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Somehow related. Post-Brexit, many young liberal europeans I know suggested stripping older UK nationals of their voting rights. Just like that, you'd be amazed

by f6v 6y ago

Somehow related. Post-Brexit, many young liberal europeans I know suggested stripping older UK nationals of their voting rights. Just like that, you'd be amazed how far people can go with this.

toyg 6y ago
To me that’s something that goes beyond brexit. It doesn’t make sense that we exclude teenagers from deciding on matters they will have to live with for 70+ years, while assuming somebody who will die soon (and was potentially exposed to decades of disinformation) has a lucid brain worth listening to.
- dxdm 6y ago
  You could also make the argument that old people have seen and lived through more, while young people are impressionable and more prone to following "fads". For example, look at how much support certain ideas had among young folks in Germany in the 1930s. Anyway, both opposing points of view, while having some merit, are simplifications. Both old and young people should be allowed to vote, and you'll have to find a sensible cut-off at what age to start. Of course, then it depends who actually turns out to vote, and I believe the younger folks could have been a bit more active on the day of the brexit referendum. (Of course there were also other reasons why "leave" won, including blatant misdirection and cheating by the leave campaign.) Talking about disenfranchisement - what baffles me the most though is that UK expats living in Europe, who had a disproportionately high stake in the outcome of the referendum, were apparently not allowed to participate.
  - toyg 6y ago
    Without “apparently”, they were explicitly excluded. As we EU expats to UK were. It was a tribalistic survey that pandered to British racists for the sake of some special interests; and lo, we discovered that British racism is alive and well.
zilian 6y ago
Demographics make conservative votes overwhelming. What do you propose ? We young people are excluded from decision-making for the grim future we'll have to live in. It is imo as unfair as what those young brits propose.

by f6v 6y ago

Somehow related. Post-Brexit, many young liberal europeans I know suggested stripping older UK nationals of their voting rights. Just like that, you'd be amazed how far people can go with this.

toyg 6y ago

To me that’s something that goes beyond brexit. It doesn’t make sense that we exclude teenagers from deciding on matters they will have to live with for 70+ years, while assuming somebody who will die soon (and was potentially exposed to decades of disinformation) has a lucid brain worth listening to.

dxdm 6y ago
You could also make the argument that old people have seen and lived through more, while young people are impressionable and more prone to following "fads". For example, look at how much support certain ideas had among young folks in Germany in the 1930s. Anyway, both opposing points of view, while having some merit, are simplifications. Both old and young people should be allowed to vote, and you'll have to find a sensible cut-off at what age to start. Of course, then it depends who actually turns out to vote, and I believe the younger folks could have been a bit more active on the day of the brexit referendum. (Of course there were also other reasons why "leave" won, including blatant misdirection and cheating by the leave campaign.) Talking about disenfranchisement - what baffles me the most though is that UK expats living in Europe, who had a disproportionately high stake in the outcome of the referendum, were apparently not allowed to participate.
- toyg 6y ago
  Without “apparently”, they were explicitly excluded. As we EU expats to UK were. It was a tribalistic survey that pandered to British racists for the sake of some special interests; and lo, we discovered that British racism is alive and well.

zilian 6y ago

Demographics make conservative votes overwhelming. What do you propose ? We young people are excluded from decision-making for the grim future we'll have to live in. It is imo as unfair as what those young brits propose.