For Mature Audiences Only

American Thinker ^ | July 21, 2009 | Randy Fardal

[neverdem]

Almost four decades ago, the 26^th Amendment lowered the US voting age to 18.  At the time, most neurologists believed that the human brain was fully developed by about age 12, so allowing Americans to vote at 18 seemed like a safe move.

But parents of teenagers knew that was nonsense, and new research is confirming those parental observations.  Since the voting age was lowered in 1971, scientific advancements such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allowed researchers to get detailed three-dimensional images of developing brains.

Although human brains typically reach their adult size by age 12, they are far from being mature.  MRI analysis now shows that the planning and decision-making part of the brain -- the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex -- typically isn't fully developed until we are about 25 years old.  Car rental companies already guessed that was the case simply by studying accident statistics: Most don't rent cars to anyone under 25.

Discoveries in brain science appear to be influencing lawmakers and judges.  Some state legislatures have cited the research in banning the use of cell phones by teenage drivers.  Supreme Court justices were given briefs on teenage brain development as they prepared to ban juvenile death penalties.  If the Supreme Court thinks 17-year old brains aren't even capable of deciding not to commit premeditated murder, could slightly older brains be wise enough to handle far more complex decisions such as voting?

Nature and Nurture

Normal adolescent brains go through synaptic pruning as they mature.  Until our early 20s, gray matter thins slightly.  Meanwhile, white matter thickens -- sometimes up to age 40.  White matter is comprised of myelin sheaths that encase axons and let them transmit data up to a hundred times faster.  Consequently, our brains become more efficient at doing specialized things.  That must be what allowed Ted Williams to count the stitches on a fastball or Milton Friedman to realize instantly that a debate opponent was attempting to invoke the Broken Window Fallacy.

But how does the brain decide that things like baseball or economics are special?  The leading theory is that the pruning process is "neural Darwinism" -- use it or lose it.  Our brains learn which connections are important and gradually eliminate the rest, allowing us to think and behave like responsible adults.  Therefore, nurture appears to be quite influential in intellectual maturity, since nature alone doesn't control the physical configuration of our brains.

If our increasingly maternal society coddles its children, could we be stunting their intellectual growth?  Perhaps our overprotected children's brains are not maturing properly if the "adult" neural links are little used and the "childish" ones continue to experience rush-hour traffic.

A Psychology Today story says coddling can lead to "endless adolescence":

Using the classic benchmarks of adulthood, 65 percent of males had reached adulthood by the age of 30 in 1960.  By contrast, in 2000, only 31 percent had.  Among women, 77 percent met the benchmarks of adulthood by age 30 in 1960.  By 2000, the number had fallen to 46 percent.

If America really has become a nation of adolescent adults, and 40 is the new 20 intellectually, then restoring the minimum voting age to 21 would mitigate only a small portion of the harm they do to our political system.  Besides, we'd just be dealing with the symptoms of childish thinking, rather than curing it.

Contrast today's voters with Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation".  That group was forced by a prolonged economic depression and a deadly war to grow up quickly.  Following World War II, the Greatest Generation took adult jobs, such as engineer, scientist, and entrepreneur.  They became community leaders that solved problems, not community activists that exploited problems for selfish gains.  Under their leadership, America simultaneously fought domestic Neo-Marxists and government censorship while making freedom and prosperity available to all.

America still has great engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs.  But today's culture seems to have far more admiration for those whose professions involve things that children typically do in a schoolyard: playing basketball, singing, dancing, telling jokes, or pretending to be a pirate.  Obama supporters might ask him about his bowling prowess or what gifts he will bestow upon them, but he gets no serious questions about the economics and physics of pending global warming legislation.

Eventually it will dawn on them

Most Leftist voters can be given scientific evidence that carbon dioxide levels lag global temperature levels by centuries and they still embrace the illogical belief that carbon dioxide fluctuations affect temperature.  It must be the same brain malfunction that leads a child to conclude that a rooster's crowing makes the sun rise.

However, immature brains do a lot of learning from trial and error.  That probably is why coddling retards their development.  Sometimes it takes a car wreck to get adolescent adults to drive safely, and Mr. Obama is turning the economy into a financial car wreck.  Polling trends show that voters are starting to realize that Mr. Obama is driving the economy like a drunken maniac.  That's why he hit the accelerator in his Leftist grab for money and power: he knows the authorities are on the way. ("There's no time to read the bill; just pass it so I can sign it")

But if Mr. Obama's policies are losing support, why is he personally still popular?  It is because immature people commonly identify with a charismatic pop figure.  Consequently, any criticism of that pop figure seems to his fans as criticism of them.  In their adolescent minds, Obama voters simply are defending themselves.

It's darkest just before the dawn

If coddling has produced a nation of gullible adolescent adults, is America headed into a societal death spiral of irrational Leftist policies and another Dark Ages?  Probably not, for these reasons:

• The human brain continues to develop, even if coddling has retarded its maturation. Both Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan matured from being idealistic young Leftists to brilliant conservatives. Virtually no one "wises up" and becomes a Leftist

• Groupies can be fickle. In a poll taken near the November election, many Obama voters agreed with the statement "My vote is a reflection on me". They clearly identified with Mr. Obama. But their psychological attachment will fade as the Obama worshippers grow up and develop their own identities

• Leftism is self-destructive. It is an economic parasite that, if unchecked, kills its host, as it did to the Soviet Union. Europeans had an economic near-death experience and now are moving right. Mr. Obama's manic leftward rush actually might accelerate his demise by crippling the American economy in eight months, rather than eight years. As in Europe, a backlash will follow

• We now live in a global economy. If the Left does manage to cripple free enterprise and drive the country into bankruptcy, wealthy Chinese, Arabian, Russian, and Indian entrepreneurs will buy up America's distressed assets, eliminate labor unions, and restore jobs and profitability

• America has a high "breakup value". In a doomsday scenario, the country would be reorganized into two nations, just as is being proposed for Israel. Leftists might migrate to a nation of settlements in the Northeast, with all the corruption and squalor of Cold War East Berlin. The rest of America then would be liberated to flourish in freedom and prosperity

Beat them at their own game

If American Leftists and conservatives were competing in private industry, analysts would say that the conservatives have better products and the Leftists have better marketing.  Fortunately, organizations that have both usually win in the long run -- even in a nation of gullible consumers and voters.

Former VP candidate Sarah Palin certainly is a good marketer and she also might have a good product.  Many voters hope to learn more about her leadership skills and her knowledge of economics, science, and foreign policy to gain a better understanding of what she actually is pitching.  Some believe they already have enough information to support her in a presidential run.  A few worry that she is a conservative version of Mr. Obama: form without substance.

Regardless of Palin's knowledge and wisdom, Leftist leaders are keenly aware of the marketing threat she poses, as demonstrated by their apoplectic attacks on her.  It effectively is an endorsement of Palin from the world's best political marketers.

Perhaps Palin will not run for office again, but if any charismatic, knowledgeable Reagan/Thatcher protégés campaign for House or Senate seats next year, most of them will win.  That's why turncoats like Colin Powell will attempt to dissuade them from running.  By then, the economy probably will have recovered from its car wreck, but even the mentally adolescent voters will be a bit wiser because they'll still have scars from that disastrous joyride they took with the Democrats.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I say bring back the property ownership requirement with an exception for military veterans or go with Robert Heinlein's "veteran only" voting from Starship Troopers.

[ketsu]

America has a high "breakup value". In a doomsday scenario, the country would be reorganized into two nations, just as is being proposed for Israel. Leftists might migrate to a nation of settlements in the Northeast, with all the corruption and squalor of Cold War East Berlin. The rest of America then would be liberated to flourish in freedom and prosperity

Leftism is a process, not a steady state. Every state has its discontents and that vents into left wing movements. Done right leftism acts as a pressure relief valve, letting unhappy members of society vent and become more productive.

Getting rid of the liberals will only help in the short run. Until you figure out what the causes of liberalism are, you'll always have liberals.

[SAMWolf]

I second that!

Or raise the voting age to 21 and allow the military to vote at 18. That takes care of the “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” (Only those who actually “fight” get to vote at 18)

[Charles Martel]

Arlen Specter and Jim Jeffords come to mind.

Those two did not belatedly mature into Leftists, that is what they were all along. They simply dropped the pretense of being in any way conservative.

[Condor51]

A Psychology Today story says coddling can lead to "endless adolescence":

No kidding. Just take a look at DU.

The DUmmies all live in mommies basement, are surrounded by empty pizza boxes and post from their Commodore 64 which is connected to a 14.4K modem.

[RipSawyer]

A young woman recently posted something on FR about her friends wanting to know why she married so early...at 27! There was a time when many women were grandmothers at that age or shortly after! I replied to her that I recall having a woman asked me what was wrong with me because I didn’t have a wife and children...at 23! When I was in high school we had student bus drivers who did an admirable job, the minimum age for a driver was 16. Contrary to what might be expected today they did not wreck the buses every day, the state saved a lot of money, they paid the student drivers thirty five dollars a month.

I suspect the problem is less one of at what age the brain naturally develops and more one of the brain having no demands made on it. A child will remain a child if society never demands adulthood.

At 14 on the farm I was expected to do man size jobs after school, on weekends and during summer “vacation”. I was already becoming a problem solver and figuring things out for myself. Now I have a 34 year old stepson with a university degree who is working at a part-time job, is unmarried and will probably stay that way and can’t figure out how to do the simplest little task without being shown how to do it.

[ansel12]

But the fact is that while being 18 means you can hold a gun and shoot it where you are told, it does not follow that you have the capability to judge what should be shot at.
Btw, the draft ended about that same time, but the voting age was lowered anyway

I would like to raise the age but you are wrong on both counts. GIs between the ages of 17 to 21 have a lot of responsibility and for some of them the judgement required of them will be higher than what they encounter in their civilian jobs during the rest of their life.

The draft ended almost two years after the voting age change.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

On topic, but actually not - I think there should be a higher minimum age for all offices, from the presidency on down. Not so much because of brain maturity, but because if you can't get into politics until you are 40 years old you have to have a life before you become a politician.

[thulldud]

I am not wrong. If the voting age had been changed only for military veterans, then you would have a point. But that was not the goal.

[ansel12]

You were wrong in your insult to the military, your claim was wrong about what responsibilities that enlisted men face.

You were wrong that the draft ended about the same time.

[thulldud]

I repeat, I was not wrong.

Political changes don't happen all in a minute; both the voting age and the draft were Nixon projects, and they happened in a realistic time frame.

As for your claiming that I insult the military...I have not the words.

[timm22]

Our U.S. Armed Forces are voluntary now. If you're not a member of the U.S. Armed Forces, you shouldn't be voting until at least 25 years old, if not older. Look at who the young knuckleheads elected.

Even with a voluntary military we still allow people to enlist at the age of 18 (or 17 with parental consent).

I think a good argument can be made that 18 year old's are closer to being children then they are to being adults. Of course, we don't allow children to enlist. Not even if the child wants to, and not even if we think a stint in the military would be good for the child. If 18 year old's really *are* kids then the minimum enlistment age should be raised.

If 18 year old's are not wise enough to help choose our elected leaders, nor even wise enough to be allowed to buy a beer, how could they be competent enough to sign several years of their life away to Uncle Sam ?

[fr_freak]

I don’t think subjecting a large portion of the population which has reached the age of majority and committed no crime to an oligarchical rule is the solution to the problem.

It would hardly be oligarchical rule, anymore than it is now. Anyone can be a property owner, and most can be veterans. An actual oligarchy would be rule by a few, which is then usually passed down through heredity. How many property owners do we have now? How many veterans? How many people can become either?

[ansel12]

There was roughly a two year time separation and a presidential election between the 18 year old vote and the end of the draft.

I find this (below) dismissive and insulting of soldiers (including Corporals and Sergeants that range in age from 18 to 21.

"But the fact is that while being 18 means you can hold a gun and shoot it where you are told, it does not follow that you have the capability to judge what should be shot at."

[timm22]

I think we should allow property owners and veterans to vote. Nobody else.

Would anything besides real property count to qualify one as a "property owner"?

What if the property was acquired by gift, inheritance, or some kind of settlement? Would that person still get to vote?

[thulldud]

It is neither dismissive nor insulting, and I ask that you refrain from pinging me further about this matter. Not many things get my dander up, especially online, but the reiteration of your false perceptions certainly does.

I wish you a good day.

[fr_freak]

Would anything besides real property count to qualify one as a "property owner"?

What if the property was acquired by gift, inheritance, or some kind of settlement? Would that person still get to vote?

This is all pie in the sky stuff, and so pointless to talk about the fine details at this time, but for the sake of argument, I'd say keep it simple: it doesn't matter how you got it. If you own real property (and only real estate - cars, boats, computers, etc. don't count) you can vote. The fact that you own the property is enough to give you a stake in things. That was always the idea. As it is now, welfare rats for for democRats because they raise taxes on OTHER people to give to the welfare rats. But if the same people voting were the ones affected by taxes, the outcomes would be much different.

[ansel12]

Your portrayal of the duties and responsibilities of 18 to 21 year old men in their first or sometimes second enlistment was dismissive.

[thulldud]

I portrayed nothing about such duties. My statement envisioned political decisions onlym which is what voting is about. I say again, I do not wish to discuss this with you.

At least, not today.

[RichInOC]

Okay, I turned 18 in ‘82, and I wasn’t an idiot. (Well, not politically, anyway.)