Anyone following the secret sovereignty talks

[Cartman]

For me, one of the most important issues in politics is youth interest. Let's face it, when you looked at all of the political parties staging rallies during this election, the people behind the leaders were quite young while the audience was grey haired. I think that the youth are disenfranchised by curriculums, teachers and a voting system that treats them like children. Heck...even in university, profs. have to ensure that they present ideas absolutely perfectly to ensure little or no controversy. If this country has not one intelligent brain to lose, then why are we wasting the youth?

[KrustyKidd]

I agree. This is just as much their country as ours. We may have spent more time at it but they have more time and opportunity to suffer the consequences of our votes. In Nevada a movement is trying to pro rate teen votes for state elections. Something like 1/3 an adult's until sixteen and then 1/2 until age of majority. Makes sense to me.

[takeanumber]

Ask Argus if youth matters.

He'll tell you that we're a bunch of drugged up, impregnating, ungrateful rapists.

Youth matters more in the long term.

The quality of life of the boomers really depends on youths willingness to pay for them.

And the neat thing is that if the tax burden is pushed too much, the underground economy flourishes. So the boomers might hold all the votes, but the youth will hold all the real political power.

[playfullfellow]

Yeah, youth are important, not always well informed but then again, a lot of old timers aren't either. We all have to remember that we used to change their diapers, one day they will be changing ours. I think that whenever we meet any youth that show any interest in politics, we need to encourage them to follow through and respect their ideas. Not call them stupid and discourage them.

We could actually expand on this and teach them better in school about politics and Canadian History. Let's teach our youth some respect for our past and future.

[Argus]

For me, one of the most important issues in politics is youth interest.  Let's face it, when you looked at all of the political parties staging rallies during this election, the people behind the leaders were quite young while the audience was grey haired.  I think that the youth are disenfranchised by curriculums, teachers and a voting system that treats them like children.  Heck...even in university, profs. have to ensure that they present ideas absolutely perfectly to ensure little or no controversy.  If this country has not one intelligent brain to lose, then why are we wasting the youth?

Youth are children. Like it or not.

A couple hundred years ago a fourteen year old was a man. By eighteen he'd be working full time, with a wife and kids. Even a hundred years ago eighteen was full grown, expected to act and think and behave like a mature man.

Eighteen today is a child. We coddle our youth now. We protect them from anything which might shock or offend or confuse or embarrass or cause risk. We don't want them exposed to unpleasant things. We ensure that their sense of self worth is protected at school by passing them even when they don't meet standards. We frown on competition which might damage fragile egos. Our teachers aren't really allowed to discipline children. Parents are restricted as well. Bratty teenager can go to the CAS and get "protection" from their own parents (and no I'm not talking actual child abuse, okay?) Children are spoiled rotten. They usually have no chores. They expect to get everything they want, be it a cell phone, a computer, designer clothes, trips to ski lodges, or what have you.

So what are they at eighteen? Having known no hardship, no challenge, no discipline? Having been poorly educated so they know nothing of history or geography, can't do sums without a calculator, and are often unable to write a coherent, logical argument even if they were capable of putting one together. Which, for the most part, they are not.

Experience is what brings maturity. Unfortunately, most of our youth aren't getting much in the way of experience. Unless you consider watching TV and playing video games constitutes experience. Hell, they aren't even getting social experience! In my day, kids hung around together all the time after school and all weekend and summer long; packs of kids playing cops and robbers, soccer, road hockey, or just hanging together right through into the darkness, only breaking for dinner. Now after school kids go home to watch TV where it's air conditioned, or to play video games. Parents don't want their kids out of their sight because they think it's dangerous. If kids go anywhere together it's to a movie or the mall, often driven by mom or dad.

I'm rambling, I know. I probably sound old. But I see an awful lot of young people who aren't at all stupid, but are really dumb on a lot of things, and not very well socialized either. I think a lot of the violence we see from youth is because they never learned how to act around other people, not properly. They take their cures from video games and TV because that's pretty much all they know.

[playfullfellow]

I'm rambling, I know. I probably sound old. But I see an awful lot of young people who aren't at all stupid, but are really dumb on a lot of things, and not very well socialized either. I think a lot of the violence we see from youth is because they never learned how to act around other people, not properly. They take their cures from video games and TV because that's pretty much all they know.

A few of your points I can agree with. The problem starts at home with kids parents like it or not. If it wasn't for the feel good generation hounding schools for not making kids "feel good", we would still have a system of achievement=honours. Parents can start with spending time talking to their kids and letting kids have view points on the things having to do with the world and our country. Things can be ugly and not always pretty but kids need to know that the real world sucks broken glass. I have plenty of youth apply for work but they give up after a few days because the work is too hard and they have never been taught how to work. The ones that want to work and learn, we need to nuture and respect them. Our youth, despite their faults should not be thrown away just because they are "dumb". We were all dumb at one time or another, we are still going and have hopefully expanded our views and experiences.

[KrustyKidd]

We coddle our youth now. We protect them from anything which might shock or offend or confuse or embarrass or cause risk. We don't want them exposed to unpleasant things

Youth? I thought for a moment you were talking about the Liberal Utopia where personal-responsibility is a dirty word.

[takeanumber]

Youth are children. Like it or not.

I'm rambling, I know. I probably sound old. But I see an awful lot of young people who aren't at all stupid, but are really dumb on a lot of things, and not very well socialized either. I think a lot of the violence we see from youth is because they never learned how to act around other people, not properly. They take their cures from video games and TV because that's pretty much all they know.

Speak for your own kids.

Your abilities to overgeneralize is truly, truly impressive.

[August1991]

We coddle our youth now. We protect them from anything which might shock or offend or confuse or embarrass or cause risk. We don't want them exposed to unpleasant things.

Your parents probably said the same about you Argus, and their parents about them.

We are a richer society now. We can afford to send kids to school for 15 or 20 years, not 5 years as before, or no years as before that.

IMV, this is all to the good.

Trudeau said the future will be more rational than the past. There were many taboo subjects in the past that people can discuss now. We are all more free from unnecessary convention, women in particular.

I think the voting age should be lowered to 16, or even 14. But we should not harp on getting out the vote. Some people take interest in stamp-collecting, and some people in politics and voting.

[KrustyKidd]

But we should not harp on getting out the vote.

I beleive the exact opposite. The more involved in a project, the stonger the product. If it were possible to get a child of five to make an informed choice then I would be all for it. I don't own this world and either do you, rather we all do. So why don't all the owners of this planet let us run it, why is it only the responsibility or pleasure of a few? Why do so many set up roadblocks to decision making when they should be paving golden brick roads?

Incentives for voting, citizenship, student loans, rights, social insurance, health care. We are a country for crying out loud. Not your country and not the concerned citizens who vote but everybody's country. The five year old kid in the day care, the freaked out teen with the pierced nose. Everybody's whether they like it or not.

[Lookie]

My parents never taught me anything about politics, never discussed it in front of me.

Every chance I can get to educate my boys on politics, I take it. I explained the voting process, I've discussed different things regarding what Bush and the American's are doing and facing...and they are interested. I think more parents should take the initiative to TEACH our children the positives of voting.

I was just watching an interview with Michael Moore, and I really liked what he said. If people ONLY walk away from my movie and say they are going to vote, then I'm happy. "Even if it's to say they didn't like what I said about Bush, I'm gonna go vote", because like he said, there are 50% of the population not doing it!!

[caesar]

The quality of life of the boomers really depends on youths willingness to pay for them.

Not really, I think you will find a good majority of "boomers" will be retiring with fairly good pensions and money saved in RRSP's. Most will still be paying our fair share of taxes.

I would not take away the youth's vote but 18 is quite young enough. Most will still not be paying taxes but they do need to learn and get involved. Younger than that; the vote may be extremely influenced by their parents, teacher etc. I remember, arguing a case for the party opposing my father's choice. Mostly, for the sake of argument.

[caesar]

"If this country has not one intelligent brain to lose, then why are we wasting the youth? "

How are we "wasting" the youth. We are training and developing our youth. When they wer tiny, we gave them training wheels; before we let them ride a bike.

My generation; we learned in the school of hard knocks; falling and scraping our knees etc; getting up and trying again.

Youth needs some time to mature; lets not pick them before they are ripe.

I do not like seeing them being sent to fight wars in foreign countries.

[playfullfellow]

My generation; we learned in the school of hard knocks; falling and scraping our knees etc; getting up and trying again.

And as I can see from your posts, you are one tough cookie from these experiences. The new generation has not had your experience growing up and it shows when they hit the workforce. There is not much common sense left in the youth leaving schools now a days. In the past, nuturing stopped at the age of 18 or when you left home to go work, now a days it starts. Do you know how many kids I have apply for work (construction) and do not even know what a claw hammer is? They can tell me all about pacman but not the basics in using very simple tools. This sure adds a lot on nuturing time when we have to train them.

[caesar]

Youth has to learn a bit of cynacism when it comes to politics. You cannot believe everything you are told. You cannot believe everything you hear or see in our media.

Everything is spin; very little "real" news. You have to search for the true picture and even then it is just everyone's best guess and analysis to decide what sources you can believe.

Perhaps we should involve them more in the voting in areas that they are involved. Let them cut their teeth on education issues first.

Referendums for the youth issues.

I know there are many who do understand quite a few of the issues; the majority are not interested nor had the time to really consider many of the larger issues; nor do they have the experience.

[Argus]

We coddle our youth now. We protect them from anything which might shock or offend or confuse or embarrass or cause risk. We don't want them exposed to unpleasant things.

Your parents probably said the same about you Argus, and their parents about them.

And they were probably right! But you can take this too far, to the point where youth are brought up with no responsibilities, and overprotected to the point they really aren't developing into mature personalities. Like it or not there is no better school than the school of hard knocks. It teaches you a helluva lot.

We are a richer society now.  We can afford to send kids to school for 15 or 20 years, not 5 years as before, or no years as before that.

Sure. But when you're in school until you're 25 or so, you are not exactly filled with responsibilities and the onerous difficulties of life. A 25 year old who has been working for 10 years, supporting a family for six or seven, has experienced one helluva lot more than a 25 year old just graduating with his degree in English, just about to embark into the world on his own.

Trudeau said the future will be more rational than the past.  There were many taboo subjects in the past that people can discuss now.  We are all more free from unnecessary convention, women in particular.

I disagree. We just have different taboos, and a near total lack of experience in intellectual discussion. The lack of social interraction among youth is troubling, and not at all helpful in teaching coexistance and undersandign of others' views. And there are numerous things you cannot discuss now on university campuses, many topics forbidden at workplaces. There are many opinions which are more or less forbidden no pain of expulsion, even on pain of jail.

I think the voting age should be lowered to 16, or even 14.  But we should not harp on getting out the vote.  Some people take interest in stamp-collecting, and some people in politics and voting.

I think we should raise the voting age to 30, in recognition that the real age of maturity and adulthood has crept higher over the years. I have yet to meet anyone in their early twenties who has anything approaching a sophisticated understanding of politics.

[Black Dog]

I think we should raise the voting age to 30, in recognition that the real age of maturity and adulthood has crept higher over the years. I have yet to meet anyone in their early twenties who has anything approaching a sophisticated understanding of politics.

Then maybe you need to get out of the nursing home a bit more.

Young people are no more or less ignorant than older folks. Age and experience doesn't necessarily bring wisdom, but can entrench attitudes and prejudices. Life experience does not automatically lead to critical thinking.

The many young people who are active in the political process bring energy and idealism that is lacking in a world where, as one gets older, one becomes less concerned with making the world better as one does with making a buck (regardless of the cost to anyone else).

Young people are, however, cynical. They have few llussions about who the political process in this country serves- not the people, but the establishment. They see rising costs and vigourous cutbacks shovelled onto them for fewer and poorer services (education is prime example).

No wonder they don't care.

[Argus]

I think we should raise the voting age to 30, in recognition that the real age of maturity and adulthood has crept higher over the years. I have yet to meet anyone in their early twenties who has anything approaching a sophisticated understanding of politics.

Then maybe you need to get out of the nursing home a bit more.

Young people are no more or less ignorant than older folks. Age and experience doesn't necessarily bring wisdom, but can entrench attitudes and prejudices. Life experience does not automatically lead to critical thinking.

Generalizations will always have exceptions. There are certainly some sophisticated, mature young people, just as there are certainly some stupid, immature middle aged people.

Nevertheless, generalizations do tend to be "generally" true. Young people in my experience, "generally" lack sophistication and the critical thinking which comes from experience. They don't understand complex issues and are impatient with anyone who tries to explain the basics of causality.

Actual conversation

Young guy: We should raise the minimum wage to $10

Old guy: Uh, that would cost lots of jobs.

YG: No it wouldn't. Jobs gotta get done anyway.

OG: Not all of them: Small business would fold, things would cost more to make.

YG: Man, that's just BS. You just don't care about poor people.

[Hugo]

I think the whole problem in this thread is the sweeping statements. Some say the young can't be trusted to vote, some say they can.

The truth is that we are all individuals. I know teenagers who are very politically astute and I'd happily give them a vote, even if they wouldn't vote the way I would, because I know they would use that power responsibly.

On the other hand, I personally know 50-year-olds who are voting and don't even know the most basic details of the party they are voting for. I heard loads of people in the last Ontario provincial election decrying the Tories for "taking money away from public schools and giving it to private schools."

The actual election promise they made was that they would give a tax credit to families who had children in private schools to compensate for the fact that they paid for public schools in taxes but did not use them. Chinese Whispers.

The question, to my mind, when awarding somebody the vote is not "how old is he?" but "how likely is he to abuse his vote?"

I think it would be better to establish some simple tests of basic political and campaign knowledge and give the vote to anyone who can pass.

[Cartman]

I agree with you Argus about youth having less experience in life (that is true by definition) as well as the need to develop character etc. But, schools need to instill youth with the basic values and an understanding of politics. I bet that many voters did not really know much about the platforms put forth by the parties. We as a nation have to ensure that the most talented members of the next generation are interested in politics so that Canada will always be competitive.

[August1991]

Can someone please make the argument that equates "good government" or "democracy" with "many people voting"?

Many aspects of our lives are determined by the decisions of a relatively small number (several thousand) of people. IMV, what is important is that if anyone chooses, they can join this group.

Paying taxes is a much more important indication of citizenship than voting is.

[Reverend Blair]

Paying taxes is a much more important indication of citizenship than voting is.

So are you advocating that only those who have paid taxes be allowed to vote?

[caesar]

are you advocating that only those who have paid taxes be allowed to vote?

Why not? That is what government is about; spending taxpayers money. However, don't forget, that income tax is not the only tax. There is gst, sin taxes, and even lotteries that contribute money into the government.

If you do not contribute in some way to the tax base; how can you expect any say in it. I would not advocate taking voting priveleges away from people on temporary welfare or the handicapped. I do resent those who are in jail being allowed a vote.

[takeanumber]

Why not? That is what government is about; spending taxpayers money. However, don't forget, that income tax is not the only tax. There is gst, sin taxes, and even lotteries that contribute money into the government.

If you do not contribute in some way to the tax base; how can you expect any say in it. I would not advocate taking voting priveleges away from people on temporary welfare or the handicapped. I do resent those who are in jail being allowed a vote.

It's this type of inequality-advocacy that causes me to lose faith in my fellow Canadians.

[August1991]

So are you advocating that only those who have paid taxes be allowed to vote?

Certainly not.

I'm saying that pundits look at the voter turn out statistic as some kind of measure of "good citizenship". I'm saying that a far better measure of good citizenship is respect for tax laws.

The more tax evasion there is, the less people feel the government is legitimate.

As to voting, everyone should have the right and those who want to should get involved. I would have absolutely no problem with voter turn out falling to 20%. Implicitly, the non-voters agree with the decision of the others and if not, they would presumably get involved.

But I'll repeat. Paying taxes is a better measure of citizenship (or measure of our respect for the State).