based simply on your opinion, kind of makes you look like a dictator. Not in the sense of running an organization. In the sense that what you dictate is so. And that's simply not how the world works.

The slipe does not become slippery until the change is made. Debating something is not a slippery slipe in and of itself. Action is required for a slippery slope to be created. If action is taken, in this case reducing the legal voting age from 18 to 17, then what is to stop it from further reduction? That is the definition of a slippery slope. When policy is changed from one direction to another, it is exceedingly rare that policy change goes back to what was once the status quo.

You can be so silly, Danks. Hardly anything is so just because I say so, although that would be great. Things are so because the universe has trundled along to this point and what we see is how it's all worked out. I just happen to be particularly aware of how things stand, thanks be to the Gods, and I know sometimes my experience and confidence come across as arrogance and 'dictation', as you suggest. But nothing could be further from the truth. I actually wish for you this same kind of confidence, but all I can do for now is model it for you and hope that with time, you will mature in a similar fashion until you reach such an august and respectable age as my own. Amen.