If adoption were equivalent to treating children “legally [as] chattel”, you’d be able to buy and sell them like second-hand cars. That is clearly not the case.
Let’s see how far you get, legally, pulling a Thomas Jefferson with your five year old adopted daughter.
We put all sorts of limits on the sale and purchase of other property. The fact that there are limitations and restrictions on the sale doesn’t change anything.
Unfamiliar with California Statute - PC 1203_066?
Well, it’s good for your blood pressure that you are. I know it’d have been better for mine if I’d never learned about it.
If you’d rather not learn about how far human beings can sink even in the modern era, I’ll just refer you to the fact that just because it’s illegal to fuck animals doesn’t make them any less property as far as the law is concerned.
Define property. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t legally buy a child, even via adoption. You can buy a cat. This is what makes animals, and not children, property.
I’ll meet you halfway here. I haven’t polled **all **of the children in the world (because we know it’s 100% or nothing, right) to show you that the majority of them do not think on the level that adults do. But I and the others on this board have experiences with interacting with children (whether it be nephews, younger siblings whatever) and thousands of years of tradition that separates people into “children” and “adult” groups (but I’ll grant you, this demarcation varies greatly by culture and time period). Yes, you can argue that there are bad traditions that still go on today, but I contend there are good ones that persist. You work with the good, and get rid of the bad. What’s “good” and what’s “bad”? Beyond the scope of this thread. But we have to decide somehow. And some of those decisions probably won’t hold up to logical scrutiny either.
And, since I have been trying to be civil with you, I can’t let this little endearing gem go:
*You made the goddamn test! *It’s apparently the only thing you’re willing to accept as a means of deciding when someone is mature. Am I incorrect in thinking a similar procedure could be used for other purposes besides sex (e.g., contracts, legal proceedings, etc.)? Since you are all about nuance, I’m surprised to see that you think I was talking about the test in more than a tangential manner. If you’re going to hold this up as some desideratum of assessment, then, I’m sorry, “fuck the test” seems a bit too defensive.
Finally, let me say that on the suffrage issue, I am not against you in theory. The 18 age requirement is arbitrary. But then we have to fight the age requirement to be a senator (30), President (35), and a representative (25). Interestingly enough, I don’t think the Chief Justice of the U. S. has an age requirement (but, of course it’s not an elected position either). If you want to fight a battle against arbitrariness in law, it’ll take awhile. Best to start now.
So, in addition to casting pearls before swine here on the Dope, have you organized a non-NAMBLA-like movement to focus on child suffrage? I think you’d get some significant support. That’s how all historically disenfranchised groups have gotten the vote. Do you have a website? A meeting schedule? I think that, unlike the other groups you’re comparing children to, you wouldn’t need to fear fire hoses or attack dogs.
These are fees associated with a service, not money exchanged to purchase a human.
So you don’t have an argument. Got it.
No, I actually didn’t. In fact, I contributed very little to it on the whole.
Hey, if you’ve got a better idea, I’m eager to hear it.
Of course they could. Just not voting, since having any requirement other than posessing an opinion is missing the point of voting entirely.
Desideratum? On looking up the term, it makes no more sense in that context than it did when the word was new to me. Can you rephrase?
What do you think I’m doing, exactly?
I don’t need to organize them. Dispite your assuptions, these organizations already exist.
And if I can hide the money in a processing fee does that mean I get to buy adults?
No, but if you continue, in response to legitimate questions, to post pretty much nothing but short, snide answers in the form of rhetorical questions, you will be establishing a strong basis for the staff to consider your posts to be trolling.
I understand that you are oh, so abused for your positions, but you are doing absolutely nothing to actually persuade anyone to your position with non-responsive quips and dishonest comparisons.
No sane person confuses a fee for an attendant service with an actual purchase–paying the points does not get you title to a house, you need to actually give the owner money–and that sort of game playing weakens your credibility as a serious poster. If you are here simply to play word games while riling up your audience, that is pretty much the definition of trolling.
[ /Moderating ]
I admit that I had no idea there were so many groups out there until I browsed the link you provided. But it seems, just from glancing at their positions, that they don’t go far enough for you. Here’s one example, from NYRA (letter A).
That limitation to teenagers and people in their 20s seems rather arbitrary to me. Why limit it to this age group? So I would disagree that you don’t need to organize anyone, because if you really feel that youth are being disenfranchised, these organizations aren’t radical enough for you.
Look, you’ve clearly made your decision. If you genuinely think I’m being this disruptive, then the only one who can make the decision of where this goes from here is you.
I don’t think I can accomodate you in the ways you seem to be requesting of me. Maybe I’m misreading you, but I can only go by your posts. If you want me gone for whatever reason, legitimate or otherwise, you have the ability to do that.
Continuing to pop in various threads, calling me out, and flippantly dismissing my arguments as ineffective, and making vaguely threatening grumblings about me trolling isn’t helping either of us come to an understanding.
Do you want me to be more effective in arguing my points? Is that the issue here, that I’m not being effective in convincing people (you in particular)?
Do you want me to alter the format of my posts as someone else has suggested? Is it the format that is putting your teeth on edge?
If any analogy I make will be accused of being disingenuious because you don’t agree with the comparison, and any response I make that is too short for your liking will be deemed nothing but a dismissive quip, and anything but showing my belly and throwing myself on the mercy of the board in response to personal attacks will be regarded as me being hostile, then there’s nothing I’m both willing and able to do that will satisfy you, and you’ll do what you feel you have to do.
If you’ve got honest, clear requests, I’m willing to consider them, but what you’ve posted so far hasn’t suggested anything like that might be forthcoming.
Now, as to the financial transaction in question, your declarations of my insanity notwithstanding, there is a rather long tradition of hiding what is essentially a continuation of a slave system by creative financial acrobatics. The sharecropping system being just one well known example.
Still, I hardly think that the monetary worth of the chattel is at all relevent to the status children currently enjoy. If the only meaningful difference is that you don’t pay for them when you aquire or rid yourself of them, it still doesn’t exactly speak highly of their current status even if you can demonstrate the particular label of “slave” doesn’t quite fit due to this particular difference.
Have a look at ASFAR instead. More radical and much closer to what I’ve been putting forward. NYRA, as I understand it, is basically the segment of ASFAR that sold out in the name of political expediency.
In the U.K.(where they have the vote) eighteen year olds used to be regarded as young adults.
Now with culture changes they are increasingly being regarded as older children,sorry “Young people”.
We decide most other things like driving licenses on a case by case basis. So there’s your consistency…
Licenses are like eligibility tests. Of course voting is a more basic right so should be protected better from potential abuses.
I think the best compromise is to have some minimum age for voting (and other things), without regard to eligibility, but to be able to lower the various ages of majority/consent on an individual basis by eligibility requirements.
Do not accuse other posters of lying or of being liars in Great Debates.
[ /Moderating ]
Did you really have to read 83 posts before you realised this?
Did I really read 84 posts before deciding this is pointless and walking away?
Bye
What would you put on such an eligibility test? Why do you think those requirements you would put on that test would be important? If you think these requirements are important, why would you not demand they be required for adults too?
I actually realized the problem myself, but I’d passed the edit window. Appologies. Next time I’ll just show the juxtaposition and ask for clarification.
Even if kids aren’t all that capable, they are still being governed in a democracy without a vote. Who cares if they make shitty decisions? I know plenty of adults that do as well. And maybe, there would be enough of a population there to start to repeal some of the other ageist laws, such as drinking ages, or curfews, or R rated movies.
Not sure. I’m thinking of something comparable to, but obviously less involved than whatever the requirements are for emancipation, graduating from high school early, etc. Those work similarly - happen more or less automatically at a certain age normally, but can be expedited under certain conditions. Probably the main qualification would be a demonstrated knowledge of the importance of voting one’s own choice and not being a mere dupe for one’s parents - since that would seem to be the main potential drawback of early voting.
But that still leaves the question of why you don’t feel these same requirements shouldn’t also be applied for adults. If the adult can’t meet this standard, why give him/her a free pass?
Yeah, I’d say most people are ‘dupes’, voting for whoever their friends like, or whoever has the most likable media personality. At best, they’re single issue voters, boiling every candidate down to for/against abortion or for/against guns.
The fact is, it’s your choice, not mine. If you want to vote for whoever has the nicest hair, go for it. If you want to make your mom happy by voting for her candidate, so be it. Who are we to judge the voting criteria of others?
Rational citizens who value real representative democracy. If John F. Nosepicker wants to vote for whoever has the best-looking family, fine, but that makes him a tool.