188 Maturity

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Age in America takes on an importance way beyond anything else because if you are the right age, young or old, you get free money. More importantly, if you have sex with someone that has not hit an arbitrary age set by the State, you could go to prison for years & be marked as a sex offender for life. The Old exploit their voting power by impressing a list of age-appropriate maturities on The Young. They set varied & incongruent limits on personal liberty of the young: can't vote, can't drink, can't drive, can't have sex, and can't smoke, until they reach a certain age, yet hypocritically, The Old have no problem throwing 18-year olds in front of cannons. In fact, until the 26th Amendment in 1971, 18-year olds could be drafted but could not vote.</p> <p>The excuse that The Old use to oppress The Young is they don't have the “maturity” to make these important choices for themselves, but that is an obviously fallacious argument. If The State has a concern to force people not to act until they've reached "maturity," we've got to be scientific about it, and let's take out the guesswork & institute testing: want to drink when you're 16 & can pass the test, then go for it: you'll be the equal to a European 16-year old. We already have a driving test but should there be a smoking test? There definitely needs to be a "get drafted" test, and why is there no parenting test? Forced birth control until age 21 seems like the most rational State concern of all, and for some people, they'll never be mature enough to raise children.</p>