Yesterday while Marc was taking his nap, I caught up on all my old tivo'd episodes of West Wing. The one from last week addressed voting age. A group of middle schoolers sat with Toby and made an excellent case for why the voting age should be abolished or at least lowered. For instance, they're the ones that will be breathing the air and drinking the water long after we're gone, but they can't vote on environmental issues. We're building debt that they'll be paying off and they can't vote to change it. The percentage of people in poverty that are under voting age is way more than adults, but much more money is spent on poor adults than children. They can be tried as an adult, and until just recently, given the death penalty at age 12, but still can't vote.

Sounds like they're right, right? Then I started imagining church youth group field trips to vote (though there are already polling places in churches). Families with the most children tend to be conservative religious families, so they'd have more voting power. Children are more likely to just do what their parents tell them and believe what their parents tell them. I know that from personal experience. I'd consider myself pretty liberal now, but I know that when I was in middle school my politics were very conservative because of the influence of my parents and the church. It wasn't until older that I started to really be able to think for myself.

It's a shame that we can't give more rights to children without their parents or those with influence taking advantage.