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>> I think the voting age should always be in line with the age of compulsory
>> military service, or when you have to start paying tax. I know there are
>> problems with these, but each has an answer, which you should arrive at
>> yourself strawman. Children pay all forms of tax already, including income tax (and their
tax-free threshold is lower than that for adults), but they have no obligation
to work. Compulsory military service (or at least eligibility for the draft)
is 18 years in Australia, as is the legal drinking age. The age of consent is lower in all states (except I think for homosexuality
in Tasmania which is still at 18 ?[insert joke about reason why
Tasmania has a falling population here]). >> I think it would be great if sixteen year olds were treated as adults. They
>> would have to grow up quicker. Although a nineteen year old who committed armed
>> robbery when they were fourteen might regret this decision. You are confusing me. I thought you said it should be at the draft age (above),
or are you saying that the draft age should be lowered to 16? And surely you mean a 19 year old who committed armed robbery at 16 would
regret it - an armed robbery at 14 they wouldn't care about - 14 is below the
threshold of total responsibility. >> Should all crimes be subject to judicial or administrative review/ victims
>> frogiving the offender when it comes to removing them from records early? I think that if victims want to forgive offenders, then there should be no
punishment at all (it effectively becomes a victimless crime). But removing
them from the records - why? I have problems with people wanting to rewrite
history. If a prospective business partner (including an employer or employee)
has been convicted of a crime, why should I be forbidden from knowing about it? >> Are sixteen year olds able to make decisions about monetary policy?
>> Apparently the entrie nation doesn't (according to my hardline free banking or
>> monetarist regieme that would be implememted). The best idea is to also make
>> voting voluntary, not complusury. "that would be implemented" .. if what? I don't know where 'hardline' free banking came from. What's hardline about
saying "make whatever agreement you want with whatever institution you
like"? The only hardlining comes when someone violates their agreement -
is it should. I must confess to just being confused by your posting. Feel free to clarify
it. But I will propose a responsibility formula:
- Children under 11 years have no proper understanding of right and
wrong. Any apparent crimes committed by them are a combination of 'acts of god'
(10 year-old shoplifts and doesn't know better) or lack of responsibility on
the part of the parents (eg 10 year-old trained to shoplift).
- People over 18 have total responsibility for their actions. Drugs taken
willingly are not a mitigating factor (they chose to take the drugs, they take
responsibility for the act of deciding to take them). This does not mean that
adults are responsible for all events they caused by them, just the acts caused
by their decisions. Someone having their first-ever epileptic fit
while driving a car, which then hits and kills someone is not a murderer - it's
an unforeseeable accident. Someone who has a history of epilepsy does have
responsibility in the same situation because there is a reasonable chance of it
happening while driving a car. Someone who chooses to drive at 150Kph on a
suburban street and kills someone is guilty of murder, plain and simple.
- Between 11 and 18 children take proportional responsibility. Eg
at 14.5 years they are halfway between childhood and adulthood, and hence take
half of the responsibility, and half of the prison term. The other half is
either parental responsibility or 'act of god'.
Hence parents can go to prison for the crimes of their children, but they
take on smaller proportions of responsibility as they get older. If they want
to stay out of prison they have to argue non-foreseeable circumstance - "I had
no way of knowing that giving my 12 year old son a gun and showing him
racist hate videos would make him actually shoot someone". Thanks for that
insight - off to prison. Of course a parent must also have the ability to 'divorce' themselves from
their children too. Ie phone the local feminists at the Department of Child
Services (DOCS) and say "she's uncontrollable - I hereby make her a ward of the
state". Right - we'll send the feminists around to sort her out.
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